Siakam MIP again so far | Raptors solved Kawhi (still lost bust solved him)
Pascal Siakam Isn’t the Next Kawhi—but His Future May Be Just As Bright – The Ringer
No player has ever won the Most Improved Player award twice. There’s an unfairness to it, like repeating a winner would strip away an opportunity from another remarkably improved wunderkind, and voters love a new narrative. Yet Siakam, winner of last year’s MIP award, has the second-best betting odds to repeat through 10 games. (Brandon Ingram leads, justifiably, with far shorter odds.) He may separate himself as the obvious choice, again. There’s no consensus on Siakam’s ceiling this season, except for the acknowledgement that he’ll either be better, or much, much better. The 25-year-old also entered October with MVP odds—100-to-1, the unrealistic kind of figure offered out of respect for his performance last season—in addition to those Most Improved odds. As of two weeks ago, his MVP probability rose to 40-to-1, the same as that of Ben Simmons and Russell Westbrook.
It’ll be months before we can quantify just how big Siakam’s leap is this season. It’s already astonishing how his circumstances parallel with his former teammate’s, who made his big leap during the 2014-15 season. Gregg Popovich needed Leonard to become the next successor in the line of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker, the Spurs’ Big Three, though the trio was still intact when his coach announced Leonard the heir. “Kawhi is the new Parker, Ginobili, Duncan kind of guy,” Pop said before the 2013-14 season, when Leonard was 22. “He’s going to take over as star of the show as time goes on.”
The situation is slightly more urgent for Nick Nurse, whose Big Three in Toronto is already phasing out. Lowry remains, but Ibaka isn’t what he used to be, and the space reserved for DeMar DeRozan and later taken by Leonard is empty once again. Siakam will have the attention this season that Leonard did in 2014-15, with both coming off a championship. (Another slight difference here is that Leonard was named Finals MVP… in both.)
There’s a chance that calling last season Siakam’s leap will look premature in retrospect. Some players have a second jump in them. Leonard is one of them: Even in the summer following his first title, he was not yet a superstar. Comparing Siakam to Kawhi is to hold him to a nearly impossible standard. It would be a remarkable feat to even come close. Toronto paid Siakam based off a season and a projection. He’s still improving, after a season of award-worthy improvements. Becoming the “next Kawhi” may happen. Becoming the next version of Pascal is already on its way.
Raptors ratchet up aggression as thinned squad continues to defend well – The Athletic
A part of that early identity is the same one the Raptors have carried for years. It’s the identity that defined them on their accidental rise, through the most successful era in franchise history and has come to define them once again now that Kawhi Leonard has opted for shinier, if less passionate, pastures. The Raptors love being the underdogs. They are a team built of players who were slept on, disregarded or discarded. They have always seemed at their best when they’re able to play the “nobody believes in us” card. Chips on the shoulder. #UTG. #BetOnYourself. It’s backwards to think that Leonard leaving the Raptors this summer helped them in any way, but it did shift them back into the role so many of these players were born to play, that of the plucky babyface fighting with fire from underneath.
Resiliency only goes as far as execution can take it. The Raptors didn’t win Monday because they were heavily fatigued, and also because the Clippers are better than what’s left of the Raptors right now. The Lakers win was buoyed not just by effort and grit but by excellent defensive execution and important second-half offensive adjustments. That the Clippers game was even close in the first place spoke to Toronto’s defensive effort, particularly on Leonard.
If the difficulty of that back-to-back revealed something about the Raptors, then, it’s that their truest self is a menacing, never-say-die defence that can ugly a game up. We knew they’d be a good-to-great defence entering the season, and maintaining that even in a small sample, without three and then four key rotation pieces — literally half of the projected rotation! — is a good bellwether for how they’ll look when healthier and better established. There are more hard times to come while Lowry and Ibaka are out, especially if Anunoby misses time. But the Raptors have made it clear their defence won’t lie down.
The Raptors were all business in Leonard reunion, right down to the nine Kawhi turnovers | The Star
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse had joked after Sunday’s win over the Lakers that he’d be up all night plotting ways to stop Leonard. It’s not out of the ordinary for any coach to do that but there was some extra desire to make life difficult for him. It’s still a team game but Leonard is special; his year in Toronto was unprecedented for the franchise. The Raptors wanted to keep him under control because they know what he can do.
Leonard’s team got the victory, and that’s the important thing, but the Raptors felt good with the problems they caused him.
“I mean he got the win so I don’t know if we are into moral victories,” Toronto’s Fred VanVleet said. “But we definitely went in trying to take him out of the game and he got a lot of our focus. Just making it tough on him and making it work and throwing four or five bodies at him and letting somebody else shoot.”
