Late in the fourth quarter on Saturday, frustrated Sixers centre Joel Embiid inexplicably grabbed Pascal Siakam in a tackle.
Siakam was on his way to 34 points in his best playoff performance of his career, and he was working hard for every one of them, attacking Embiid all night long.
A game after going scoreless in the second half, Siakam turned the tables on the first-round playoff series, lifting Toronto to a 110-102 victory to avoid elimination and force a Game 5.
“Resilience. He’s always been a resilient player,” teammate Thaddeus Young said. “He’s always gonna fight through adversity. He knows his game. He knows how to bounce back and come back from having not-so-good games. That’s what he did.”
WATCH l Siakam posts playoff career-high 34 points as Toronto avoids sweep vs. 76ers:
Siakam stars in Raptors’ Game 4 win over 76ers
7 hours ago
Duration 2:32
Pascal Siakam posted a playoff career-high 34 points as Toronto avoided the sweep with a 110-102 win. 2:32
Gary Trent Jr. had 24 points, while Young chipped in with 13, and OG Anunoby finished with 11 for the Raptors, who played more than half the game without injured all-star guard Fred VanVleet.
Scottie Barnes, Toronto’s newly minted NBA rookie of the year, finished with six points and 11 rebounds in his return after missing two games with a sprained left ankle.
WATCH | Barnes takes home rookie of the year honours:
Scottie Barnes gets his Rookie of the Year award from Masai Ujiri
10 hours ago
Duration 0:57
Barnes was honoured at centre court before Game 4 of Toronto’s matchup against the 76ers. 0:57
James Harden had 22 points for Philly, while Embiid, playing with a thumb injury, finished with 21.
Siakam, who’s taken some heat from fans for these playoffs, said he was determined to be more aggressive on Saturday.
“It’s me having the ball and knowing that I have to make plays, and it’s not just only scoring, it’s everything,” Siakam said.
While the Raptors led by as many as 17 points on Wednesday before their heartbreaking overtime loss, Game 4 was a tight battle from the outset. The Raptors cobbled together a 12-point cushion in the second quarter, but the Sixers chipped away at the difference and the Raptors went into the fourth clutching to an 80-77 lead.
The Sixers cut the lead to a point, but the Raptors replied with a 6-0 run, and when Young swiped the ball off Embiid and Precious Achiuwa finished with a basket, the Raptors went up by seven with 9:11 to play.
The Sixers unravelled in the final few minutes, and when Achiuwa slashed through the defence for a left-handed basket with 1:28 to play, the Raptors went up by 14 to the delight of a rowdy Scotiabank Arena crowd that included singer Avril Lavigne.
Raptors coach Nick Nurse emptied his bench with 1:19 to play, as the crowd chanted “Raps in seven!”
No team in NBA history has come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series, which Nurse called a “heckuva challenge,” saying “somebody’s gotta do it.” Thirteen NBA teams have come back from 3-1 deficits to win series, including the Denver Nuggets, who did it twice in the 2020 playoffs.
Siakam, Embiid friction
There was definitely no love lost Saturday between Siakam and Embiid, who are both from Cameroon. Embiid was whistled for a technical after the bear hug. At one point, Siakam had fallen and had to raise a hand to block the seven-foot centre from stepping on him walking by.
“I’m a competitor. I love competing. This is the playoffs, the highest level,” Siakam said. “I’m cool with the talking, I just don’t want those dirty plays. I don’t like that. Keep it basketball. At the end of the day, it’s all fake toughness.”
Embiid mockingly applauded the referee at game’s end.
“To me, it felt like they had one job, coming in here tonight. And they got it done. So, congrats to them,” Embiid said.
When asked if he was suggesting the referees were trying to guarantee a Game 5, he said, “I don’t know… but you can figure it out.”
Barnes, meanwhile, earned a loud standing ovation when team president Masai Ujiri presented his rookie of the year award before tipoff. Former Raptor great Vince Carter had delivered the news to the 20-year-old via video during a team practice.
“That’s a big award, that’s one of the biggies,” Nurse said. “I don’t know how many people have it, less than 100, right? So it puts you in a pretty cool category.”
VanVleet exits game with injury
VanVleet’s status for Game 5 is unknown; he’s scheduled for further imaging on a left hip strain. He left the game late in the second quarter, limping badly down the court, then grabbing the neck of his jersey with two hands and ripping it down the front in frustration.
Embiid, who hit the game-winning three-pointer in Wednesday’s 104-101 overtime win, played with a thumb injury that is feared to be a torn tendon. He repeatedly clutched the taped hand with a grimace on Saturday. He’ll undergo an MRI shortly.
“It’s painful. So, in basketball you need to use your hand a lot,” he said.
The series has felt like a war of attrition with the number of injuries.
“[Today] just felt like a game where everybody kept getting hurt,” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said, then joked: “Me and Nick are going to play one-on-one to end the game. I would like that. I’m all good with that one, even the way I move.”
After routs in Games 1 and 2, and Game 3’s narrow loss, the Raptors got off to a solid start Saturday. Siakam led the way with 10 points in a see-saw first quarter that saw neither team lead by more than four points. The Raptors shot just 2-for-9 from three-point range yet did enough to head into the second tied with Philly at 24-24.
Trent Jr. had 12 points in the second and his running three-pointer with about four minutes left in the quarter capped a Raptors 26-11 run and saw them go up by 12. The Sixers closed with an 11-4 run, and the Raptors led 54-49 at the halftime break.
The series would come back to Toronto for Game 6, if necessary.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
