Pascal Siakam was pondering. He acknowledges Joel Embiid is a challenge, because that’s obvious. Embiid might be wheezing, overweight and, in Game 2 of this Raptors-Sixers second-round series, suffering from what he succinctly termed “the s----.” But the Philadelphia centre is still a holy terror defensively, able to leap out, get fooled, and still recover to the rim to block out the sun. As Raptors centre Marc Gasol said, “We know once the ball gets there and gets into the paint, a lot of the time Joel is coming.”
The 76ers adjusted to Siakam’s near-perfect 29-point opener by putting his fellow Cameroonian on him Monday night, because the math worked.