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It’s not just Kawhi: Raptors’ Pascal Siakam, much improved, is a threat to the Sixers

Siakam barely saw the court in his rookie season. Two years later, he's emerged as an important part of a Raptors team gunning for a spot in the NBA Finals.

Pascal Siakam was trouble during the Sixers' Game 1 loss.
Pascal Siakam was trouble during the Sixers' Game 1 loss.Read moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

TORONTO — Sure, Kawhi Leonard is a killer, and the 76ers need to figure out a way to deal with him fast. But, make no mistake, the Toronto Raptors have another star with venom in his veins in Pascal Siakam.

In Saturday’s 108-95 win over the Sixers, Siakam finished with 29 points on an incredible 12-of-15 shooting night, including hitting 3-of-4 from three-point range.

Two years ago, in his rookie season, Siakam barely saw the court in the playoffs, playing a combined 10 mop-up minutes over two games. He hit just one of the seven threes he attempted that year.

“It was the day after the [playoff] series, literally, the next day, him coming in and saying, ‘Listen, I need to learn how to shoot,’” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said of Siakam. “We literally walked him down to square one, three feet from the basket and tried to explain the process.”

The Raptors completely rebuilt Siakam’s shooting form and mechanics, requiring him to shoot a certain number of shots from each spot before moving on in order to create new muscle memories. From everything that his coach and teammates say, the work has never stopped.

Siakam does not wait until the offseason to try something new or to work on things; he is continually working new things in, it doesn’t matter if it’s a regular-season game, a playoff series, or on the practice court in Toronto.

“You knew it was a guy that was deeply hungry to become as good as he could become,” Nurse said. “Then it just started translating to other things.”

Last year, with more opportunity with the bench unit, more minutes on the floor, Siakam continued his work and took 332 more shots over the course of the season than he did in his rookie campaign. This season, the workload increased, and so has his efficiency.

“He’s taking some step backs and some pull-ups and he took a jab three in the last series, which we haven’t seen before,” Fred VanVleet said after Raptors practice on Sunday. “The kid works it. He works on everything, he works on all of those shots. There is nothing that he’s just out there trying to do randomly. He works on his game and over time he’s going to make them.”

Siakam is shooting 57.1 percent overall in these playoffs, including 42.3 percent from deep. When he’s paired with Leonard on the floor, the tandem look completely unstoppable.

But, it’s not Siakam’s long ball that is most impressive, it’s his speed.

“You can try to take away this, and take away that, but he figures it out, and the one thing he still does the best in the league is run the floor,” point guard Kyle Lowry said.

That’s something the Sixers would absolutely agree with and something felt on a personal level on Saturday night. So, when the Sixers went into their practice and film sessions on Sunday, stopping Siakam and keeping him from getting out in transition was a point of emphasis.

The Sixers are going to try to force Siakam to play from the perimeter and keep him from getting to the basket, where he seems to have an advantage over the Sixers’ defenders, whether that’s Tobias Harris, Jimmy Butler, or Jonah Bolden.

The problem is that Siakam is legitimately getting better with every moment that he is on the court and that includes his perimeter game. If that’s where the Sixers want to send him, they’ll have to live with the results.

Everything about Siakam’s game could end up being the poison the Sixers are willing to swallow though, depending on what coach Brett Brown decides to do about Leonard. If the Sixers send another man over to double the former Finals MVP, the Raptors will almost certainly be swinging around to get Siakam a wide-open look.