The Pacers need to make the "play better" adjustment

In a game that was supposed to mean more, the Pacers too often looked like they couldn't care less

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

At Media Day, when reflecting on his 10-year career with the Pacers, Myles Turner said the following: "For about three or four years, I felt a little stagnant. I was just going through the motions. But as it may be, I am the motion now."

The quote itself was a bit clunky, but Turner seemed to be implying a significant shift in his approach and intensity following the past period of stagnation in which he was sharing the center position and, perhaps, feeling as though he was stuck in a rut while being stuck in the corner.

Well, despite the fact that those words were uttered less than two months ago, "the motion" currently seems to be missing from the Pacers, as they trailed by as many as 22 points to the Jimmy Butler-less Miami Heat while repeatedly trailing on defense to the point of being serenaded by boos (more than once!).

And, here's the thing: This was the opening game of group play for the Pacers in the NBA Cup. A year ago at this time, they were the darlings of the In-Season Tournament, advancing all the way to the finals with their dazzling combination of "catch us, if you can" offense and feel-good vibes. Now, in what was a game that was supposed to be mean more, they struggled to keep up and, at times, almost appeared like they couldn't care less.

In that regard, any serious analysis of this game and what's currently wrong with the team arguably needs to be unserious, reading more like a Buzzfeed-like listicle of "15 times the Pacers appeared as though they were lost in the sea of their own deep-blue court."

1) When everyone was staring at Bennedict Mathurin guarding Kevin Love

2) When Bennedict Mathurin was running (but not really running) with his back to the ball in transition

3) When no one picked up the ball at either end of the court

4) When the ball got funneled baseline to the back-up center's rim protection (only there isn't any rim protection nor an actual back-up center)

5) When the starting center was caught between guarding a point center and protecting the rim and the point center somehow had open options to pass on either side of the rim

6) When they almost stumbled into a nifty innovation, switching the guards against stack pick-and-roll while also switching the tag defender (Siakam) onto the roll-man for the screener defender (Turner) to peel off to corner, only they just basically ended up stumbling into each other

7) When they had already given up a pull-up three and allowed Duncan Robinson to get downhill for free throws after attempting to trail on cuts from underneath the basket toward the top of the key for a hand-off, so they made the adjustment to jump-switch onto the ball with the next nearest defender (Haliburton), but Mathurin never peeled off to find Haliburton's man so Walker got burned for being too casual by the burn cutter

8) When Mathurin switched but Siakam didn't duck under to switch and the low-man was Haliburton, which means there, ahem, wasn't a low-man

9) When the first points scored by Miami out of halftime, after the Pacers likely watched film of all the aforementioned breakdowns during halftime, came via the apparent labyrinth that is navigating a cross-screen

10) When they didn't switch on the chin cut so Siakam had to sag off to protect and was late recovering as a result, with (uh) more Love being lost

11) When Ben Sheppard was motioning that he had ball and for someone to take the corner but no one took the corner and someone (ahem) didn't take anyone

12) When Siakam absorbed the ball on the late-switch and Mathurin was supposed to veer-back to the screener, which he did, but then he relaxed as though his work was done, when his work (well) clearly wasn't done

13) When Haliburton fronted against the mismatch, so Siakam doubled from the bottom as the low-man to protect against the lob pass but no one helped the helper, as Sheppard should've rotated to the corner, with Turner staying attached to Adebayo, Mathurin taking Robinson, and Haliburton rotating out to Nikola Jovic in what instead turned out be a mess of confusion with more urgency being shown to point at the shooter with exasperation than to actually closeout to the shooter with desperation

14) When Mathurin got screened by his own man and stayed screened by his own man

15) When Turner hopped around a phantom screen as his man dribbled the full-length of the floor into an open shot in what was the last sighting of the starting lineup with the Pacers down by 21 points with 5:59 to play in the game, marking the second wholesale substitution of the half

To recap, very few of those are tactical mistakes. Sure, there were some spots where switching would've made the coverage easier, and they probably should go over their plans for how to "next" or plug the nail for the defender chasing over on hand-offs while still staying cognizant of cutters, but the majority of that listicle boiled down to basic effort and awareness. Granted, it's unclear how much the awareness can actually be dialed up in the absence of Nesmith and especially Nembhard; however, if the effort doesn't get dialed up, then what's written on the clipboard is only going to matter so much.

In reference to what Turner said at Media Day, they need to be "the motion," rather than merely going through the motions. That said, while the "adjustment" to play better is simple, the reason why that hasn't happened with more consistency going back to preseason continues to seem as though it is maddeningly complex.