Since the point of this channel is highlights (it says right there in the banner “NBA Highlights”) and not lowlights, you don’t get to see Pascal Siakam pulling a [INSERT PLAYER WHO EVER MISSED CLUTCH FREE THROWS IN THE PLAYOFFS] at the end of regulation. I can describe it to you, though. That’s not against the rules of my channel.
Here’s how it went: Siakam got fouled after a rebound with seven seconds left and his team up by two. You could tell things were off because when he stepped up to the line for his free throws, his whole body was shaking uncontrollably, probably due to the high-pressure nature of the situation. But it was really more like a seizure than just the normal jitters. His limbs were going everywhere, not under the control of his rational mind. For about five minutes he just stood/writhed around kind of in the vicinity of the free-throw line, sometimes convulsing out to the three-point arc or to near the basket. Eventually Drake and one of his entourage members were allowed to go on the court and hold Siakam’s legs in place so he wouldn’t get a violation while shooting the shots. That solved one problem, but there was still the issue of him not looking ready to catch a ball from a ref and then shoot it. This was when Mike Budenholzer started complaining to the refs that Siakam was being allowed ten minutes to gather himself, and that the free throws should happen now. Siakam still wasn’t in a state to really catch the ball, since his eyes were rolled all the way back in his head and his arms were flailing all over the place, but the refs made him go anyway. Carefully, two more members of Drake’s entourage held his arms in place so the ref could place the ball in his hands. On the count of three, they released. This happened twice. Both times the wild movement of his arms miraculously launched the ball to the basket, but both shots barely missed.
It didn’t end up mattering, because the Raptors eventually won in double overtime, but if this had been a Bucks victory, you just know that clips of Siakam choking at the line by completely losing control of his bodily appendages (let’s just say that the mop people weren’t happy with what they had to mop up) would be playing on ESPN and social media for a long time. He did manage to make two foul shots closer to the end of the second overtime that looked totally normal, so I don’t know what the problem was. Playoff pressure is a real thing, though. All sorts of weird things can happen when the intensity ramps up so high.