On the (old) new starting lineup for the Pacers

And everything it implies 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper  

Time is a flat circle, it seems. For the first time since last December, Jalen Smith started at the four, joining Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, and Myles Turner as part of a five-man unit that had logged exactly zero minutes together this season prior to taking the floor against the Houston Rockets on Tuesday. With Bruce Brown missing a second consecutive game due to a right knee bruise, Nembhard was the most likely candidate to start in his place, as he had already done on Saturday, when he impressed with his guile and physicality against Orlando's lockdown defense. The other changes, however, seem to suggest a whole lot about a whole lot that won't fully be known until Brown is back in the rotation. 

On the surface, after losing six of the last seven games, it appears as though the Pacers were motivated to lead with defense, starting Nembhard and Nesmith together, with the latter shifting to his more natural position on the wing. As such, Obi Toppin likely slid back to the bench so there would still be a four available to play with the second unit. That said, Toppin is the only starter for which the Pacers have been outscored during his minutes, and it's arguably been an indictment of late that Hield has been assigned to various top-assignments at the four in his stead. The fact that he wasn't introduced with the first group doesn't exactly come as a shock. There were reasons to swap him out, but there's also likely a reason why he's played nearly 80 percent of his minutes this season with Tyrese Haliburton, who has assisted on over 40 percent of his made field goals. To be fair, Toppin has shown he can score without Haliburton. After all, he put up 20 points on only eight shots in the second game against Miami, when Haliburton didn't play, but he's sparingly attempted to do so while playing with both Hield and Mathurin as score-first options, let alone off the bench with Isaiah Jackson occupying many of the same spaces. 

Meanwhile, though it seems evident from his G League reps that he still needs time to work on his defensive discipline, it begs pointing out that, despite being in the city where he went to college, Jarace Walker still didn't play, even as the Pacers decided to give Smith another whirl at the four. 

That means, depending upon whether Nesmith continues to start at small forward in place of Brown, who has shot a woeful 26.2 percent on catch-and-shoot threes, there's a non-zero chance that none of the players who the Pacers acquired over the summer will be in the starting lineup.

We'll see! For now, there's plenty to digest as far as impacts and ripple effects from the changes that were already made. Let's dig into it.

Smith will be tested to navigate screens

Fred VanVleet doesn't consistently pressure the rim. He attacks the rim. According to Second Spectrum, he ranks 30th in total volume of drives, but among the 34 players who have logged at least 300 drives, he currently finishes last in points per chance. Additionally, he passes on 58 percent of those drives, and his blowby rate sits below 25 percent. He just doesn't move the defense a lot when he puts the ball on the floor. 

And yet, look at what the Rockets went to straight away in the first quarter against the Pacers: a PG-PF pick-and-roll, to switch Smith onto the ball, followed by a PF-C pick-and-roll. 

In this case, Smith managed to stay in front as the on-ball defender and ultimately walled up at the rim against VanVleet, but what happens against guards who are more effective at creating and finishing layups -- especially after Smith spent the summer bulking up to play the five? Of course, the counterpoint to this is probably that Toppin has his own struggles as an on-ball defender (i.e. think back to when the Pacers were sending him over against LeBron as the ball-handler in the finals of the In-Season Tournament), but also, isn't that the exact same argument for not starting Toppin? In that regard, maybe what they get from Smith as a secondary rim protector and rebounder will be enough, in combination with his shooting, to compensate for the wash that might potentially occur when he, like Toppin, switches out against rim-threatening guards?

Last season, before Nesmith replaced Smith in the starting lineup last against the Miami Heat on December 12, the Pacers ranked 27th in opponent offensive rebounding rate. On Tuesday, they got outscored 8-2 in second chance points during the 11 minutes that Smith played with Turner. Here, they both ran to protect the rim in transition, giving Jabari Smith plenty of space to shoot. Jabari didn't shoot, for some reason, but the Pacers were unable to secure the rebound -- despite the fact that both bigs were in the paint. 

For the game, after starting a perfect 6-of-6 on threes, the Pacers outscored the Rockets by 42 points from deep in what was a six-point margin of victory. On nights when they aren't red hot, the double-big lineups will have to play big. Otherwise, they'll just be tall for the sake of being tall.  

The patience of Myles Turner  

Despite the fact that Jalen has rediscovered his touch, knocking down 70 percent of his 27 three-point attempts, the Rockets still chose to guard with him Alperen Sengun so they could switch on screens from Turner with Jabari Smith. Turns out, Jalen's shot isn't the only thing that has changed since last season, when he was still starting at power forward. Myles has shown progress, too. 

After diving to the block as the hand-off setter, look at how Turner takes his time and locates the open man along the arc. Granted, Jalen Green was a bit slow to find his place scurrying out of the scram from Sengun, but Turner only assisted on five made field goals on passes out of the post last season. If teams are going to continue cross-matching against Jalen as a low-volume shooter and spotty driver, Turner's ability to punish switches with an eye for where to the throw the ball against extra attention, will be a counter for which they didn't previously have much access. 

If Aaron Nesmith is playing the three, then shouldn't he be defending threes?

