Pascal Siakam's 31 points lead the Raptors to big win over Mavericks
The Toronto Raptors are able to complete the Texas sweep as they come away with a convincing 127-116 win over the Dallas Mavericks. Spirits were high after the Raptors came back against the San Antonio Spurs, and they could take that energy and carry it over tonight. Despite that amazing team effort, there were murmurs surrounding the play of Pascal Siakam, which he put to rest with his performance in this game.
Throughout the early stretch of the season, Siakam has been averaging his lowest points total since his third year in the league. However, tonight he took the form of the player we have grown accustomed to finishing with 31 points, 12 rebounds and five assists. On top of his improved play, there were more plays ran for him throughout the duration of the game.
Darko Rajakovic made offensive adjustments involving the location where Siakam would get the ball. On plenty of occasions, the Raptors ran action that forced Siakam to get switched onto a smaller defender through screens. Once he sealed his man, they would play big-to-big having Jakob Poeltl feed Pascal allowing Siakam to finish with no help from interior defenders around.
It was clear in every game, except the Milwaukee Bucks matchup, that Pascal wasn't getting enough touches through the offensive scheme that the Raptors were running. Tonight was a great change for the future of this team.
Although Pascal played great, Scottie Barnes' offensive production took a bit of a dip. Despite the drop in total points, Barnes was doing everything else on the court finishing with 14 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists, four steals, and two blocks. O.G. Anunoby followed his career-high seven threes with 26 points and five rebounds.
Although Toronto would get hold of the lead from the second quarter onwards, Dallas kept things competitive until the final minutes of the game. Luka Doncic finished with 31 points, seven rebounds, eight assists and an impressive four steals. Kyrie Irving added 22 points himself along with Tim Hardaway who contributed 17 points off the bench.
The Mavericks were able to keep things interesting due to their 17 makes from three-point range compared to the Raptors' 11 threes. However, Toronto dominated the glass outrebounding Dallas 50-38. The Raptors feasted in the paint scoring 72 of their 116 points in the restricted area while the Mavs only scored 40.
The Raptors displayed what they can do against the upper echelon of NBA teams. They now improved to .500 on the season with a 4-4 record. Their next game will be a real challenge as they get ready to take on the Boston Celtics, who will be returning home after losing back-to-back games on the road. This heavyweight matchup will be on Saturday at 7 PM ET.