Pascal Siakam did his best JR Smith impression during Saturday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks.
The Indiana Pacers star big man Siakam committed one of the biggest blunders of the NBA season with time winding down in the fourth quarter against Atlanta. With the Pacers trailing 119-116, Siakam got the ball just inside the halfcourt line and needed to hoist up a three-pointer to potentially tie the game.
However, Siakam inexplicably decided to take it all the way to the basket for a dunk. The two-pointer made the score 119-118, and the Pacers were not able to foul on the ensuing inbounds until there was just a tenth of a second left on the clock.
Take a look at the video of Siakam’s goof (which had the local Atlanta broadcast wondering out loud, “What was Siakam thinking?”).
Siakam presumably knew that the Pacers did not have any timeouts left because they had to go the length of the floor to begin the play. Thus, he had to have figured that dunking the ball with just a second left on the clock would be a death sentence for his team. Even if he didn’t think he had a good three-point look himself, Siakam, as he was driving to the basket, also missed a wide-open Aaron Nesmith on the left wing for the potential game-tying shot.
The screw-up by Siakam, who was an NBA All-Star selection this year to boot, dropped Indiana to 35-27 on the year (which is fifth in the Eastern Conference). Siakam might have simply forgotten the score there, and as a result, he ended up producing the worst in-game blunder we’ve seen in the NBA since this one from another East All-Star.
