'I can attack anybody': Pascal Siakam on offensive game

Raptors forward Pascal Siakam discusses his matchup with the 76ers, how transition becomes more difficult and the James Harden-Joel Embiid pick and roll.

Video Transcript

PASCAL SIAKAM: All right, man. Just making sure, man. Y'all good, man. Missing you out there. Is that Mike? Who's that? Mike? That Mike [INAUDIBLE]?

- Go ahead.

- Pascal, you have an experience of basically the last six games of that 2019 series. Embiid was on you for most of the series. Whether he's on you or he's on somebody like Scottie, how do you balance that desire to make him work and be aggressive and not being too aggressive and playing into his hands [INAUDIBLE]?

PASCAL SIAKAM: I mean, I don't know. I think for me, like, these questions are hard, because, again, I really don't know how to answer them really. Like I said, the way we play is such-- it's just a feel. I don't know what's going to happen.

I think that, again, obviously, like, if Embiid is guarding me or Scottie, and he's a big-- and most of the time we have bigs running to pick and rolls and different actions. And, again, we're just going to play the game like we normally do. There's going to be times where we're going to exploit match-ups. Or if Fred sees something or Coach sees something, we're going to go to it.

But we just got to play the game. We just got to play the game. Continue to flow, and I think that we can't just sit there and be trying to analyze every single thing. We just got to play.

- Is there a risk of being a bit too passive when he's on you just because, obviously, he's a great defender and [INAUDIBLE]?

PASCAL SIAKAM: Yeah, no, I feel like for me, my feeling has always been, like, I can attack anybody. So I really don't-- like, I really don't care about that. I just think that, again, it's about reads. And sometimes the read is going to be to pass it out, or the read is going to attack him, or the read is going to be to shoot. So I can't predict that.

- Thanks, Pascal.

- OK, go ahead, Michael.

- Hey, Pascal. How has James made Joel more difficult or more challenging to guard?

PASCAL SIAKAM: I think that, yeah, as someone that's coming off the pick and roll that can shoot the 3, that can attack and can pass at the same time, he can do everything. And I think that that makes it kind of, like, harder to cover Joel, because it's tough to help off James.

So, yeah, just, again, how many years and the level that he's played at and how great he is as a player just makes Joel even tougher. We already know how great Joel is. So I think that, yeah, like, those two is definitely a tough match-up.

- Appreciate it, Pascal. Have a good day.

PASCAL SIAKAM: Yeah, thank you, man.

- Go ahead, Aaron.

PASCAL SIAKAM: Hope you OK, man.

- Last one for you with the--

- I'm OK.

PASCAL SIAKAM: All right, good, good.

- Trying not to [INAUDIBLE].

PASCAL SIAKAM: [LAUGHS]

- How does position offense become more difficult, or how much more difficult does it become in the playoffs?

PASCAL SIAKAM: I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I think we're going to try to get stops. We have to get stops. I think that that just makes it like, yo, we got to get stops and run. Obviously, teams are more focused and things like that. But we're just going to continue to play our style of basketball and try to get in transition, try to get quick buckets. And, yeah, yeah, I don't really know how tough it will be on-- you know?

- Do you find teams are more methodical on offense, like, really starting to take care, making sure they're not [INAUDIBLE] more so in the last four years maybe?

PASCAL SIAKAM: Yeah. Yeah, I guess you can say that. And I just feel like teams are going to play the way they want to play. However they want to play, that's how they're going to play. And however we want to play, that's how we're going to play.

And, again, like, you just try not to put too much pressure on it. It's like, it's the playoffs, and it's intense, but we're still our team. And the away we got here is by playing the way we played.

- Thanks, Pascal.

- Thanks, Pascal.

- Pascal, what makes Douala better than Yaoundé?

PASCAL SIAKAM: What happened?

- What makes Douala better than Yaoundé?

PASCAL SIAKAM: Oh, what makes Douala-- everything. It's better, and people-- like, there's a lot more to do, I feel like. It's a--

- Is that [INAUDIBLE]?

PASCAL SIAKAM: No, no. Douala is great. I mean, and Cameroon is great. But I just believe that, yeah, Douala is a little better.

- Thank you, sir.

- Thanks, Pascal.