Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports
Pascal Siakam Continues to Own California as Raptors End Road Trip With Victory Over Clippers
The Toronto Raptors are going streaking.
This West Coast road trip could have crippled Toronto's season. On paper, it was supposed to. It should have forced the Raptors into the play-in tournament and the daunting task of knocking off Kevin Durant and most likely Trae Young in a pair of one-game playoff games. Instead, it's done the opposite for the Raptors who capped off the six-game trip with a hard-fought 103-100 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers to wrap up the trip 5-1.
"Can't take any of these for granted," said Fred VanVleet. "It's pretty hard to win consistently in this league and both times coming out West, 3-3 or you know, something like that is OK, give yourself a pretty good grade. So, to come out here and get most of these is pretty impressive for a young team."
1. Raptors Tied for Sixth Seed
Not only did Wednesday's victory make it five straight wins for Toronto, but it moved the Raptors into a tie for the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference thanks to a 118-114 Philadelphia 76ers victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Cleveland still owns the tie-breaker over the Raptors, but the Cavaliers have been scuffling a little bit lately and the season could very well come down to Cleveland's March 24 date with the Raptors in Toronto.
2. Siakam Reaches Career Milestone
It's one thing to be as hot, but it's another to be so hot that Gary Trent Jr. is passing up open jumpers to make the extra pass. That's where Pascal Siakam is right now. He's been unstoppable inside the arc. He works his way into a mismatch and then pounces, driving downhill and either spinning around his defender as he did midway through the second quarter for back-to-back buckets or pulling up just short of the rim and nailing one of his go-to floaters just outside the restricted area.
"It's great composure. I think he's seeing things very clearly. I thought he spun away from where the help was coming a couple of times, really well in both directions, which is a good sign," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said.
Siakam came into the night averaging 27.3 points over his last seven outings and showed no signs of slowing down against the Clippers, with a 31-point performance on 13-for-22 shooting. It was his eighth straight 20-plus-point showing, the longest stretch of his career, and the first for the Raptors since Kawhi Leonard reached the milestone in 2018-19.
"He's just more comfortable, just more comfortable and learning how to read the defenses. He's seeing pretty much primary scorer coverage for two or three years now," said VanVleet who had 21 points for Toronto. "He knows when to pass, he knows when it's fake help and they're bluffing so he can back out and re-attack.
"The next step for him is getting to the line about 10 times and then he'll probably average 30. And that's the scary part about him. He's still growing and still learning as a player."
The most noteworthy bucket of Siakam's night came in the first quarter when Trent twice passed up jumpers, first a deep catch-and-shoot three, then a pull-up two that sucked the Clippers' defense in before he made the kick-out pass to Siakam for the corner three-pointer. That three-point shot has made the biggest difference for Siakam of late.
"I think for me it’s just continuing to work on that," Siakam said of his three-point stroke. "I feel like I haven’t been shooting threes. I looked at how many threes I shoot per game and I just feel like I don’t get enough up. So just being ready, down and ready, and I think that once you have that and the confidence also everything feels like it’s going in. So I just want to keep taking good shots and being ready to take them, and knowing I’m going to shoot at least five or six of them a game."
He'd made at least two three-pointers in five of his last six games and looks far more comfortable letting it fly from deep, especially in Toronto's space-less jumbo lineups.
"I think with the makeup of our team he’s going to have to be a three-point threat for us," Nurse said.
3. VanVleet Continues to Battle Through Pain
It's clear VanVleet isn't at 100%. He saw a specialist in Los Angeles to get another look at his lingering knee injury and, as Nurse said pre-game, he's not feeling great. He wore a knee brace for the first time Wednesday and occasionally you could see the knee bothering him. But his presence on the court just makes such a difference for Toronto. He opened the game with a transition three-pointer to set the tone early, and even on a night when his shot wasn't consistently falling, he consistently finds a way to make winning plays.
"What he does is organize us at both ends. When he’s in there, we can handle that stuff a little better, just from an organizational standpoint," Nurse said pre-game. "That’s a big deal for us."
When the Clippers came rallying back in the fourth quarter, VanVleet threw a cross-court pass over the top of the Clippers' defense to find Chris Boucher for an and-one layup to quell the run.
He then snuffed out another Los Angeles run, weaving his way into the mid-range and nailing a crucial floater to put Toronto up five late in the fourth.
Highlight of the Night
After starting the fourth quarter with a big-time three-pointer to end an 11-0 Clippers run, Scottie Barnes threw down a monster no-look transition slam to put Toronto up seven.
"He brings the ball up the floor and people think ‘well, he's too big to do that, we're gonna pressure him,’ and he's making them pay," Nurse said. "They don't take it from him and he puts it on ‘em and he puts his body on ‘em and he goes in to play makes and that’ll end that pretty quickly."
Barnes followed it up with another end-to-end bucket, this time a layup in transition to put Toronto up four with just over two minutes to go.
Things got a little dicey down the stretch when Barnes nearly fumbled away the game making an errant pass to VanVleet, but Toronto got bailed out by an iffy call that sent VanVleet to the line.
"The one pass out was a little shaky, but, like I said, the more reps the better it will be for him later on," Nurse said.
Up Next: Los Angeles Lakers
With the West Coast road trip in the rearview mirror, the Raptors will return home for another date with LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. ET.
