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Siakam on Raptors’ near-comeback vs. Portland: ‘I’m super proud of the guys’

Pascal Siakam conceded that the Raptors lacked energy in the loss to the Trail Blazers, but he highlighted his pride on the team’s positivity and competitive levels even in a tough, fan-less game.

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Video Transcript

- Pascal, so you guys are down 26 or something in the second quarter, end up down 30. Like what was the feeling on the bench at that point of the game? Like did you kind of-- what was the energy, what was the conversation like when you're that far out of it?

PASCAL SIAKAM: I mean, yeah, it's one of those games. But it's just tough to find energy. And then I felt like nothing was going our way. But I mean, I like-- every time we down, the thing I always just always tell ourselves is just like, you know, let's keep going, let's just keep fighting. I think that that's the group of guys that we have.

And you know, I just try to keep everyone energy high, as high as we can, continue to encourage and be positive. Like, that's all you can be at that time. You know? Let's chip away, let's try to make a couple of runs and make them call timeouts.

Like that's kind of like what's going through our minds. You know what I mean? For a lot of the game, you know, things wasn't going our way. So but I think we just kept, like-- we got to keep going, we got to keep fighting.

- How tough is it to close out a game like that when you have to expend so much energy to get back into it?

PASCAL SIAKAM: Oh, yeah, it's tough, but I'm super proud of the guys, man. Like, I think-- you know, I've been in the league for a little bit, and I just feel like every time teams are down like that, it's just like you kind of pack it in.

But I'm proud of the guys who just continue to fight, and you know, those are the type of guys that you want to go to war with. It's like, at the end of the day, things weren't going our way, but like, we gotta keep going, we gotta keep fighting, like find a way.

And you know, we did spend a lot of energy, but like I just think that everyone gave their all, and that's all you can ask for. And obviously, like, it wasn't the way that we wanted to play the game, but things happen. And once it does, we just got to keep continuing to fight. And I think I love our fight tonight.

- Is it just you and Fred getting vocal at that point, or is it everybody?

PASCAL SIAKAM: I think it's mostly me and Fred, for sure. But I think everyone just chipping in, like you know, wherever they have something that they see.

- Is there something that you guys can learn from the craziness at the end of the game, the full court pressing, that you can take in sort of a normal setting, or is that only for those situations?

PASCAL SIAKAM: I mean, it's tough to press like that. I mean like, you play in the NBA, you know, the guys are really good. So I think, you know, sometimes we can, we can get into that, I think, because we have the athletes to do that.

We have the athletes to do that, so maybe we can. But I just think that was just like a situation we had to go out there and find whatever we can. But I think we always a team that want to press and make guys uncomfortable.

- Question in French for you, Pascal, from Mike. Go ahead, Mike.

- [SPEAKING FRENCH]

PASCAL SIAKAM: [SPEAKING FRENCH]

- [SPEAKING FRENCH]

PASCAL SIAKAM: [SPEAKING FRENCH]

- [SPEAKING FRENCH]

- Great. Thank you, Pascal. That's it.