The Pacers have reached an observation point on defense

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By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

In contrast to last season, when the Pacers were the darlings of the In-Season Tournament, playing a vibrant brand of catch-us-if-you-can offense paired with immaculate vibes, it appears that playing poorly in the NBA Cup, to the point of not advancing after trailing by 20 or more points in all four games, has ironically righted their season. Remember, just before that four-day break, the Pacers had lost five of their last six games, most recently coming up empty against a short-handed Charlotte Hornets team that saw old friend Isaiah Wong tie both Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam in the scoring column with nine points a piece.

At the time, the Pacers entered the mini-moratorium ranked 19th in offensive rating and 24th in defensive rating. Since then, after emerging from the extended downtime that allowed for the opportunity to both regroup at practice and recoup in health, they've surged to fourth in offensive rating and 17th in defensive rating, while posting a 9-3 record. Despite how wholly different they looked from themselves to start the season, the jump in offense isn't entirely unexpected.

Tyrese Haliburton is knocking down shots, again. He's made an impact with his (literal) impact as a screener, he's been more aggressive as a scorer (minus a few exceptions), and Andrew Nembhard has been available again to initiate the offense in spurts when Indiana's star guard commands extra attention. Meanwhile, the team is barely turning the ball over, they've started taking a few more threes, and they've seemingly found a way to reconcile the different play-styles of various players on the team by staggering the rotation with lineups that cater to the frenetic speed of McConnell-Haliburton-Sheppard-Toppin-Turner as well as the more deliberate tendencies of Mathurin-Walker-Siakam-Bryant, albeit with varying degrees of success or sometimes lack thereof.

Still, all things considered, it isn't exactly a surprise that, with Haliburton looking more like Haliburton, the Pacers, in turn, also look more like the Pacers. That said, the fact that they suddenly don't resemble themselves on defense, in a good way, with the starting lineup of Haliburton-Nembhard-Mathurin-Siakam-Turner holding opponents to a Paul George and Roy Hibbert-era 100.8 points per 100 possessions, wasn't quite as (well) foreseen.

As such, to understand what has led to the sudden turnaround at that end of the floor, here's a list of contributing factors:

Andrew Nembhard is special

Just to repeat, when the starting lineup of Haliburton-Nembhard-Mathurin-Siakam-Turner has been on the floor, the Pacers have allowed just 100.8 points per 100 possessions in 295 minutes played. By comparison, when the foursome of Haliburton-Mathurin-Siakam-Turner has been on floor without Nembhard, they've given up 119.7 points per 100 possessions in 303 minutes played. That is a massive swing (as in, the difference between performing like the equivalent of a first-ranked defense and a 30th-ranked defense), which in part reflects how dire the containment was at the point of attack when Sheppard and Nesmith were also both out in addition to Nembhard (i.e. Johnny Furphy, as a rookie, was being assigned to opposing lead ball-handlers), but also speaks to Nembhard's overall impact -- especially once he was no longer on a minutes restriction.

For example, consider the following plays. In San Francisco, when Steph Curry finished with 10 points on 2-of-13 shooting, he did unto the all-time shooter what so many opponents have done unto Haliburton, face-guarding him the full-length of the floor before denying him the ball multiple times and ultimately knocking it away.

A few nights later, after he had sat out the front-end of the miniseries in Boston on a back-to-back, he made his presence felt again. Not only in catching up to block Jayson Tatum from behind on a cut, but also in pulling the chair on Jaylen Brown after swapping match-ups in the second half. And, here's the thing: Nembhard didn't pull the chair in the post; he pulled the chair on a drive (yes, a drive). Two seasons ago, Samson Folk and I wrote a text exchange post at Raptors Republic following a Pacers-Raptors game in which I pointed out how O.G. Anunoby had affected Bennedict Mathurin's balance and stride lengths on a drive by employing a similar tactic. Put simply, this isn't something that a lot of defenders can (ahem) pull-off.

Again, he isn't getting backed down on the block and anticipating the next blow against a relatively static action; he's recognizing the second he's going to get bumped against a live, attacking dribble. That takes tremendous processing speed, and he did the same thing against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, whose ability to play basketball like an anthropomorphized slinky toy makes his next step even more difficult to predict.

