Pascal Siakam said Injuries ‘no excuse’ for Pacers’ 1-12 start: ‘This is not who I want to be’
INDIANAPOLIS — Pascal Siakam hunkered down over a one-sheet box score with hideous numbers while the white long-sleeve t-shirt that hung over the Pacers All-Star forward’s broad, gangly shoulders seemed to be unwittingly making his point.
The shirt is a product of nine-time All-Star and one-time MVP Russell Westbrook’s street wear line. It’s labeled as the Fuel t-shirt because it’s meant to look like it belongs on someone in a garage at some place like Indianapolis Motor Speedway. On it, Westbrook’s three-word brand name is displayed 12 different times in fonts and styles that look like stickers or signs for gasoline, motor oil or auto parts.
The name of Westbrook’s brand is “Honor The Gift.”
Siakam didn’t make the connection to the shirt, but he made it clear that in his mind, the Pacers’ 129-111 loss to the Raptors on Saturday was another sign that they aren’t doing enough to honor their gifts.
Since reaching last year’s NBA Finals, the Pacers haven’t been gifted much of anything in 2025-26. Seven players were ruled out of Saturday’s game due to injury including All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton — who is out for the season with an Achilles tendon tear — key wings Bennedict Mathurin and Aaron Nesmith and high-flying forward Obi Toppin. Point guards Andrew Nembhard and T.J. McConnell recently returned after missing significant time, and the Pacers have had nine starting lineups in 13 games.
That being said, Siakam still believes more could be expected from the Pacers — at least more competitive performances if not more victories. Saturday’s loss was their seventh straight and it drops them to 1-12, the worst 13-game start in franchise history. Each of the last five defeats have come by at least 17 points with an average margin of defeat of 25 per game. They have the NBA’s worst record and second-worst point differential and things seem to be getting worse instead of better.
“We are playing in the NBA, the best league in the world,” Siakam said Saturday. “There shouldn’t be a reason why you’re out there every single night and not giving your best or trying to be the best that you can be and giving it your all. There’s thousands and millions of people who would give everything they have to be in the situation that we’re in. There’s no excuse. Obviously, it’s been tough on us. We have injuries every single day. Guys are in situations that they’re not supposed to be in. But we can’t find it as an excuse and just go out there every single night and be like, ‘Whatever happens happens.’ It has to matter. We have to fight.”
To Siakam, the lack of fight particularly stood out on the defensive end Saturday. Siakam spent 7 1/2 years with the Raptors and knows full well how dangerous their long, speedy wings are in transition, but he expected his new team to provide more resistance than it did. The Raptors scored 78 points in the paint on 39 of 50 shooting in the lane with most of those buckets being layups or dunks. Toronto also scored 33 fast-break points and many of those were a breeze.
“Just too easy,” Siakam said. “How many times did they walk in to get a layup. Transition was bad. They just got to the paint whenever they wanted to. You can’t win like that. We didn’t get back.”
The 129 points they allowed were actually the least they’ve given up in the last three games, as they’ve surrendered a league-worst 138.0 points per game in that stretch. In the last five games, they’ve given up a league-worst 61.2 points per game in the paint and 19.4 fast-break points per game, a bottom-five figure in the league.
It was perhaps less of a surprise that the Pacers’ also struggled on the offensive end because they were missing so many weapons. With Nesmith newly on the shelf with a left knee sprain, the Pacers were down to two remaining players who averaged double figures on last year’s team — Siakam and Nembhard.
On Saturday, those two were brilliant, but the Pacers didn’t get much else. They combined for 52 points on 17 of 31 shooting and 9 of 15 from 3, the rest of the Pacers scored just 59 points on 20 of 56 shooting including 6 of 28 3-pointers. No one else scored in double figures.
On one hand, that only stands to reason. No one else who was healthy Saturday has been asked to be a top scoring option in the NBA. T.J. McConnell has had the biggest responsibility, but he’s still just a few games into a return from a hamstring strain that cost him a month. The Pacers started two players in forward Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and center Tony Bradley who were in the G League before the Pacers signed them to 10-day contracts.
Still, someone other than Siakam and Nembhard has to score the ball — at least until Bennedict Mathurin’s imminent return — so they would like to see their teammates playing with a little more boldness and confidence, especially considering the state of affairs. They saw too many occasions when opened shots were passed up or when teammates attempted an unnecessary ball fake to steady themselves before taking a shot.
“I think guys are feeling it out trying to think their way through it and maybe overthinking it at times,” Nembhard said. “I think we just gotta saddle up to saying, ‘(Expletive) it,’ and whether we make a mistake or not, we’re 1-12. Any more mistakes are not going to cost us any losses at this point. We might as well play fearless and see where it lands us.”
Siakam agreed, noting that the players who are being asked to take on bigger roles would have gladly signed up for those if they were offered in the preseason. Third-year forward Jarace Walker — the No. 8 pick in the 2023 draft — had a hard time maintaining a rotation spot in his first two seasons. On Saturday with Nesmith out, he started and posted eight points and eight rebounds, but he was 2 of 9 from the floor and 0 of 5 from 3-point range after an 0-of-10 shooting performance on Thursday and a 1-of-9 performance on Tuesday.
“That should be the mentality at the end of the day,” Siakam said, agreeing with Nembhard’s assessment. “Because there’s nothing to lose. You’re getting minutes. You’re here. This is it. Whatever mistakes you make, it doesn’t matter. You’re in the game.”
Siakam has apparently been trying to get that point across for weeks, and coach Rick Carlisle has been impressed with how he’s handled it. Siakam didn’t come to Indiana to be a captain or the face of the franchise but was happy to try to fit in with what Haliburton was doing and be the All-Star caliber running mate he needed. He knew he was going to have to do more when Haliburton was hurt, but the burden keeps getting bigger with every additional injury.
But in Siakam’s mind, he must be doing something wrong or things wouldn’t be as bad as they are.
“It’s not good,” Siakam said. “It’s not a good look. I’ve never really been a part of something like this and this is not who I want to be. We all have to decide this is not who we want to be. This is not the Pacers. This is not Indiana basketball. No matter who is out there. I don’t really care. We gotta be better. We gotta improve as a team. We gotta show fight. We gotta show care, because like I said, these people deserve better.”
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