Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
Raptors Deny Report of Siakam $50k Fine
With the losses mounting, tension is beginning to rise for the Toronto Raptors.
The team has reportedly fined Pascal Siakam $50,000 after directing "several heated choice words toward head coach Nick Nurse" following Sunday night's loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, The Athletic's Shams Charania reported Tuesday afternoon.
Siakam played just 24:31 minutes that night and did not see the court during the fourth quarter. After the game Nurse chalked up Siakam's lack of playing time to conditioning and the way the bench was playing.
"I think there’s a little conditioning there," he said. "We got down 22 and I went to a kind of an energy group and they pulled the game all the way back to, I believe, five, maybe, and it just was kind of a numbers thing or that group had it going and I just didn’t want to break that up. I thought that was our best chance to win."
The Raptors have lost nine straight games and have fallen to 17-26 this year.
Siakam did bounce back a little bit on Monday night, scoring 21 points on 9-for-18 shooting, but the Raptors fell again to the Houston Rockets who snapped a 20-game losing streak.
UPDATE: The Raptors have reportedly disputed this report, calling it "not correct."
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