With so many unfamiliar lineups in circulation, all of this is going to take some getting used to for everyone. Toppin threw an outlet pass to Jackson at half-court. Likewise, after directing traffic with Jackson and Smith on the floor at the same time, Haliburton attempted to toss a lob up to Jackson that the reserve big man thought was intended to be a shot. Overall, the lack of chemistry was apparent, which contributed to why the Pacers gave up 24 points off turnovers to a team that ranks 20th in opponent turnover rate. To be fair, it isn't exactly new that the Pacers surrendered 74 points in the paint (it's happened three times this season!), nor is it unique to see Haliburton guarding away from the ball, but it was somewhat jarring to watch him get bullied even when the Pacers were playing big with Nesmith at the three. 

These match-ups aren't the result of switches or transition cross-matches. Nesmith is defending Holiday, with Hield taking VanVleet and Haliburton matched-up with Brooks as the low-usage wing. Again, the Pacers don't generally have Haliburton defend at the point of attack, so that explains the defensive assignments for Hield and Nesmith, but Jalen doesn't even see the duck-in before it's too late and no one else seems all that intent on shrinking to help, either. As a result, what possessions like that go to show is that, regardless of whether the lineup they field is loaded with guards or bigs, they still have the propensity to either be too big or too small -- somewhere.    

Bennedict Mathurin at the point of attack 

Plus, the starting lineup isn't just about the starting lineup. It also has an impact on who comes off the bench and when. After Nesmith picked up two early fouls, as he is prone to do, Mathurin was the first sub in off the bench, followed by Hield who entered for Nembhard. That means Mathurin was responsible for corralling Green at the point of attack, which quickly led to a screen rejection. 

With Green functioning like electricity shooting through a cord, the defense is put in an unfamiliar scramble situation, but the Pacers also have two bigs on the floor and either Haliburton or Hield was destined to function as the low-man. Hmm. Moving forward, Mathurin clearly needs to force the ball-handler to use the screen, but there also probably needs to be some consideration for off-ball switching as the pick-and-roll develops so that the Pacers can actually make use of the size that they are putting on the floor. Either way, with Nembhard and Nesmith both starting, there's potential for some of the hybrid lineups to end up with various players having less than ideal defensive roles, depending upon how Brown gets deployed. 

Obi Toppin was largely invisible 

Here's some numbers: Toppin attempted three shots, tied for his fewest of the season, while setting a grand total of three picks. He also only played 15 minutes, as the team instead started big and closed small. As such, some of his lack of involvement can directly be tied to his limited amount of action, but he also only set 9.7 picks per 100 possessions -- compared to 13.2 for the season. 

Jackson, meanwhile, set 30.3 picks per 100 possessions, because (quite frankly) if he isn't setting picks, there isn't much for him to do as a rim-rolling five. To his credit, Toppin stayed mostly active. Mathurin has the option to find him streaking down the lane here and so does Nembhard for the lob when Toppin crashes from the corner. Instead, his only touch comes from an offensive rebound.

For the season, Toppin has only played 21 minutes without Haliburton, McConnell, or Brown on the floor. Again, this is going to take some getting used to -- for everyone. Still, if he isn't starting because of his defense, and he isn't as seen on offense with the bench, then neither he nor the team will exactly be accentuating each other's strengths. 

Andrew Nembhard as both the secondary and back-up point guard

When Tyrese Haliburton made his go-ahead three with 1:03 to play in the game, he effectively did what Fred VanVleet was attempting to do against Jalen Smith -- only with more momentum. Running the same play twice in a row, Haliburton got a PF screen from Aaron Nesmith to switch Jabari Smith onto the ball, followed by a screen from Myles Turner, with Alperen Sengun in drop. Rather than attempting to attack the rim, though, he pressured the defense with his shot. 

The Rockets rank 27th in blitzed picks per 100 possessions, so this game wasn't very revealing as to how this group will fare when the ball gets forced out of Haliburton's hands, but Houston did trap him in isolation after he made that dagger. Notably, whereas Hield would normally be stationed high to blur in front of Haliburton against the switch, Nembhard is the player who stayed adjacent, and when the double-team came, he manufactured points from the middle of the floor. 

Orlando doesn't do a lot of blitzing, either; however, when Jonathan Isaac was face-guarding Haliburton, Nembhard demonstrated the value of having another point guard on the floor who can run offense, while also guarding whichever player the Pacers don't want Haliburton guarding. 

Not unlike the Pacers, Nembhard had too many turnovers in Houston, leading the way with six, but after being briefly supplanted in the rotation by T.J. McConnell during the In-Season Tournament and then missing some time due to injury, he's earned playing alongside Haliburton and also playing back-up to Haliburton. By the end of the game, Nembhard wasn't just starting (again), he was also closing (again), somewhat metaphorically joining the same group, in Haliburton, Hield, Nesmith, and Turner, that the team pivoted to last season after ruling out Jalen as a starter.

In this game, Jalen left with 8:36 to play and never returned after appearing slow to get up following a collision. Whether he would've stayed on, remains to be seen, as does what the vision will eventually be for Bruce Brown. Whatever the case, for this game, the Pacers turned the past into the present, toggling between the two versions of themselves from last season that ultimately led them to pursue other options during the offseason. Now, either the present will become the future, with those options not featured as prominently as was expected. Or, the same lingering concerns that may have been somewhat masked by Houston's shot variance, will once again result in time being a flat circle, revealing that other options are indeed still needed.

In the meantime, they have a chance to make what's old new again -- adapting to the latest change,   while perhaps staving off or ushering in the broader change that could still be coming.