How Tyrese Haliburton made an impact with impact

On the star guard's change in approach as a screener  

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

A week ago, after Tyrese Haliburton finished with eight points on 3-of-10 shooting in a 136-121 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, Rick Carlisle said the following about the increased defensive attention that the star guard has seen to start the season.

"Ty's going to see physical play. He's going to see guys who are assigned to beat him up and beat the crap out of him."

"I was on the officials all night," he continued. "I thought there was grabbing, hugging, and unnecessary bumping, but he's going to see it. He's a great player, and people are going to try to slow him down and get him frustrated."

For most of the night, when Haliburton wasn't being intently watched and shadowed away from the ball, he was typically and quite literally getting shoved away from the ball, almost appearing as though he was jockeying for position against a defensive linesman while attempting to move, and ultimately being moved, up the court.

"My job is to protect him," Carlisle concluded, in reference to the excess contact.

Six days later in Chicago, that comment took on additional meaning beyond just the possibility of staying on the officials, as various wrinkles were employed to aid Haliburton in pushing back against the push-back.

For example, consider this sideline out of bounds play. Normally, the play is triggered with a zipper screen for T.J. McConnell. Once McConnell receives the inbounds pass, the Pacers flow into middle pick-and-roll, with the screener then veering into a pindown for Haliburton to come back toward the ball. The only problem is, Haliburton doesn't often have access to that screen anymore, as he will more often back out and space after being top-locked and/or denied.

That changed against the Bulls. Here, rather than cutting away from the action, notice how he matches physicality with physicality, screening his own man so as to play Obi Toppin into space while also pinning-in the veer-back switch.

In effect, with old friend Jalen Smith absorbing the ball and calling for the on-ball defender to veer-back to Toppin, Haliburton screened two players at once, sandwiching the face-guard coverage against him into a friendly fire flare screen.

 "We lost the leverage game," Jim Boylen said a few nights earlier, when the Pacers were trailing, 65-48, at halftime. "We didn't have any leverage at either end. We've got to get back to a hit first mentality. We've got to make these guys feel us at both ends."

In some respects, smacking into contact smacks against Haliburton's friction-less play-style, as the Pacers spent most of last season either outrunning the defense or moving the ball faster than the defense could rotate. Now that opposing teams have caught up (or rather, are making more of a concerted effort to pick him up so as not to get left behind), there are instances in which he has to have more presence as a screener to go along with his prevalence as a screener. To that point, according to Second Spectrum, there are are only 17 guards in the league who have set at least 100 ball-screens so far this season. Among them, Haliburton ranks 15th in the percentage of his screens that have featured contact, coming in at just 51 percent. Granted, some of that comparatively low rate of contact is a product of how often he deliberately slips out into space, either blurring in front of the ball or leaking out of stack actions to reshape the defense with his gravity.

Still, to borrow from Jim Boylen, there's also something to be said for hitting first -- or at least counterpunching. If Haliburton's defender is going to turn a blind eye to the rest of the court, then why not leverage that blind spot against them, setting them up to both feel and run into contact.

Over and over again throughout this game and especially during the fourth quarter, Haliburton could be seen making an impact by making impact, looking at times as though he was pushing a football sled as he attempted to move his defender while also demonstrating some screen craft. Here, in addition to dislodging his own man, he also made an angle adjustment, closing off the space for Josh Giddey to duck under only him as the screener, which slicked the path for Pascal Siakam to slither downhill as he was instead forced to duck under both Haliburton and the screener defender only after he had already been snagged.

None of those plays are as memorable as when he hit three shots in the final period while appearing to exchange barbs with someone in the crowd, and they arguably didn't provide as much electricity as when McConnell scooped up Mathurin's loose ball for an and-one opportunity or stole the inbounds pass that resulted in Mathurin shaking loose at the rim, but the obvious change in his approach, to be a figurative barb, meant that he had a hand in why the ball kept moving even when the defense was geared around keeping the ball out of his hands.

For the game, he recorded 7.407 contact screens per 100 possessions, which was his highest tally of the season. On those plays, the Pacers scored 2.0 points per chance, which is even better than their already solid overall mark of 1.17 points per chance for the season with him as the screener, including when the contact on the screens isn't solid. As such, given the impact a Haliburton screen can make, there's certainly reason for him to apply counterpressure against the heightened pressure he's been, quite literally, "facing."

As Carlisle said, it's his job to protect his star player, both in advocacy and with innovation; however, as the win over the Bulls goes to show, Haliburton can also stand up for himself by taking a stand -- forcing the defense to feel him, especially when the defense is so intent on seeing him and, largely, only him.