Granted, Shai was still inevitable in that game and finished with 45 points on 68 percent shooting, but the Pacers have allowed 1.085 points per chance allowed off drives this season, which ranks last in the league. When Nembhard is on the floor, that number shrinks to the equivalent of a top-five mark, at 0.953, compared to an absolutely abysmal 1.155 when he's off. For the sake of clarity, those splits aren't filtered to only reflect his ability to contain (or pull the chair) as only the ball-handler defender; it's anytime he's on floor, which also captures the potential effect he has in the gaps or with his feel away from the ball.

Here, in addition to switching out and squaring off the drive above the break, he also peel switches onto the drive from the corner, sinks to help the helper, and also prepares to X-out on the closeout as Siakam is pulling down the rebound.

By comparison, the player who was previously keeping Nembhard's spot warm in the starting lineup was Quenton Jackson, who is certainly a "combative" defender (as Rick Carlisle once described him), with his ability to throw himself into screens and draw illegal contact with reckless abandon. But, where Jackson has a tendency to be over-aggressive with his help coverages, unnecessarily seeping into areas that stretch the defense too thin, Nembhard can break from scheme on instinct without compromising the scheme on principle. In that way, he often functions similarly to a strip of flex tape, malleably adapting to patch holes.

Overall, as this list will soon go to show, Nembhard's return to health isn't the only reason for the team's turnaround at that end of the floor, but his ability to prevent ball-handlers from turning the corner at will, whether on ball or in help, certainly is among the biggest reasons for the team's sudden rise at that end of the floor.

Peeling back the layers of peel switching

Of course, Nembhard isn't a stranger to peel switching and next-ing. When a defender is beaten on dribble penetration, he's been processing the exact moment to switch onto the ball as the nearest help defender since he was a rookie. As a team, however, the Pacers largely went away from this tactic for a large portion of last season. Not because of Nembhard's timing, but rather in keeping with their "guard your yard" ethos and overall emphasis on pursuing and building better habits in containment while limiting three-point attempts.

It wasn't entirely without merit, as peel switching can perhaps lead to complacency at times, particularly on a rebuilding team, when the on-ball defender knows that a help defender is going to literally jump in to rescue them. Plus, as can be seen here from old friend Jordan Nwora, there wasn't always a ton of hustle on display to peel off to the perimeter, as he instead just kind of meanders in recovering out to the wing as the open three goes up.

Of course, it also didn't prove entirely realistic to rely on stickiness at the point of attack as the main means to keep the ball out of the paint, as the Pacers finished last season ranking 30th in both opponent rim frequency and paint-points allowed, albeit while making some tweaks to the scheme at various points of the season and especially throughout the playoffs.

Now, they've found somewhat of a happy middle, as peel switching and next-ing have once again become more frequent, while also exhibiting the requisite effort to locate and recover to the open gap on the perimeter or at least be more distinguishing in knowing when the gap on the perimeter can reasonably be left open. Pascal Siakam is a "big" part of this with his lateral length and size.

He's lost a step defensively since the days when he was among the league's leaders in closeouts and minutes played as part of Vision 6-9 for the Raptors. He isn't as spry with his ground coverage, he gets snagged on screens more often, he doesn't often take on assignments against top wing threats (with the exception of those like Kevin Durant, who prefer to look for their jump-shot), and he isn't nearly as intimidating at the point of attack, as was demonstrated recently when he gave up a blowby drive to Grayson Allen at home against Phoenix, but he mindfully takes up space. For example, when Tyrese Haliburton had no choice but to guard Dennis Schroder at the point of attack against Golden State, Siakam was there in a hurry, showing the discernment to prioritizing pouncing while "guarding" Draymond Green.

A hard closeout isn't necessary there, but peel switching also melds with Haliburton's top skill while masking his flaws, as he ranks second only to Matisse Thybulle in blocked threes going back to this first full season with the Pacers.

