How the Boston Celtics’ wings stifled Pascal Siakam on Friday night
With the Boston Celtics’ dominant win over the Toronto Raptors last night, it seems inevitable that the two will land in the 2nd and 3rd spots in the Eastern Conference, priming them to meet up for a second-round series.
Since becoming the leading scorer and top offensive option for the Raptors this season, Pascal Siakam has been phenomenal, averaging 23.1 points and 3.5 assists per game — both career-highs — without tanking his efficiency.
Before Friday night, Siakam had only played in one of the Raptors’ prior three games against the Celtics this season. That was on Oct. 25, the second game of Toronto’s season, when Siakam erupted for 33 points in a close loss. He scored efficiently in that game, with a 66.7 true shooting percentage, aided mainly by his 5-for-7 shooting from beyond the arc (remember, this was the game when Siakam first showcased his above-the-break three consistently).
Still, Siakam shot only 40 percent from inside the arc (6-for-15) in that game, compared to his 49.9 percent inside the arc for the season. Friday night, Siakam shot the same as he did in the previous Boston matchup, making just four of his 10 two-point attempts.
The Celtics’ switchable defensive wing trio of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Gordon Hayward were able to stifle him. These three, and particularly Brown, are equipped to make life difficult for Siakam. Let’s look at the different ways he tried to score on them Friday night, why he struggled so much, and how they managed to bother him.
Post-ups
Look at how Jaylen Brown bumps Siakam out of his desired positioning:
Siakam prefers to spin baseline over his left shoulder there. Instead, he steps back into a tough, contested one-legged fadeaway.
In another first-half example, Brown chases Siakam around a screen (which is hard to see from the angle given) and gets his body into Siakam again. Brown makes him uncomfortable, with one hand on Siakam’s back (legal post guarding position). Siakam loses his balance a bit, shuffles his feet and travels.
On a different possession, Siakam works from the opposite block. This allows him to go to his strong hand down the middle of the lane. He misses this one, with a good contest by Brown, but this is a higher-percentage attempt:
In the second half, Siakam again finds himself on the left block, going middle. Brown bodies him up and forces him to take a relatively tough shot, but Siakam’s uses his body to shield the ball and has nice touch on the floater:
Siakam makes it because he’s extremely skilled, but still, it’s not exactly an ideal shot for the Raptors. The positive here is that he got deeper post position before the catch, something that’s crucial when going against Brown, who holds his ground pretty well when Siakam tries to back him down.
It’s rare that Siakam is able to back down against Brown in the post. Even then, Brown has long arms and the height to challenge Siakam on the shot. The only time Siakam really backs him down in the post is on the first possession of the third quarter. Siakam uses a clever pump-fake off the drop-step, then goes up-and-under for the easy finish:
Later in that quarter, Siakam catches the ball deeper. He again spins to his left here, which allows him to shake Brown and turn away from the Celtics’ help defenders:
It’s much easier for Siakam when he catches the ball deeper and touches the paint, rather than the midrange/baseline area where he has to dribble more off the catch, just to get near the basket. Brown is strong enough to hold his ground against Siakam dribbling; Siakam needs to get better positioning before he even takes a bounce.
Perimeter attacks
When Siakam wasn’t operating in the post, the other main way he looked to score Friday night was off the dribble, usually starting well outside the three-point line.
After his early post-ups were unsuccessful, Siakam tries to take Tatum off the dribble from the top. Marcus Smart lunges but doesn’t commit enough for Siakam to feel comfortable kicking it to Norman Powell in the corner. The rest of the defenders stay put, and Tatum stays in front of Siakam and forces him to take a contested runner with only one foot in the paint:
Later in the quarter, Siakam tries to attack Hayward from a similar spot. Hayward stays in front of him, and Siakam starts to lose the ball, which Brad Wanamaker promptly swipes:
Siakam commits a frustration foul afterward.
In the second quarter, Siakam catches the ball in another late-clock scenario. This time, he attacks Brown to the middle, going left but taking a floater with his right hand:
Siakam makes it, but this was a really tough shot. When he tries a similar drive against Tatum later in the quarter, Tatum holds his ground. Siakam misses that one, and it’s pretty clear at that point — with the Raptors down by 18 — that he was, understandably, forcing the issue.
Pick-and-rolls?
Ah, here’s what’s been missing. Where has the patented Siakam-Lowry pick-and-roll gone? What about Siakam-Gasol?
As Louis Zatzman wrote for Raptors Republic, the Siakam-Lowry “inverted” pick-and-roll, where Lowry screens for Siakam, has been incredibly effective this season. Gasol is the Raptors’ biggest and best screener, and it makes sense to try to get Theis switched onto Siakam. While Theis is a good defender in this own right, he’s still the only defender in the Celtics’ top-six rotation players whose footspeed truly can’t match Siakam’s.
So, where have these Siakam-led pick-and-rolls been? As Yasmin of the Dishes & Dimes Podcast points out, only VanVleet and Ibaka screened for him — not Lowry and Gasol.
We finally see one here in the third quarter, where VanVleet, guarded by Kemba Walker, screens for Siakam:
Walker hedges at Siakam, then quickly sprints back to check VanVleet. Brown recovers, rendering the pick ineffective. Perhaps at another time, Siakam would’ve hit VanVleet with a quick pass in that sliver of daylight that he had when Walker was sprinting, but Siakam looked pretty determined to get his own at this point.
Brown, fully in front of Siakam after the screen, mirrors him perfectly. Siakam can’t go anywhere, and spins into an off-balance shot, with Brown draped all over him.
Later in the quarter, Siakam spins out of control into Theis, in the rare Siakam-Ibaka pick-and-roll, and flings up a prayer:
We can chalk that one up to the situation; it was a 27-point game, and the Raptors were entirely deflated by that point.
The point remains: The Raptors need to make good use of Siakam as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, and perhaps a screener. If they can get Walker switched onto Siakam in the post, it would give Siakam a major size and strength advantage there, which is a rarity against Boston’s plethora of stout defensive wings.
Nick Nurse likes to hold his cards close to his chest. Don’t be surprised to see the Siakam-Lowry and Siakam-Gasol pick-and-rolls unleashed in a potential playoff series, because they sure weren’t on Friday night.
Finally: Shooting
It would be disingenuous to point out all of Siakam’s struggles in this game without mentioning his shooting. Upon re-watch, his five 3-point attempts were all fine shots. Three-point shooting is the most high-variance part of basketball; quite frankly, you just miss sometimes.
Siakam went 8-for-18 (44.4 percent) from beyond the arc in Toronto’s first three games in the bubble, whereas he shot just for 1-for-5 against Boston. That part wasn’t some special defense by the Celtics; at times, they even dared Siakam to shoot it, leaving him wide open in the corner at least once.
As former Raptors coach Dwane Casey loves to say, “It’s a make or miss league.” More than that, though, Siakam’s 3-point shooting opens up everything else. Particularly if he can make some pull-ups off the dribble, it’ll force Brown and Tatum to play him a little tighter up top, and maybe force them to go over screens (with Lowry and Gasol presumably setting some).
If the shot is falling, that opens everything up — both for Siakam, and for the rest of the Raptors.
