How the Pacers pick and choose when to set picks

And why variety is the "slice" of life 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

The pick-and-roll isn't as prevalent as it used to be. According to Second Spectrum, the league as a whole averaged 69.4 ball-screens per 100 possessions last season, which is the third-lowest frequency of any season in the advanced stats site's 10-year database when also including playoffs. The Pacers finished their run to the Eastern Conference Finals at the high-end of that spectrum, as they ranked 10th in frequency while averaging 73.6 picks per 100 possessions for the entire 2023-24 season, but that mark was down from 76.4 a year ago and also represents a massive dip from 92.1 in 2021-22 after the team acquired Tyrese Haliburton. From a league-wide perspective, the rationale for why the NBA has started shifting away from the pick-and-roll has been covered. Louis Zatzman, who joined Samson Folk and I for our definitive Pacers-Bucks preview during the playoffs, wrote about the impact of switching and the two-step between offense and defense to explain the dip at SB Nation. Meanwhile, my friend Joey Wolfond at The Score talked to numerous coaches around the league about how teams are tailoring schemes to personnel groups that increasingly feature playmaking big men to expound on why modern offenses are putting a twist on old school tactics at the expense of the pick-and-roll.

But, here's the thing: Despite being traded for one another, Tyrese Haliburton and Domantas Sabonis have never brushed shoulders on the same team. The Pacers no longer have a big who warrants operating as a conduit of offense, connecting dots at the top of the key while creating space with physicality and subtle screening techniques. Even so, with Haliburton piloting the pick-and-roll alongside Myles Turner, the Pacers scored 1.221 points per direct chance, which ranked first among the 63 pick-and-roll pairs who set at least 400 ball-screens. For clarity, that number specifically targets when the ball-handler or screener shoot, get fouled, turn the ball over, or create a potential assist. Taken altogether and given that only two centers in the entire NBA were assisted on a higher percentage of their made field-goals than Turner, it would seem as though the Pacers would be dialing up how frequently they run pick-and-roll actions, thereby feeding the beast of "Tyrese, the Creator." And yet, the opposite, at least by comparison to themselves year-over-year, has actually been the case. So, what gives?

Turns out, it might not be that complicated. Think of it this way. At 14.1 seconds, the Pacers had the fastest average time to shoot in the NBA following a made shot last season. When Haliburton is playing with that degree of pace in semi-transition, it can be incredibly hard to direct and connect to the ball, especially with his propensity for rejecting screens. Look over your shoulder at the action developing at the opposite side of the floor for even just a split second, and he's gone, bounding through the open seam already armed with an idea in mind of how to punish the scrambling defense.

Overall, the Pacers scored 1.094 points per chance out of ball-screens for Haliburton. When he goes away from the pick, that number surges to 1.118 points per chance. But, what about when the reject isn't readily available? At that point, if the big has to come out to the hash mark to set the screen, then the screener defender has plenty of time to call out the coverage on the approach, as can be seen here when Patrick Beverley adjusts his stance, flipping his hips in an attempt to push the action toward the sideline -- albeit with Siakam counterpunching with an angle change.

Likewise, look at how the height of this screen and the length of the approach allows Rudy Gobert to stay in drop, with the on-ball defender ducking under the pick.

Notably, both of those examples are even coming with the screener approaching from above the break. Still, for those reasons, and with how much time and energy is devoted to drilling pick-and-roll coverages, the Pacers rarely set long-run ball-screens, in which the defense would have more opportunity to prepare and confer as the screener potentially comes out of the paint to meet Haliburton. As such, in order to cutback on the distance covered by the screener while also making themselves less predictable and more difficult to guard, they will instead opt for pitches.

For example, consider the machinations of this play, which the Pacers refer to as "slice." Triggered by a blur screen or relocation from the player at the weak-side wing to the ball-side corner, Myles Turner will simultaneously set a down screen for Pascal Siakam at the elbow, like so.

From there, just when it looks as though Siakam is approaching to screen for the ball as the first screener in a double drag, Haliburton pitches the ball ahead to Turner at the opposite elbow and chases his own pass with Siakam effectively providing a back-screen in the middle of a hand-off.

With Haliburton getting downhill with his right, the pitch-ahead not only acts like a release valve against full-court pressure, it eliminates the need for a long-run ball-screen, potentially wrong-footing defenses that are expecting to be in ball-screen coverage that end up, instead, chasing through a more complex off-ball screen action. Here is a compilation of other examples, highlighting the way in which the back-screen springs Haliburton as the ball-handler while also potentially creating open corner threes.

Of course, it isn't foolproof. While not a long-run ball-screen, there are some teams that have managed to deny the hand-off after switching the back-screen, as Milwaukee did here in Game 4.

In that event, when forced to change directions or move from side-to-side, Turner can be a bit jittery as a hand-off operator, and the same can apply when he has to facilitate from the elbows.

For the sake of comparison, take a look at Isaiah Jackson in that same role, as he finds Haliburton on the move, even with the corner defender coming all the way off from T.J. McConnell, whereas Turner automatically attempted to lead Haliburton without reading the help.

At any rate, with Haliburton setting up the back-ball screen with a misdirection cut and then going away from it, they have a variation to the same action, which can at times also develop further still with the big setting a flare screen at the top of the key for the back-screener. Granted, this play certainly isn't solely responsible for why the Pacers didn't set as many ball-screens last season. After all, they also traded for Pascal Siakam mid-season, which led to increases in isolation frequency, jumping from 10.8 per 100 possessions (30th) to 15.6 (23rd), as well as post frequency, which ticked up from 2.9 per 100 possessions (23rd) to 4.9 (16th), albeit while largely still maintaining the same integrity and overall bones of the offense.

If anything, hand-offs were more of just a steady thru-line, hovering at around 20.7 per 100 possessions both prior to (20.9) and after (20.5) Siakam's arrival -- although there was a bit of a bump when looking at only the playoffs (22.3). Still, when it comes to picking and choosing when to set picks, what those pitches go to show is somewhat emblematic of the team's overall identity in that they function to catch opponents on their heels rather than allowing them to be up on their toes, staying in lock-step, as far as recognition, with a much longer runway.

In that way, even if the pitch for pitches is only to provide a slightly different mode and/or entry point for Haliburton to create with the ball in his hands, perhaps variety really is, in this case, the "slice" of life.