It was the same against an, apparently, joyless version of a loping Jimmy Butler in Miami, when Siakam likewise swallowed up Tyler Herro with his sprawling tentacles after jumping onto the ball as the next nearest defender when Bennedict Mathurin was trailing from behind and responded by peeling onto the 45-cutter.

For frame of reference, here's that exact same action from group play of the NBA Cup, when they looked lost in the deep-blue sea of their own court and were serenaded by boos more than once.

A few things standout as different there, but the sharper angle that Siakam takes in the prior clip, paired with his length, makes the threat of the 45-cut much less threatening. Plus, rather than getting caught in no-man's land, Mathurin is actually taking the proper route to cover the cutter, which means Jarace Walker isn't left trying to resolve a lose-lose conundrum.

All of which is to say that, peel switching obviously isn't a new tactic, but it's been more prevalent and, with Siakam's size in combination with the team's coalescing hive mind, it's also been more potent.

Friends in low places

The same has also applied with the low-man's level of involvement. Last season, while predominantly defending the pick-and-roll two-versus-two and aiming to limit corner three-point attempts, the Pacers finished last in the percentage of drives they defended with a help defender present, at just 66.9 percent. Prior to the four-day layover during the knockout rounds of the NBA Cup, that number had ticked up ever-so-slightly to 69.8 percent. Now, over the last 12 games, they've jumped to 75.3 percent, which is good for the 13th-highest frequency of help in the league.

Aside from the increased peel switching, that change isn't necessarily due to anything schematic, at least by comparison to the start of this season, as much as noticeable shifts in cohesion and intention. In that regard, some unlikely contributors have even made cameos. For example, when the Pacers got serenaded by boos against Miami, they didn't just botch the empty-side pick-and-roll coverage, with one player switching and the other player not switching, Haliburton was also the low-man, which as I wrote at the time, effectively meant there wasn't a low-man.

In the most recent win over Phoenix, though, he did this.

And Mathurin has also been seen doing this -- against Giannis Antetokounmpo, who admittedly has been somewhat limited around the rim since returning from illness. But, still this is a thing that happened!

Granted, those are by no means common occurrences, but the fact that they exist at all is a positive development from even just a few weeks ago -- especially given some of the confusion that was occasionally ensuing as to who should even be the low-man. Here, Mathurin wants out of the responsibility, even though he's the lowest weak-side defender, but then Walker is late on the rotation.

Ideally, Mathurin and Haliburton would be kept out of those rotations, as Mathurin is pleading there, but that isn't always possible. Just look back at that prior clip against the Bucks. That's a 4-5 pick-and-roll with Nembhard tethered to Damian Lillard in the ball-side corner. The only players who can help are Haliburton or Mathurin, with the latter, admittedly, providing an unexpected and emphatic stop sign. Still, when the opportunity presents itself to size up, the Pacers need to be more proactive and decisive in seizing it, as they have been of late with off-ball switches.

Again, this is another reason why the Pacers have been demonstrably better on defense with Siakam on the floor this season, despite the fact that he isn't quite as nimble as he was once. Last season, in an effort to streamline the defense and focus on building better habits, the Pacers effectively played no zone in the half-court. Now, as can be seen in this clip against the Pelicans, they will occasionally morph between types of defense when need be on the same possession -- all with Siakam featuring heavily in the background. In addition to taking away the extra pass to the corner, notice how he positions himself as the low-man in place of Haliburton, after Haliburton had matched up on the high-post flash, flipping the defense to man.

With Siakam rotating to the rim, Shai has to get more air under the ball to evade the extra size on the kick-out, buying time for Sheppard to read and intercept the pass.

Turner operated in a similar manner in the most recent win over Phoenix, as he could be seen giving Mathurin a gentle nudge on the weak-side during the guard-to-guard screening action so that he could stay low and be in position to protect the rim, even though Nembhard didn't ultimately require his help.

Beyond keeping Turner low to contest at the rim, that swap -- even at the risk of creating a mismatch for Mathurin-- also prevents the potential hazard of expecting Turner to chase out to the corner against teams that purposefully position their bigs above the break, like so.

