With injuries sidelining Bebe Nogueira and Jared Sullinger, the two rookies have been thrust into more playing time than we expected. While it’s only one game, I wanted to take a look at how the young guys performed in their first game.
Pascal Siakam
Strengths:
What immediately jumps out is his ability to move on the court. We had seen it in summer league and preseason, but there is always a question of whether a guy can do when the games mean something. It didn’t take long for Siakam to impress.
This sequence is a good start. Siakam closes out a little too hard but reads the slip screen well. Marcus Morris goes middle, but Siakam’s quickness forces an awkward and tough shot.
You can work with this stuff. Quickness can mask a lot of mistakes, and Siakam has that in bunches.
Siakam also looks to be one of those guys that wants every single d-board. He had three in the opening five minutes. They were not really contested — Detroit seemed to be abandoning the offensive glass — but Siakam still pulled them down with authority.
The team has praised his energy and work ethic, and it showed in this game
Weakness:
Siakam is going to be a tough fit on offence, and there were hints of it against Detroit. The New Mexico State product had an awkward hook shot over Jon Leuer was fun, but Siakam does not provide much else. Detroit did not slough off Siakam like I thought they would, but if teams start doing that, Siakam will be a liability because it limits spacing.
The Raptors put Siakam in the corner for the majority of the game and let him cut along the baseline, but they never really gave him the ball. That is a good thing, considering where his skills lie, but we know that NBA teams are getting more and more ruthless with ignoring non-threats, so Siakam could muck up the paint for drives by DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry.
Another area for improvement is staying with the defensive sequence. Siakam had moments where he would play through the first screen, but would get caught on the second screen in pick and roll coverage. That is something that will come with time as he adjusts to the NBA’s more screen-heavy offences.
Jakob Poeltl
Strength:
Poeltl looked way more comfortable in the second half. I’m not sure if that’s because he wasn’t playing Boban or because the Raptors were up 15, but he had a bit more confidence in what he was doing. This showed in help and recover situation, where Poeltl would slide down the cut off a drive, hopefully force a pick-up, and recover to the big man he left.
He also had a great defensive stand in the pick and roll, cutting off Udrih to force a bad pass and near turnover in the fourth quarter.
I thought Poeltl has the potential to be a good screener too. He is still thin, but he is at least willing to hit someone. He turns and rolls well and finishing these plays is something he was great at in college. There were little flashes of it, and Poeltl only played 13 minutes, so it is difficult to find one true strength from this small sample.
Weakness:
Game one was a bit tough for Poeltl. He’s a 7-1 centre who was effective in the post while playing for the University of Utah, but played against the behemoth Boban Marjanovic and the 6-10, 260 lbs Aron Baynes. His strength is his offence, but the Austrian did not get many touches, so Poeltl was mostly a non-factor.
One area that jumped out was his ability to read what’s next on defence. In this play, the pick and roll coverage is blown as Ross and Joseph seem to be on different pages. Poeltl is so concerned with Boban that he is both a step late and meets Morris awkwardly at the rim for an obvious foul.
This was Poeltl’s third foul in four minutes of play, prompting Casey to pull him. Some of this is on the pick and roll coverage (to this point, Marcus Morris was slipping nearly every screen he set, so blitzing like Ross did was odd), but seeing a centre turn sideways to contest a shot is not great either.
***
There is no reason to get too high or too low on these guys after one game on these guys. The positive is that both showed flashes of real potential and