The niceties and catching up and reminiscing about the championship season were never really a part of Monday’s meeting with the Clippers. There was some chatting in the pre-game period, an acknowledgment before the opening tip and then it was business.
“We talked about the kids and things like that and that was it,” VanVleet said of his conversations with Leonard. “I don’t talk much out there and he damn sure doesn’t talk, so it’s not much of a conversation to be had. It was good to see him.”
Leonard? His reaction was typical and expected.
“What would I think about last season? It’s over now,” he told reporters after the game. “We won. I had a great time there. It’s the next chapter now.
“I can’t live in the past or be so excited I still won.”
Raptors show Kawhi Leonard defence still a hallmark against Clippers – Yahoo!
Much has been made of Leonard’s improved playmaking this season, and while there have certainly been strides as evidenced by more than doubling his assist percentage, it seems as though there’s also considerably more opportunities for him as a result of the increased pick-and-roll volume and reduced isolations. One thing he’ll certainly want to improve on is the 33 turnovers to his name that take the gloss off his 47 assists on the season.
Leading the charge with the defensive responsibility of Leonard on this night was Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, who stepped in admirably after Anunoby left the game. Pesky is a term usually reserved for smaller guards who find a way to get in your space, but the same applies to Hollis-Jefferson. Leonard is one of the strongest forwards in the league, but the Raptors forward kept finding a way to beat him to his spots, keep his hands active, and also use his centre of gravity to play stronger than he is.
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson gave Kawhi Leonard all he could handle. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
View photosNow, three turnovers considering his role offensively should be unimaginable, and that’s something he’ll need to work on going forward. That he finished with 29 minutes and Nurse saw no reason to turn to either Stanley Johnson or Malcolm Miller is a sign that the rotation spot is now his to lose.
The depleted Raptors may have lost the battle on this occasion, but they once again showed they can stake enough flags to give themselves a chance on any night. The sixth-worst offensive rebound rate allowed, per Cleaning the Glass, will bring about the occasional bomb, but the top-10 standing in both halfcourt and transition defence shows why this team continues to succeed in the absence of a Finals MVP.
Steely determination, unabashed resiliency, the heart of a champion. Leonard left, but those traits have very much carried over from last year’s team. Their defence travels. In this game, they were just short a difference maker on the other end.
Deep breaths are required, obviously. The 46 minutes he played in Los Angeles over two nights are by far the biggest NBA sample we have of Boucher, but they are still just 46 minutes. Those minutes had their share of mistakes, too: over-eager defensive help and occasional miscues with the offence’s spacing. He had some positively heroic rebounds in crunch time, but he is overmatched on the glass more often than not.
Going back to the block, though, the best thing about Boucher’s Best Supporting Actor submission in Hollywood was the situation in which it came. The Raptors squandered their five-point lead to start the fourth quarter, and the offence had stalled out. Due to fatigue and injuries to a few of their top offensive options, a six-point deficit in the final three minutes felt like it might as well have been 15. The Raptors were out of gas.
And still, Boucher hustled to make the play, avoiding one more eruption from the crowd in what felt like a procession of them.
“He’s got a little bit of game outside and inside, blocking some shots, pretty good rebounder down there as well and he plays pretty fearlessly,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “He’s been good, really good to see in two games, a guy that’s gonna to probably have to stay in the rotation.”
Serge Ibaka’s sprained ankle necessitates that. Ibaka is out indefinitely, and that leaves a hole behind Marc Gasol and Pascal Siakam in the front court.
“I’ve been waiting a long time,” Boucher said. “For me, it’s just trying to get better every time, trying to (block out outside noise) and just focus on the team. These guys have confidence in me. Coach has confidence in me and it helps me a lot. I know what I’m supposed to do, just stay focused on the right things.”
Forget the present, though, and forget projecting well into the future, too. Boucher is a work in process, but he’ll be a 27-year-old work in process in January. A few more games like the two he played in Los Angeles and it will be time to start asking what his role should be on a mostly healthy Raptors team.
Raptors’ Chris Boucher has his opportunity, and he’s not going to waste it | Toronto Sun
The injuries to Pat McCaw and then Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka forced Nick Nurse and his staff to explore that depth probably sooner than they were hoping to.
The result was a pair of standout games from Chris Boucher and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and enough flashes from Terence Davis II that it now looks like the Raptors may just be able to survive the injury absences without having to bring new bodies into the mix, though that remains an option.
The lanky Canadian Boucher, in just two games, has seemingly secured himself opportunities at least for the next few weeks and likely beyond that.
