Three minutes that define Pacers-Bucks as a series

Whenever the Bucks patch one leak, another starts to spring water 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

Myles Turner knocked down his sixth three as fans at Gainbridge Fieldhouse were chanting his name. Those cheers, echoing throughout the arena as a show of appreciation for the longest-tenured Pacer's best-ever shooting performance in the playoffs, were quite different than the four-letter word that was uttered on the court in response to the same play earlier in the half.

Of course, the result was also quite a bit different, as were the next several results during what was a three-minute stretch that, in many ways, defines the current state of the series.

Here's what happened.

With 8:39 to play in the third quarter, Rick Carlisle could be seen making a familiar gesture, stretching his hands apart, while calling out the words, "wide stack."

To translate, that means the Pacers are going to set a high cross-screen for the player at the weak-side wing. That's the "wide" action. From there, that player will intentionally reject the high cross-screen to become the back-screener in "stack." For the most part, this has been a staple of the playbook this season, although it became less frequent with Tyrese Haliburton as the ball-handler following his injury and after Buddy Hield was traded. Here, however, Haliburton is back at the controls, with Nesmith playing the role of off-ball mover. As has been the case over the last two games of the series, Brook Lopez starts the possession matched-up with Myles Turner while defending in drop. Rather than switching the guards, Milwaukee decides to defend the action straight-up, meaning that the on-ball defender chases over at the same time as the stack-screen defender is attempting to stay attached.

As a result of that coverage, Haliburton automatically anticipates that the corner defender will have to get involved as a tagger. Of course, what he missed while thinking ahead of the play, was that Turner, whether inadvertently or opportunistically, had rolled into a middle pindown, freeing Nesmith at the top of the key. That's where the ball needed to go, and that's why the four-letter word was shouted almost as soon as the ball left the star guard's hands.

By comparison, look at what changed when the crowd was chanting for Turner. Once again, it's a sideline out of bounds play. And also, once again, the sideline out of bounds play is "wide stack." Except, this time, notice that the roles are reversed, with Andrew Nembhard instead operating as the ball-handler, so that Haliburton can step-in as the most credible movement shooter in the starting lineup. But, that's not the only difference. Unlike the prior example, Milwaukee is switching the guards. As such, when Malik Beasley jumps out from Haliburton to take the ball, Haliburton ad libs and twirls into a top-pin for Turner to give the crowd more of what they want.

The reason why that works is because Lopez is preparing to hop around a back-screen that never occurs. When Turner pops, he only needs to shoot over the top of the guard who would otherwise be bouncing out to Haliburton. It's a delightful wrinkle, and the fun didn't stop there.

On the next possession, the Pacers went back to the same well. This time, when the on-ball defender attempts to duck under, Turner adjusts the angle on his screen and maybe, just maybe, does a little something extra to cause a snag, allowing Nembhard to stroll directly to the rim. 

Eventually, the Bucks got a stop -- but only in so much as the Pacers stopped themselves, finally missing from deep on a night when they made 22 threes. Otherwise, Nembhard turned the corner easily against Lopez when Milwaukee attempted to switch the initial ball-screen, which forces Khris Middleton to rotate, opening up the extra pass from the corner to Haliburton at the wing.

For those keeping track: at this point, the Bucks have tried switching the guards, going under, and switching the ball-screen. But wait, there's more. After Lopez got dusted at the point of attack, the Bucks reverted back to their strategy from the first two games of the series in which they cross-matched Lopez onto Pascal Siakam in order to more feasibly switch ball-screens or trap the ball.

That means, with Bobby Portis out of the game after being ejected, Khris Middleton has to defend at the five and switch out while continuing to play on his balky ankle. Here, he switches the ball screen, perhaps more feasibly than Lopez, but he appears to be expecting another switch, which once again opens the revolving door for Nembhard to glide to the basket.

Less than a minute later, Lopez has to remind Malik Beasley of the match-up change, which bumps Middleton over to Haliburton. When Haliburton realizes that two guards are going to have to guard the ball screen, he simply cuts underneath the action and relocates to the corner, with Nembhard attacking the switch and making it appear as though the same clip is being looped.

That said, even if Nembhard's path to the rim had actually been cut off by some semblance of on-ball containment or perhaps a supplication to the basketball gods, Middleton still stayed to tag Turner in the lane, which means Lopez would've been left to defend 2-on-1 on the back-side, closing out to take first pass with Haliburton open as the most likely release valve. Or, at least that would've been the case if Siakam hadn't changed sides of the floor on the next play.

At long last, the Bucks finally managed to put a cork on the ball. Even then, though, it comes at the expense of Lopez helping from the ball-side corner, where Siakam hoists up a shot that he was making against the same match-up in the first two games.

All of which is to say that, over a span of three minutes, the Pacers ran slightly different variations of the same play on six of seven possessions and the only stops that Milwaukee was able to manufacture, amid cycling through several changes in coverage, came when the Pacers missed makeable shots -- which, again, didn't happen often in this game. The same might not be the case in Game 5. Then again, it wasn't the case in Game 3, and the Pacers still found a way to win, doing so in bulk on the glass and with Tyrese Haliburton meeting the moment. In the reverse, Milwaukee's two biggest stars weren't available to do the same. If and until they are, even with the Pacers relying heavily on shot-making as a powerful deodorant for what was too often hapless defense and perhaps overconfidence to concede the post in favor of staying home on shooters, the Bucks have a considerably smaller margin of error for how much water they can take on while deciding which holes to plug and when. 

It's possible the Pacers won't make it rain to the same extent again; however, what that three-minute stretch goes to show is that, for a Bucks team without the current option to execute watertight switches or reach the same height of watershed moments in the absence of Giannis and Dame, the water isn't likely to get turned off -- unless the Pacers turn it off for themselves.

To that point, what has come to define this series, with different heroes taking advantage of different coverages to convincingly rise above the level of prolonged stretches of unconvincing defense, will likely need to become water under the bridge if the Pacers advance to the next round -- at least as it pertains to the depth by which they risk allowing themselves to potentially have to bail out from being submerged.