How Andrew Nembhard finds the inside track

On Jrue versus Drew and the subtle nuances of hand-to-hand combat

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

It's Jrue Holiday's signature move. As chronicled by The Athletic's Eric Nehm, when the ball-handler dribbles the ball up the sideline against pressure and tries to get middle, Holiday pounces, slowing the opposing player down behind the 3-point line before absorbing the bump and stripping the ball cleanly without reaching across his body. In essence, he transforms into a palisade fence, holding his spot with the strength of iron while also deploying his arm like an ornamental spike for added protection.

That's how, on the final play for the Pacers, he pierced Andrew Nembhard, stealing both the ball and the win, where other teams have surrendered wide open threes to trailing shooters even while boasting a similar advantage in terms of numbers.

To that point, the roadblock for the Pacers wasn't necessarily playing 1-on-4 out of flow-game; it's who the player was opposite of Nembhard and which hand that player used to, ahem, gain the upper hand -- and the same could be said in the reverse. After all, even though the short-term win ultimately slipped between their fingers, Nembhard still arguably earned the Pacers a long-term win with his overall grasp of the offense, scoring 32 points to go with nine assists in the absence of Tyrese Haliburton. Think of it this way, long before Boston's Jrue made a play on the ball without reaching, Indiana's Drew reached out to make a play with the ball.

"That was just too easy for Andrew Nembhard," ESPN's J.J. Redick said in reaction to a downhill assist from Nembhard during the third quarter of Game 3. "Turning the corner, creating that 2-on-1, he has not felt any sort of pressure or physicality when he has the basketball in his hands."

That's fair -- or at least it was in the first half. For the first two quarters, Nembhard only saw help on 37.5 percent of his drives. Once he had racked up 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting headed into halftime, however, he also started racking up extra attention, with help defenders then present on 76.9 percent of his drives. Of course, some of the draw was also a product of the lack of pull around him. During closing time, the final play of the game for the Pacers was actually somewhat of an aberration in that Holiday was guarding Nembhard instead of not guarding McConnell while guarding McConnell. Here, for example, Nembhard has to change course as a result of the high tag from Holiday and then is confronted by Holiday again as the next nearest defender on the re-screen. He ends up getting fouled, but he had to cup the ball like a football in order to get there.

That's pressure and physicality, albeit well after Redick had pointed out the ease with which the second-year guard was knifing through Boston's defense. Still, part of the reason why the end of some of Nembhard's drives may have looked easy is because of how they started. On the surface, with Jaylen Brown staying attached to Pascal Siakam as the screener, this possession looks as though the Celtics are merely late helping the helper as Nembhard turns the corner on Holiday.

But, here's what that camera angle missed as to why Nembhard was able to turn the corner on Holiday in the first place. After receiving the hand-off, notice how he pushes the ball into space with his inside hand on his initial dribble.

For a side-to-side action that can typically result in the ball-handler being carried away from the rim, that allows him to take a more direct angle to the basket with Holiday chasing him over.

To further understand the difference that makes, look at this possession from last season when he was being guarded by Holiday with the Milwaukee Bucks. Here, because Holiday ducks under the hand-off, Nembhard takes his initial dribble with his outside hand before being cut-off. Then, on the re-screen, he opts to advance the ball against yet another under rather than shooting.

That type of reticence was also noticeable at the beginning of this season, when he didn't even look at the rim against this under and then also turned his back to the ball while relocating.

Now, by comparison to that game when he previously filled in at starting point guard for Tyrese Haliburton against Boston, he moved the ball on and prepared himself to get it back, glancing away from the rim only momentarily with the intention of repositioning the defense.

By the second half, after making several trips to the rim and knocking down a trio of threes, Nembhard wasn't going to see many, if any, unders, which is why he was able to demonstrate how he makes himself more effective when being chased, finding the inside track against Holiday with his inside hand push dribble.

On the whole, the Pacers didn't win the battle that was Game 3; however, with Nembhard engaging in a different form of hand-to-hand combat with Holiday, perhaps the iron of getting poked by the palisade fence will ultimately, at least as it pertains to the future, sharpen the iron of the progress he showed in both locating and very literally "pushing" open the swinging gate.