The season for the Toronto Raptors have officially come to a bitter end on Friday following a 92-87 defeat to the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of their second-round playoffs matchup. Raptors forward Pascal Siakam was a shadow of the player he was in the regular season that earned All-Star honors, and his sub-par showing undeniably had an adverse effect for his team in this series.

This was pretty much the trend for Siakam since the restart, and the 26-year-old recently opened up about his bubble experience:

“Obviously, I have to be better,” Siakam said, via Eurohoops.net. “It was definitely a learning moment for me just learning from this experience and just learning that you’ve gotta be ready and I wasn’t able to help my teammates. I take a lot of the blame”.

Siakam understands what the Raptors need from him, and he knows that he failed to live up to the expectations the team had on him. The mere fact that he was able to admit his shortcomings, however, is a big step in his development.

Despite the poor showing, it seems to have done little to shake Siakam's self-belief. The 6-foot-9 power forward remains confident that he is bound for greatness in the league, and that this is nothing more than a bump in the road.

“It’s an experience,” he added. “All the greats go through it and you have to learn from it. If you want to be considered one of the best players you have to be able to rise from these moments, and that’s something I plan to do.”

In seven games against the Celtics, Siakam averaged just 14.9 points on 38.2 percent shooting, 7.4 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.1 steals in 40.7 minutes per contest. These numbers aren't terrible, but certainly not those that you would expect from a cornerstone superstar.