There was Pascal Siakam, a baller for only about a decade, the kid from Douala, Cameroon, via God’s Academy in Lewisville, Texas, and New Mexico State and the second and last round of the NBA draft, out there among the likely hall of famers and deadeye shooters and giants of the game as the NBA Finals began in Toronto on Thursday night.It was an improbable spot for the improbable kid and no one could have been dead certain how he would handle it.Would the Raptors forward be overcome by the moment? Would the intensity of the game allow him to thrive in his athletic, sometimes helter-skelter style? Would the smart, veteran Golden State Warriors figure out a way to slow him down? How in the world would he handle it all?It turns out by spinning into layups in his contortion-like manner, by getting ahead of defences to finish quick-strike possession with easy layups, by getting on the glass and chasing shooters around on defence and doing things in Game 1 of the Finals that he’d do on some Tuesday night in February against some road-weary inferior foe.Siakam poured in 32 points — at one point making nine straight shots in a row — as the Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors 118-109 in a delightful opening to the best-of-seven series.Siakam is no longer a surprise to anyone in the NBA, not after the wondrous regular season he had, one that will surely land him the league’s most improved player award late next month.But with the increased attention that comes with increased performance, Siakam has handled it at every step. Raptors coach Nick Nurse said before Game 1 that he wasn’t too worried about the stage being too big for the 25-year-old.“I would imagine that they’re going to consider him our No. 2 option and they’re going to go at him and game-plan for him, and try to play him physical at the start,” Nurse said. “And then there’s some of the teams that have used their bigs to guard him and dropped off him to make things indecisive for him (eliminating driving space to the basket).“I’m not that worried about him. I think he plays with tremendous energy and that’s what this series is going to need.”Siakam’s energy was significant and a huge plus, as was the contribution of other members of Toronto’s supporting cast.Marc Gasol, left to operate freely in the mid-range and fed the ball there by a swarmed Kawhi Leonard, had 20 points and seven rebounds and Fred VanVleet added 15 points and ran the team when Kyle Lowry had to sit for a large chunk of the fourth quarter with five fouls.Those performances overcame a stellar 34-point night from Golden State’s Steph Curry and 21 from Klay Thompson.Get even more Raptors analysis in your inbox with Doug Smith’s email newsletter. Sign up for it here.What the game provided, most of all, was fodder for coaches Nurse and Steve Kerr to gnaw on for the intervening 48 hours before Sunday’s Game 2.The teams are such strangers to each other — neither was at full strength for either of the regular-season meetings, both of which occurred before Toronto even acquired Marc Gasol — that they provided no really useful scouting moments.“So this series, unlike the last few years (when the Warriors faced Cleveland for four consecutive years) will be against an unfamiliar foe,” Kerr said before the game. “Same goes for them, obviously we only see them twice a year. (With) Kawhi being brand new to this team, there’s very little history, real history, between the two teams as constituted.“So I think what you’ll see is, as the series goes on, each side will get more comfortable with the other, and there will be a feeling-out process to start the series.”It was the same for Nurse, who is still looking for at least a fourth guy off the bench to take some of the load off his starters.Patrick McCaw, in his first game back after missing the entire conference final for a personal matter, played as the ninth man in the rotation but only for about five minutes over two short stretches.“At this stage of the series, I’m going to throw at least eight or nine, maybe 10, guys out there and we’ll see who takes to this series and who looks good and we’ll see what this series calls for,” Nurse said before the game.Doug Smith is a sports reporter based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @smithraps
