How the Pacers are spreading their wings

On the emergence of Aaron Nesmith and Jarace Walker, along with a potential playoff trend

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

Before the Oklahoma City Thunder went ultra-small, amassing 41 points in the third quarter with 6-foot-6 combo forward Kenrich Williams starting the second half at nominal center, there was a fleeting, yet thought-provoking, curiosity that occurred just prior to halftime. With 4:38 remaining in the second quarter, actual starting center Isaiah Hartenstein re-entered the game and immediately started defending not Myles Turner, nor Obi Toppin, but rather Jarace Walker.

This was the result.

As Turner was wrestling for position inside, Toppin was likewise wrestling with how to find a passing angle. Typically, when the big ducks in against a cross-match, the ball goes to the player at the wing for the post feed. Of course, the player at the wing isn't typically being guarded by a center, who isn't doing much "guarding" at the wing. As such, while the preferred course of action there arguably would've been to proceed as usual, forcing Hartenstein to choose between closing out to Walker and covering up the entry pass, there's no denying that the circumstances, including the fact that Toppin was being hounded by Lu Dort after screening for Haliburton, were a bit unusual. The oddness continued a few possessions later.

Following the turnover from Toppin, Aaron Nesmith checked in for Walker at the same time as Pascal Siakam to close out the half. Once again, Hartenstein wasn't guarding Turner or Siakam; he was opposite from the wing.

This time, with the wing being Nesmith.

In the moment, the center-wing cross-match was easy enough to explain away. Turner is shooting a career-worst 40.9 percent from between 3-10 feet this season. There's reason to check him with stocky guards and wings who can push him into that range while also switching on his screens for Haliburton.

Meanwhile, as has been the case with many opposing centers this season and last, Hartenstein soon remembered that defending weak-side corner against Siakam doesn't often mean just staying in the weak-side corner against Siakam, as Indiana's All-Star forward quickly went to work chipping away at the space afforded to him by forcing his former playoff foe to instead chop his feet. Neither Walker nor Nesmith have that same ability to maintain a live dribble while turning into a bumper car in the middle of the floor. Plus, it begs pointing out that Hartenstein sustained some figurative bumps and bruises, as he was ruled out for the second half with left hip soreness. It's possible he just didn't have enough to give to close out the half matched up against one of the higher-usage frontcourt players.

Except, look at what happened in the very next game. Midway through the third quarter, when the Pacers were playing small with Toppin at the five, old friend Domantas Sabonis wasn't guarding Toppin. Similar to Hartenstein, he was matched up opposite from Jarace Walker, who was likely identified as the least-threatening option to allow Sabonis to stay low around the basket.

It worked for a time. Almost immediately the Pacers responded by deploying Walker as the second screener in a double drag for McConnell to attack downhill toward Sabonis. When McConnell got turned back away from the paint without throwing the ball back to Walker; however, the plucky guard ended up just swirling his way into a crowd, until eventually Toppin was forced to play the part of grenadier -- all with Sabonis tucked safely away from the shrapnel in the corner.

Regardless of if the center-wing cross-match in Oklahoma City was related to Hartenstein's hip soreness, this was a definite strategy from Sacramento -- similar to that which was tried, and arguably pre-maturely abandoned, by the Bucks in the playoffs last season when Brook Lopez was assigned to Nesmith. For that reason, the on-court problem-solving that developed from there was both a redux of the past as well as a potential precursor for the future.

With Haliburton at the controls in place of McConnell, the Pacers pivoted to flat pick-and-roll, both with regard to the angle of the screen as well as the floor alignment. By filling both corners and purposefully stationing McConnell in the dunker spot, not only were the gaps wider for Haliburton to attack into but the secondary rim protector also became a guard. As such, considering the fact that the flat-angled screen was set in semi-transition, which eliminated any opportunity to pre-switch on the approach, Sabonis had no choice but to defend in space above the break.

Unlike the big-game late game three from Siakam, that saw Sabonis late to recover, the Kings weren't at as much of loss to provide equal attention to both sides of the pick-and-roll. After briefly tracking Walker as the screener, Keon Ellis doubled back not once but twice. If Walker had cut to the nail when the defense committed to Haliburton, there might've been an opportunity for him to make a play out of the middle of the floor, where his soft touch and general feel for connecting dots as a passer occasionally sparkle in the short-roll.

As it was, his cut down to the low block functioned to suck-in the defense from the corner for Nesmith, who ended up finding nylon on a driving floater.

Given what happened in the playoffs last season, when Nesmith's conversion rate on threes dipped from 41 percent during the regular season to 27 percent over 17 postseason games, his ability to recapture his rhythm with one-dribble threes or pull-up twos against an increased rate of flyby closeouts could be a key swing skill.

Since the All-Star Break, Nesmith has canned over 60 percent of his two-point shots, including going 9-of-20 on off-the-dribble jumpers inside the arc. A year ago, he only attempted 34 of those shots for the entire season.

On the whole, the process for Walker on that possession wasn't entirely seamless. He required some direction to wander where he needed to go, just as he also lost his place on defense a time or two, overcommitting on a dig that led to a relocation three from Zach LaVine and, perhaps, too literally defending a spot on the floor out of zone coverage. Still, while he doesn't always prevent paint touches on drives by staying in front, his length and hand activity enable him to play the part of disruptor.

When he's consistently engaged, that unique combination of special tools allows the Pacers to play bigger with him at the three while also providing some much-needed scaffolding to the feasibility of groups with Toppin and/or Siakam at the five.

Like that possession that saw the Pacers have to find their way around the center-wing cross-match as well as the increased attention on Haliburton, the journey for Walker this season hasn't always been smooth -- and neither is the process of problem-solving in the playoffs. For now, though, what both he and the Pacers, along with some of the progress from Nesmith are going to show is that, in order to overcome some of the potential turbulence, they have to sometimes take a chance on seeing what happens when they more often spread their wing-sized wings.