Put simply, it's with those types of heads up plays, along with their increased willingness to change defenses more often and with defenders more frequently in low places, that has allowed them to play at least somewhat bigger than the smaller size of their lineups would normally suggest.

Myles Turner is doing Myles Turner things

For Turner to protect the rim, he needs to actually be in the vicinity of the rim. That's why those off-ball switches matter, as does his own ferocity. Prior to the break during the NBA Cup Finals, the Pacers were allowing opponents to take 31.4 percent of their shots at the rim when Turner was on the floor, which would rank among the bottom-five teams in the league. Since then, that number has been slashed to 26.5 percent, which is conversely the equivalent of a top-10 mark.

Not all of that is Turner, obviously. As has previously been laid out, Nembhard's return has put more of a cork on the ball, and the Pacers as a whole have also shown more help. Still, although Turner's individual defensive field-goal percentage allowed at the rim on the shots he's contested has basically stayed the same, shifting from 56.3 percent to 54.8 percent, there's been some games during this stretch in which he's very definitely been a deterrent in terms of shot prevention.

To summarize, he doesn't deserve all the credit for why the screws have been tightened up on defense, but he also didn't deserve all the blame for why they needed to be tightened in the first place. 

Turning over a new leaf on turnovers   

On the season, the Pacers have surrendered 1.223 points per possession after committing a turnover, compared to 1.157 points per possession overall. As such, a simple fix for the defense has simply been taking better care of the ball. Over the last 12 games, the Pacers have gone from ranking 16th in turnover rate to posting the lowest turnover percentage in the league. With the exception of Bennedict Mathurin, every starter for the Pacers is averaging fewer live-ball turnovers per 100 possessions. Haliburton, in particular, has been exceptionally pristine, as he played a stretch of four games in which he completed 277 passes (i.e. the second-highest volume in the league) and possessed the ball for 24 minutes (i.e. the same amount of time as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) while only committing one turnover.

That's bonkers!

For a team that ranks among the top-10 in average time to cross-court, that means the struggle to abruptly hit the brakes and change directions has been considerably less real. After throwing the ball around haplessly like a beachball at a concert in losses to Toronto and Brooklyn, they've refined their spacing principles, both by going back to basics and getting healthier. To that point, some of the lineups in which inexperienced players were diving to the dunker spot when they should've been staying at the top of the key, so as not to clutter the automatic 45-cut that is triggered by dribble penetration, are no longer seeing action now that Nembhard and Sheppard have returned along with the addition of a back-up big who can shoot.

Of course, another impact of turning the ball over less while also making more shots, with the third-best effective field-goal percentage in the league over the last 12 games, is the ability to apply full-court pressure. On the season, the Pacers have allowed 1.159 points per possession when they have at least one defender in the back-court, compared to 1.163 points per possession when they don't. During this latest stretch, they've been considerably stingier, allowing just 1.090 points per possession when deploying a full-court pest.

Some of this goes back to the point already made about Nembhard at the point of attack, but there have also been some other bright spots. McConnell is always looking for opportunities to McConnell, Walker stood out during garbage time in the loss to Boston with the pressure he applied against Jaylen Brown (he also pulled out "The Jrue" technique to corral and swipe the ball from Jrue's replacement, Damian Lillard!), Mathurin has turned the ball in the back-court on occasion (albeit while also giving up some straight-line drives), and here, Pascal Siakam can even be seen celebrating after getting taken out by an illegal screen.

For as much as defense can lead to better (and faster) offense, the improved offense for the Pacers, as it pertains to tightening their grip on the ball, has seemingly likewise stiffened up their defense.

As luck would have it  

With all due respect to Nembhard, who certainly had an effect on preventing Curry from getting to some of his preferred spots, he wasn't the only reason why the all-time greatest shooter scored just 10 points on 2-of-13 shooting in San Francisco. After all, there was a possession in which Nembhard got caught ducking under and Steph still misfired from deep. The same principle also applies to the defense as a whole. Generally speaking, teams have much more control over the volume and location of opponent threes than they do over three-point percentage. During this 12-game stretch, several teams have underperformed their shot quality from deep.

