All the evidence is now pointing to Toronto’s “bench mob” from last year just being “Pascal Siakam the Great and his motley crew of garbage-suckers”. Because now that he’s graduated to being a legit starter, the bench can hardly do anything. Evidence: the bench scored 5 of the 123 points the Raptors scored this game. That’s insane! Injuries had something to do with it, but still.
Shoutout to OG Anunoby for making the ONE bench bucket tonight. Sixth Man of the Year?
Siakam is a beast now. Is he the second-best player on the Raptors? No, because I still think that Kyle Lowry is important even if he’s been in a weird and injured mood lately, but we can definitely go with third-best. Third-beast.
This particular game didn’t FEEL like 30 points while it was going on, because of some goaltends and free-throws, but there’s no doubt that every three he hit was painful. The Bucks have a bad habit sometimes where if they don’t think a guy can shoot threes, they just leave him wide open and don’t even pretend to challenge the shot. And this isn’t last year’s Siakam where you could get away with it. He’s new and improved. If it involves getting the ball in the bucket, he can do it this year. Especially if he gets to do a spin move while doing it.