Why zone has been the danger zone for the Pacers

A breakdown of where the offense for the Pacers is breaking down against zone defense

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

When Tyrese Haliburton hit his big, clutch three to put the Pacers up by five with 34 seconds left to play, effectively sealing what become a 118-111 win, the Orlando Magic took a risk and it backfired. No, they didn't gamble for a steal or overextend their defense. Rather, they changed their defense. Over the prior four minutes, the Pacers had been held scoreless, missing seven shots in a row as they were predominantly confronted by zone. Then, after a brief stoppage in play for an instant replay review of a defensive goaltending violation that had been called on Myles Turner, Orlando decided to switch things up, perhaps, in an attempt to outfox what they anticipated might be a zone buster from the Pacers following the pause in action. Turns out, the Pacers were more effective against man, as they attempted to run what appeared to be a wedge screen from Andrew Nembhard for Pascal Siakam to slide to the block against the mismatch, only for Siakam to problem solve his way into a ball screen for Tyrese Haliburton to rise up from distance with distance from Jalen Suggs.

Ball game! Of course, in addition to providing a stark contrast to how Haliburton was covered by Suggs in the prior match-up, that play also provides a stark contrast to how the offense functioned or rather didn't so much function while all too often entering the danger zone against zone. In fact, for the game, the Pacers only made three shots against 17 zone possessions. For the season, per Second Spectrum, they've only mustered 0.714 points per chance on 35 zone possessions, which ranks 24th in the league.

So, why aren't they getting into "the zone" against zone?

That's what this video aims to investigate. Here are the relevant timestamps:

0:00 - The Pacers have won two games in a row!

0:16 - Breaking down the nitty gritty of Tyrese's latest late-game dagger

4:16 - Is the problem zone offense or zone scoring?

4:49 - Explaining "baseline" as a zone buster

11:22 - The Pacers only had nine drives on 17 zone possessions

12:48 - Did the zone slow them down or did they slow themselves down?

14:48 - So, what did work against the zone?

18:13 - Hey, at least zone is also working for them (sometimes), right?

19:11 - Thank you and goodbye!