How the Pacers found their comfort zone against zone

New Year, New Zone Buster 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

When a 19-point lead turned into a six-point loss against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Pacers were stymied by zone, as they were outscored 56-29 over the final 18:56 of action while mustering just 0.731 points per chance on 25 zone possessions. For the game, the Bucks played 29 possessions of zone, which was the third-most played by any team in any game this season. Overall, for a team that has faced the most zone possessions of any in the NBA while ranking among the top-10 in pace and bottom-10 in catch-and-shoot three-point attempts per game, the outcome was an exaggerated version of what the rest of the league has slowly caught onto in that they can be caught if preemptively slowed down.

It's happened before, as the Orlando Magic nearly pulled off an 18-point comeback while mixing in the alternate form of coverage against the Pacers back in early November, and it looked poised to happen again, as the next team on the schedule just so happened to be the Miami Heat, who lead the league in zone frequency.

Turns out, the schedule ended up giving much more than it took away. In addition to providing an immediate opportunity to bounce-back, the Pacers don't have another back-to-back until February, which means the off-day allowed them to implement some potential solutions for what led to their off-night (or, more accurately, off-half).

The results of those efforts were evident by the end of the first quarter and especially throughout the entirety of the second half, when the game played much differently, if not completely opposite, than what played out in the loss to Milwaukee.

Here's what happened. With less than two minutes to the play in the first quarter, when the Heat busted out their 2-3 zone, the Pacers were ready and raring to go with a brand new zone buster -- all geared around a spot on the floor that they've rarely occupied to this point against zone, let alone been ready to pass to.

Look at where Myles Turner is standing.

Prior to this game, the Pacers had faced 167 possessions of zone. Among them, only 25 percent featured a pass into the paint, with Pascal Siakam receiving a total of five (yes, FIVE) passes within that designated area. Well, that isn't Pascal Siakam, but the emphasis to anchor someone below the free throw line, rather than flashing them there at random, was nonetheless evident, as was the movement around them.

As a quick rundown, the play begins with the guard entering the ball to the wing and cutting through to the opposite corner. From there, that wing swings the ball to the top of the key and also cuts through to the opposite corner.

That's a recurrent theme, as the player at the top of the key continues swinging the ball to the opposite side of the floor and then cuts to replace the player at the wing.

To provide a visual, it's almost like Turner is the eye of the storm, with the other four players swirling around him like ominous clouds. If no passing opportunities to the high-post or for cuts materialize, then Turner steps out from the free throw line to set a middle ball screen, which forces the player at the top of the key to switch onto the ball while leveraging the bottom wing into a tough decision - at least theoretically.

In that case, Obi Toppin misfired, but he was quick to let the ball fly against the shifted defense. That alone is a change from the game against Milwaukee, when all too often the Pacers were prone to self-checking themselves out of open shots.

Still, to a certain extent, Nikola Jovic was just sort of needlessly out of position. After all, why is he tagging with one-foot in the paint from the strong-side corner against Turner, when he should be taking the first pass on the wing?

That said, basketball is dynamic and complex, which can confuse roles and responsibilities in real time, especially when there is this much movement involved.

For example, look at the difference this one extra pass makes. Just the same as the prior possession, the ball-handler passes the ball to the wing and cuts through to the opposite corner. Then, that wing swings the ball to the top of the key and also cuts through to the opposite corner. From there, the player at the top of the key continues swinging the ball to the opposite side of the floor and replaces the wing. It's all to script, except note the difference when Jarace Walker catches the ball at the top of the key. Rather than receiving the middle ball screen, he makes one more extra pass to T.J. McConnell, with Turner then approaching to set an angled ball-screen. All the while, the Heat are doing a lot of pointing and communicating to try to account for all of those relocations.

As a result, because two players are now in front of the ball following the swing pass from Walker, Jovic is in a much tougher spot. As the low player on the weak-side, he is now responsible for tagging Turner. Plus, Bam Adebayo had already directed him to step up against Turner in the high-post as Sheppard was cutting through. With McConnell potentially dribbling off the pick, Terry Rozier is preparing to either receive McConnell or stay attached to Walker.

That means, even with Tyler Herro taking away the extra pass to Sheppard in the corner, no one is available to account for Toppin crashing to the rim until it's too late.

And, here's the thing: They didn't always press the same buttons. Sometimes, they also fed the ball directly into the high-post rather than continuing to swirl around it.

In that case, the off-ball guard rotated to that spot on the point of the pass and Turner elected not to shoot over the top. In turn, the Pacers ended pivoting back to the same angled ball-screen for McConnell, which once again puts extra tension on the bottom wing defender. Even with Adebayo taking Turner (as should've happened on the prior possession), Jamie Jacquez is pinched in and preparing to switch onto McConnell, thereby creating a 2-on-1 that leads to an open three.

Again, in contrast to the meltdown against Milwaukee, there's no hesitation there to take (and make) the shot. Similar to the quick-trigger from deep, there was also an overall boost from just playing quicker overall.

Here, Adebayo had just made a free throw at the other end of the floor; however, because the Pacers still prioritized pushing the pace, the Heat never had the chance to get fully organized.

Notably, after trailing behind the play, Jovic effectively just buddied up with Siakam rather than locating to his spot as the bottom wing. When McConnell cuts through, Adebayo has to sag off to protect, which means Turner has plenty of space to line up his shot from the spot on the floor where he had very clearly been specifically and purposefully deployed to take up residence.

In response, Miami completed vacated from the coverage. In the second half, which previously saw the Bucks put a halt to the Pacers' offense with regimented lines of zone defense, the Pacers put a halt to Miami's zone defense, warping the roles and responsibilities of a team that was already warped by Jimmy Butler's apparent lack of joy in his current role to such a degree that they never faced another possession of the alternate form of defense.

Still, just because Miami's zone was finished for the night didn't mean that the Pacers were ready to be done running that play, as an extra aggressive version of Tyrese Haliburton also came up firing out of the same action against man. This time, exploiting the switch pocket on the exchange between Butler and Adebayo, just as he had done in December of 2022 in this same building, when he amassed 43 points while draining a franchise-record of 10 three-pointers.

Granted, the play wasn't unstoppable. They didn't make every shot they generated, and there were times, even there, when they were somewhat disjointed with hands up as to who should be doing what; and yet, for this game, it was enough to stop a coverage that had previously stopped them, as they scored 1.300 points per chance on only 10 zone possessions, while also seeing favorable results against man.

As such, in what was their first game of the New Year, they didn't just find their comfort zone against zone; they also showed that, with the aggressiveness of Haliburton in combination with some tweaks from the coaching staff, they can still at times look like the old version of themselves, whirring to a season-high of 133.3 points per 100 possessions, even while deploying some much-needed new tricks.