The defending champion Toronto Raptors lost one of the best players in the league to free agency this summer in Kawhi Leonard, and a lot people assumed it would be a rebuilding year for Canada’s team. But Pascal Siakam rose to another level, making his first All-Star team while helping the Raptors secure the second seed in the Eastern Conference.

Fans' expectations rose at almost the same pace, but now the Raptors are down 0-2 to the Boston Celtics and Siakam hasn’t played like an All-Star in the series. He scored just 13 points in Game 1 and 17 points in Game 2, shooting a dismal 34.4% from the floor in the two games.

Fans all over were frustrated with Siakam’s uninspired play and started calling him ‘Playoff P’ or just simply ‘Paul George’, comparing him to the Clippers star who has also struggled in the playoffs.

On the Locked On Raptors Podcast, host Sean Woodley tried to explain why it’s too early to start calling Siakam ‘Playoff P’ just yet.

Sean Woodley: Did you like some elements of his game because he's kind of being roasted as though he were Paul George right now online?

Imman: With Pascal… calling him Paul George… I think part of it is when you have so many gaffs in terms of turnovers. Like late in the game, you're going to get slandered in that way.

I think that he can continue to be more aggressive. We saw it initially in the first game, there were just a bunch of stops and I feel like he gets in his head. And that aggression can kind of cease a little bit and I would like to see a little bit more from from Pascal on that.

You know what, here's the thing… I'm trying to figure out how to word this without slandering Pascal Siakam because that's like the last thing that I want to do, and also part of me is just like reliving every moment of the fourth quarter. I think that these are kind of learning moments for Pascal Siakam and I will say that there's reason for the fan base to be frustrated. I think we saw some improvements, he was definitely more aggressive this game than he was the last game…

It's hard for me to kind of say anything about Pascal Siakam’s game without slandering him, so I'm gonna remain quiet on this one…

Sean: This is not the end game for Pascal, and we talked about this coming into the playoffs on this very podcast. There was a lot of reason to expect that there are going to be growing pains. This is a guy who's in his first year as a number one. Last year, he got to be the sort of opportunistic, hang away from the ball, their entire offense isn't dependent on him. And now he is very much that type of player and you know, he's not Kawhi Leonard, and I think it's kind of an unfair standard a little bit to be comparing him to a Kawhi Leonard or anybody who is sort of more established, a more established shot creating sort of go-to guy like Pascal is still figuring it out. And, you know, maybe he never gets there. But this is by no means the time to pass any sort of judgment on that trajectory.

The Raptors are down 0-2 to Boston and need Siakam to step up in his role if they hope to battle back into the series.