“He’s good,” Nurse, still hot under the collar over some very lenient officiating, said after Monday’s hard-fought loss to the Clippers. “He’s got a little bit of game outside and inside, blocking some shots, pretty good rebounder down there, as well, and he plays pretty fearlessly. He’s been good, really good to see in two games, a guy that’s going to probably have to stay in the rotation.”
It’s the fearlessness that stood out. Sunday against LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Boucher stood in there at times with one or the other driving hard down the lane, absorbed the contact and either outright blocked or altered the shot. Then he did it again the next night.
There was a play in Monday’s game where Montrezl Harrell turned and came at the rim full-force with both hands on the ball, basically daring anyone to step in his way. Boucher, all 200 pounds of him — and that number may be somewhat inflated — came from the weak side and threw himself at the charging Harrell with his own two-handed block. Boucher wound up on his back but he earned that block.
Boucher gives away 40 pounds to Harrell, who had a running start at the basket. Boucher pivoted from one side of the key to the other before flinging himself at the charging Harrell. It wasn’t quite David versus Goliath, but it wasn’t far off.
As impressive as that looked from the outside, for Boucher that’s simply the way he has to play the game. There is no alternative. He knows he’s not as big as many of the guys he has to take on, but that’s not going to stop him from trying.
Pascal Siakam is not an excuse-maker. When things don’t go his way, his first reaction is to turn it back on himself and say he just needs to find a way to do things better.
But after a tough Monday night game that saw him put up just 16 points on 6-of-17 shooting, even Siakam cut himself a little slack.
“I don’t think I was that aggressive at the end,” Siakam began when asked about going up against the Clippers defence and how much Leonard may have played into his tough night. “I mean, I played like an hour and 30 (minutes) of basketball in two days. I’m kinda tired,” he admitted. “I hit my shoulder out there so there was a lot of things going on. I didn’t have the energy that I was supposed to have at the end of the game to make sure that I try to make plays for my teammates, but they did a good job. I missed a lot of shots, too, so, like I said, we just got to flush this one and move forward.”
Siakam’s scoring load was already higher than it’s ever been when everyone was healthy. When Lowry and Ibaka went down it took another jump. With Anunoby out for all but two minutes of Monday’s game and out for at least Wednesday’s game as well, the ask on Siakam grows even bigger.
No moment too big for VanVleet and the Raptors thanks to Kawhi – Los Angeles Times
The Leonard-less Raptors have earned a lot of credit for how they’ve looked this season. They came to Los Angeles as one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference, but serious injuries to Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka could’ve deflated that momentum.
Instead, the Raptors out-worked the Lakers and fought the Clippers from tip to buzzer, eventually losing 98-88.
Obviously, Leonard’s decision to leave the Raptors for the Clippers this summer created a massive hole on the Raptors’ roster. But VanVleet and, to a more prolific extent, Pascal Siakam, have happily stepped in and stepped up.
Siakam, last year’s Most Improved Player, might actually be the early favorite to win it again. He’s replaced Leonard as the Raptors’ top offensive player, his lightning quick spin move now in the same conversation as James Harden’s step-back jumper, Stephen Curry’s pull-up and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Euro step.
Prior to facing the Clippers, Siakam’s 27.4 points per game were seventh best in the NBA.
Dewan Hernandez
After the game, I genuinely thought Dewan Hernandez did not have a good game. But when I looked at the box score, he had a stat filler 24/10/3/2/2 game. I literally had to rewatch the game to get a good feel of what Dewan did during the game.
Dewan came in as advertised — a mobile big that fits the mold of modern big men in the NBA. He runs the floor well, capable of initiating the transition or be on the receiving end. His three-point shot looks better than the last time we saw him in the summer league. The prospect of him being able to pick-and-pop makes me excited to see his development.
Dewan also has a traditional “big man” skillset; He’s quite comfortable in the post, and he can create a separation turning to his left or right easily and possesses a pretty good touch around the basket.
While Dewan was able to block a couple of shots in the game, I thought that he did not have a good defensive game. I’m not saying he was bad defensively; it’s just that there were a few situations where he was not aggressive enough being an inside presence.
Dewan’s pick-and-roll defense is still a question mark at this point. Guards were able to get their way easily — I’ll reserve my judgment unless we see this as a trend. It could very well be a lack of defensive chemistry/familiarity with his guards that makes him look indecisive on what to do in such situations.
Dewan’s rebounding needs some work too. He was boxed out a few times, and if not for his multiple excellent efforts to follow up a missed shot, his rebounding numbers would be lower. I don’t think it’s a matter of effort, but more of positioning (or getting a better positioning).
Overall, if this is just Dewan trying to feel a game out, we should expect even better performance from him because it looks like he can do a whole lot more damage than what he showed last Friday.
Send me any Raptors related stuff: rapsfan@raptorsrepublic.com
