The Pacers still can't spread their wings

And now may also have a center of decline 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

When the game started against the New Orleans Pelicans, Pascal Siakam was guarding Yves Missi, Myles Turner was opposite of Zion Williamson, and Aaron Nesmith was the primary assignment on Brandon Ingram. When the game ended against the New Orleans Pelicans, with the Pacers going down by a score of 125-118, Myles Turner was guarding Yves Missi, Pascal Siakam was opposite of Zion Williamson, and Ben Sheppard, who is officially listed at all of 6-foot-6, was the primary assignment on Brandon Ingram, at 6-foot-8. Granted, a lot had to happen for the Pacers to reach that point, but the point was nevertheless reached -- albeit figuratively, not literally.

Andrew Nembhard wasn't available due to knee soreness. After he stepped on Pelicans' coach Willie Green's foot on the sideline and remained in the game, Nesmith went down in visible pain with a left ankle sprain less than two minutes later and was ruled out for the remainder of the contest. With the team's two top perimeter defenders on the shelf, that meant the crunch-time burden of contesting Ingram, who certainly wasn't shy with letting the ball fly, as he finished with 26 points on 25 shots, fell to Siakam. Well, that is, the burden fell to Siakam up and until this possession occurred.

With the Pelicans running two-man game between Ingram and Williamson, Siakam has to chase over the top of the screen with Turner applying pressure at the level and Sheppard also applying heavy-handed help in shift position at the nail. Just as a quick refresher, this was also a problem last season against this match-up. Remember, after Ingram exploded for 19 points in the first quarter last March with Nesmith starting out as his primary assignment, Siakam took over after halftime. On three possessions in a row, New Orleans put Ingram and Williamson into action, and on three possessions in a row, Siakam ran into contact chasing over as the on-ball defender, with Turner then attempting to contain Ingram following the late-switch. To be fair, some of these could probably be categorized as circus shots, but there also wasn't a lot of "containment" going on, either.

Fast forward to now and not much has changed for the Pacers, at least not in a good way. In a similar manner, Siakam gets snagged on the screen, which engages Turner and effectively hits the turbo button for Williamson as the roll-man with only Bennedict Mathurin in sight and a distant sight at that.

Siakam is a big body, which means he's also a big target. Last season, the Pacers allowed 1.135 points per chance with Siakam chasing as over as the on-ball defender, compared to 1.055 when he switched. To be fair, neither mark is exactly stout. He's better switching out to the ball as the screener defender, than he is trying to corral the ball at the point of attack; however, when the match-up calls for him to navigate around screens, one option is generally more palatable than the other.

The only problem is, if Siakam switches, then Turner also has to switch. In that event, Zion might not have gotten downhill with as much momentum, but Turner would've had to hang in space against Ingram in his first game back after returning from an ankle injury, and he wouldn't have been around the rim to rebound (although, to be fair, he isn't exactly rebounding at a reliable rate even when he is around the rim). It's possible that coverage would've been more feasible if Isaiah Jackson had been able to stay in the game. Turns out, it was that very play that he was trying to defend when he sustained the non-contact injury to his calf. After eagerly leaving his feet on the pump-fake, he was extra gingerly on the landing. Meanwhile, in the wake of that highly unfortunate occurrence, the Pacers gave up a second-chance on the glass, as would be the risk.

Needless to say, all of this is why Sheppard was parked in the gap on the possession with Turner at the level and also why, on the very next possession, he was assigned to Ingram. To Sheppard's credit, he nullified the first screen that came his way, with Zion being whistled for illegal contact, but the Pelicans just proceeded to flip the side of the pick-and-roll from which he was attacking.

Over and over again, with Siakam defending Zion as the ball-handler, New Orleans ran inverted pick-and-roll with Jordan Hawkins as the screener so as to involve Tyrese Haliburton in the action, and the end result was generally him getting where he wanted to go with his strong hand in the absence of full-bodied help, as he leveraged his right shoulder like a tenderizer and turned what was a toothless double team into minced meat.

For frame of reference, here's that same inverted screening action from Hawkins against a different opponent, only Hawkins slips out to the perimeter and receives a flare screen with an empty corner. Put simply, there is more that is occurring to occupy and pull at the help in this possession; and yet, look at how many bodies he's seeing in the paint, which results in a blocked shot.

Still, even when Zion generously gave up the ball with Siakam ducking under both the screen and the screener defender, Hawkins just did this, blowing past Haliburton with the help likewise a step slow to rotate.

In the fourth quarter, the Pelicans scored 1.750 points per chance with Hawkins screening for Zion. Prior to this game, those inverted actions between Hawkins and Zion had only produced 0.700 points per chance for New Orleans. That's a small sample size of only 10 screens, but the numbers were similar last season on higher volume, generating 0.729 points per chance out of 51 ball screens. As such, this hadn't exactly been robust offense for the Pelicans, up until they played the Pacers, when without DeJounte Murray, C.J. McCollum, Trey Murphy, and Herb Jones they nearly eclipsed how many times Hawkins had screened for Zion on the season (10) in just this game alone (6).

Of course, the Pacers had plenty of injuries of their own, which meant their defensive options were sparse and perhaps somewhat gimpy. Jarace Walker was effective at times using his length to contest against Ingram as a jump-shooter (which was good to see), but he also got caught grabbing from behind despite ducking under a screen from Jose Alvarado, and the results with Hawkins as the screener were largely the same.

Once he was beat, that needed to be a help switch with either Toppin or Turner taking the ball and Walker peeling off to the perimeter. That said, the coverage was effectively toast as soon as Walker gave up the screen rejection. With Haliburton up at the level and prepared to show to avoid giving up the mismatch, it's imperative that Ingram actually uses the screen. Otherwise, that entire side of the screen is exposed, forcing an emergency rotation that didn't exactly scream emergency. Plus, even if he had closed out the game in place of Mathurin or Sheppard on a hot-streak, which seems like a big ask, that wouldn't exactly have resolved the issue of what happened once they went away from Ingram and started screening for Zion instead. If Nembhard and Nesmith were available, the help rotations around those actions might've been more intentional and timely, but these same issues with regard to not being able to spread their wings against bigger wings and shuffling who should guard who between Nesmith, Siakam, and Turner also existed at the forefront of this match-up last season.

The trouble now is that the center position is on shaky ground and the rest only matters in so much that Tyrese Haliburton can shake whatever it is that's leading him to not quite look like himself, either passing out of floaters and layups or not having much lift on the floaters and layups he takes while still battling some inconsistency with his shot. If the wing problem is still going to be the wing problem, at a time when they also don't project to have much "center" of gravity, it's not going to be enough for him to take one shot in the fourth quarter, especially if the shots in the paint are there for the taking both for him and against him at the other end of the floor. In that regard, if he and the team are going to steady themselves through the turbulence, he has to be more eager, willing, and, most importantly, able to fly.