Here's a breakdown, by game, of their opponent's expected eFG% versus their actual eFG% on three-point attempts with the difference shown in parenthesis:

• Phoenix (12/19): 56.21 - 43.55, (-12.66)

• New Orleans: 54.58 - 45.45, (-9.13)

• Brooklyn: 54.4 - 45.45, (-8.94)

• Boston (12/29): 53.1 - 44.44, (-8.65)

• Sacramento: 54.95 - 47.37, (-7.58)

• Golden State: 54.83 - 47.37, (-7.46)

• Oklahoma City: 55.31 - 52.7, (-2.61)

• Milwaukee: 51.08 - 52.94, (+1.86)

• Phoenix (1/4): 58.03 - 60.0, (+1.97)

• Philadelphia: 53.72 - 60.0, (+6.28)

• Boston (12/27): 54.87 - 61.61 (+6.73)

• Miami: 55.02 - 63.46 (+8.44)

Notably, the Pacers caught a bit of a break in wins over Sacramento, Boston, and Phoenix -- all of whom currently rank among the top-10 in offensive rating, albeit while relying on the three-point line to varying degrees. Of course, in the case of Boston and Phoenix, the pendulum also swung in the opposite direction as well.

Make their own luck

When the Pacers were trailing by four points with under two minutes to play in the loss to the Charlotte Hornets just before the four-day break, Brandon Miller slipped and lost control of the ball while being defended by Nembhard during crunch-time. After coming loose from his hands, the ball bounced between Haliburton and Siakam before it was ultimately scooped up by Cody Martin in the corner and converted into an and-one opportunity at the rim.

Just like that, the Pacers were down six -- once again in need of making the adjustment to play better and, more importantly, harder. It doesn't matter what is on the clipboard if that's what level of energy is being brought to finishing possessions. In some respects, effort can oftentimes be both the easiest and hardest thing to fix, depending upon the cause. Whatever the reason, the Pacers haven't just occasionally found a stroke of good luck when it comes to the misfiring strokes of their opponents, they've also more often made their own luck as it pertains to treating 50/50 opportunities like actual 50/50 opportunities.

Remember, that possession against Charlotte was during crunch-time. Here, Myles Turner, as a 6-foot-11 center, is diving on the floor for a loose ball when the Pacers were leading by 15 during the first half in Miami.

Likewise, while this isn't necessarily atypical of how Sheppard always plays, it's worth pointing out that Sheppard returned from injury during this stretch of games and does things like this, regardless of the fact that the Pacers were up by 24 with roughly eleven minutes left to play.

This isn't universal, as there were certainly some lapses in concentration on the glass in what still turned out to be a lopsided win in Brooklyn against a shorthanded Nets team, but the listlessness that was too often recurrent, even in late-game situations, has been less pronounced of late -- at least by comparison to the more notable spikes of urgency regardless of time and score.

What can't be measured

In that regard, the overall change in energy, especially as it applies to taking joy in manufacturing stops, can't be measured, but it's certainly been more palpable.

On the whole, there's no denying that the Pacers are playing better statistically, strategically, and spiritually on defense, even if there should probably still be some lingering questions as to what extent they actually are, functionally and formidably, better on defense. Without Myles Turner, the lineups with Obi Toppin at the five continue to be a sieve, as do those with Thomas Bryant. Although Mathurin has certainly made his presence felt on the glass with more gusto, rebounding is still something that Indiana has to harp on from a team perspective every so many games -- which adds pressure to take care of the ball so they can pressure the ball. Meanwhile, in what was a very off shooting night for the Celtics, it should probably be somewhat revealing as to ongoing roster holes that the Pacers finished with Ben Sheppard in the closing lineup, opposite from Jayson Tatum, just the same as they did with Nembhard and a healthy Aaron Nesmith in the Eastern Conference Finals -- seven months ago.

And yet, if the loss to the Hornets was rock bottom, then the extended break that allowed them to make themselves into this version of whole should perhaps be viewed as an observation point, providing sturdier and far more scenic ground to stand on while determining exactly how much further, as a team, they can potentially and sustainably be expected to climb.