Changes to Pascal Siakam's role headline recent struggles

Amit Mann and C.J. Miles discuss how the success of the Poeltl-VanVleet PnR has forced Pascal Siakam to switch roles and why he needs time to figure it out. Listen to the full podcast discussing Poeltl, ways for the Raptors to generate more halfcourt offence, advice for Ja Morant and Miles playing alongside NBA players who didn't know how to play basketball on the 'Raptors Over Everything' feed.

Video Transcript

AMIT MANN: Pascal's role has changed a little bit with Fred and Jakob becoming the main component of the Raptors' offense. And the numbers have dipped. I think over the past 13 games or so, he's averaging under 20 points per game, around 43%.

I guess what are you seeing from him? And also, how is he kind of acclimating to this new way in which he's trying to score the ball?

CJ MILES: I think it's just the changing of the positioning. Like, it's just something that you go through, you know what I mean? Like, when they got-- and I used to talk about this when I was playing.

Like, the season changes. There's multiple seasons in the seasons, right? There's gaps and--

AMIT MANN: Yeah.

CJ MILES: --stages and amounts of games where you could have 25 games that's a totally different season than 30--

AMIT MANN: Hmm.

CJ MILES: It's because of who's playing, rotation, teams you play, type of defenses played. So now, we got the fruition that's coming from the pick and roll with Yak and Fred. And obviously, as a teammate and a basketball player, this is really working right now. I'm not going to-- you bow to it. You let it happen because it's helping us, and it's doing-- you see what we can get out of it as much as we can, so we can kind of perfect it and really make it a thing that's a big part of what we do.

So it changes. Like, obviously, there's less isos, less positions, less time where he's in the spots that he's designated his spots all year. Like, now, he's got to be in different spots because of the pick and roll.

AMIT MANN: The high post.

CJ MILES: Exactly. So he's been able to kind of camp there and find his way to it in a lot of possessions, no matter how the play's going. But if I'm running this pick and roll, I can't be standing there.

AMIT MANN: Yeah.

CJ MILES: I can't be there, and I can't be in my sweet spots all the time. And I think when you got your sweet spots, and you've got to change 'em, and you've got to understand how to get to 'em differently, or you got moved-- so now, my sweet spot, it gets moved to the right wing from 15 feet out. Like, that's an adjustment.

AMIT MANN: Yeah.

CJ MILES: Like, it's an adjustment. And I know-- and he's a great player. And he'll make it, and he can make shots from that spot. But it's still an adjustment.

You've got to remember athletes, we're creatures of habit. It's like we were just talking about-- the best chance of you scoring, if I know it's from this spot, I'm going to be in that spot as much as I can.

AMIT MANN: Sure.

CJ MILES: If I'm a corner 3-point shooter, I'm not going to be standing at the top of the key. I'm not. Like, I'm not going to be there. So when you start running plays for me that get me shots from the top of the key, it's an adjustment.

AMIT MANN: Yeah.

CJ MILES: Like, you've got to get reps. Like, the reps got to catch up. I've had 500 corner 3's and 90 3's from the top of the key. It's an adjustment, no matter how well I shoot the ball.

AMIT MANN: Mm-hmm.

CJ MILES: It's an adjustment.

AMIT MANN: Yeah, it's tricky also because when he does become the future part of the offense, that's usually when he's running with some bench lineups. And you don't have the same shooting gravity in those lineups. And so he's had to work on the wings because then, they'll put, like, Gary or something like that in the other corner so there is that outlet.

But also now, we're getting into that stack line defense that he's always encountering. And the angles are different. So now, you have less space. You have less opportunity. But you still got to score the ball.

CJ MILES: Yeah, and even the moves you make are different because you think-- like, your instincts that you go to, your go-to moves that become your instinct are different in that space because of where the help's coming from, where you can be pushed to now. Now, I can just push you to the baseline. Now, the baseline acts as an extra defender.

Not to mention the help that's going to be under the basket. The pass I have to make might be different with a different hand now. Like, you know what I mean? There's so many things that go to it.

And I'm not making an excuse. He's a professional. He'll figure it out. But it's still a change.

AMIT MANN: Yeah, it is.

CJ MILES: And it's still not like he's playing bad. Like, he's just not what it was. Because you look at the last five games, numbers are regular 20s, in the 20s scoring. There's two games where he has-- like, one, he has, like, 12, one, he has 13.

They're not great games, but he's still not-- it's not like he fell off. It's just you notice the difference. And you want to know what it is, and that's what it is.

AMIT MANN: There you go. And that's the bottom line because CJ said so.

[LAUGHTER]

CJ MILES: 'Cause I said so.

AMIT MANN: Yeah, Stone Cold Steve Austin, he was my favorite wrestler.

[LAUGHTER]

I love Stone Cold, man. I remember the nights-- yeah.