Pacers allow what they discourage in historic loss

Turns out, threes aren't company without Tyrese Haliburton

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper 

The Tyrese Haliburton-less Pacers were on the wrong side of history on Wednesday night, as they suffered the second-worst defeat ever for the franchise, falling 155-104 to the Boston Celtics, who led by as many as 53 points and won by 51. Needless to say, a lot of shots were made by the Celtics and not a lot of shots were made by the Pacers, especially from beyond the arc, where Indiana got outscored by 45 points, going 5-of-37 from three compared to 20-of-35 for Boston. With one team ice-cold and the other breathing flames, it's fair to ask how much of the drubbing was a product of shot variance versus correctable mistakes. In that regard, teams have much more control over the volume and location of opponent threes than they do over three-point percentage. Just consider what happened at the start of the third quarter, when Jayson Tatum drilled a step-back three from the corner over the outstretched arm of Myles Turner just before Bennedict Mathurin walked into an open shot at the top of the key and came up empty. It's a (star-driven) make-or-miss league!

Still, given the team's aim of defending individual match-ups while limiting three-point attempts, some of the shots that were allowed either weren't in line with the intended purposes of the scheme or were a reflection of the scheme's limitations as executed by the current personnel.

Let's review, organized by defensive concept while focusing on the process rather than the results.

Locking in on match-ups in transition

When the Pacers transition from offense to defense, it isn't uncommon to see someone hold up a raised fist. In the past, that was the signal for zone. Now, that's the way they communicate who's taking the ball -- which should always be the focus in transition, as opposed to buddying up. Alas, despite the clear emphasis on getting the ball stopped and preventing advantages from being created, there's been a tendency for some to get locked into who they're supposed to be locking up. Think back to the first defensive possession of the game against the Bulls. Following a live-ball turnover, Mathurin is pointing out Coby White, as Haliburton's defensive assignment, rather than assigning himself to defending the Bulls, as a team.

This also showed up against Boston, when Mathurin didn't take the ball, despite being directed to by Turner, who was then left to fend for himself against Tatum. It's fair to ask why Tatum opted to keep a three a three instead of attacking the basket, but this isn't the ideal match-up regardless.

After all, if Tatum had attacked the basket, look at who would've been responsible for trapping the box as the secondary rim protector. With Kristaps Porzingis standing at the weak-side wing, Obi Toppin switches away from the ball to prevent the mismatch, which means his potential rotation to the basket is going to be longer and harder, requiring Nembhard to instead stay vertical while giving up size. Of course, that's just hypothetical and an illustration of the offensive versatility that the Celtics added by trading for Porzingis. At any rate, there were also several instances where the Pacers didn't play close enough to the ball, prioritizing both Jrue Holiday and Derrick White as drivers, while also smashing down on drives at the expense of shooters.

Overhelping

Here is an example of all of the above. As was laid out in the scenario with Toppin, when the ball starts to cross the free throw line, Isaiah Jackson has to cover a lot of ground in order to help from above the break as the rim protector.

Of course, it bears asking whether that help was actually needed -- especially against Payton Pritchard, who is capable of getting ahead of his defender at the point of attack but doesn't always keep his dribble going. In essence, with Nembhard still in solid position to level off the ball, this is what the Pacers want to avoid. Jackson manages to rush back out to the perimeter, but Hield is already in the process of rotating because … well … that's Jayson Tatum. After splitting the defense, Tatum yields to Nembhard in the paint; however, with Sam Hauser drifting to the corner, the closeout is much longer for Hield than what would've been the case if everyone had stayed home.

That isn't always going to be possible. When Pritchard loses McConnell here, someone has to rotate to the basket, but it can't be multiple someone(s).

To that point, Jarace Walker has two choices. Before the penetration happens, he either needs to switch away from the ball so he can stay low. Or, when Jordan Nwora rotates, he has to split the difference and take the first pass. Otherwise, as was the case with Jackson, he's compromising the defense. Walker has potential as a secondary rim protector (i.e. he blocked a shot earlier on this same possession!), but he needs to curb some of his enthusiasm for chasing the ball.

Cross-Matching

More than being overly focused on match-ups in transition that they're being groomed to stop without help in the half-court or helping when help isn't needed or wanted from a specific location, this is arguably the most telling synopsis of the challenges the Pacers face on defense -- even when Haliburton and Mathurin aren't in the game. When Al Horford played, which was only for all of 11 minutes, Nesmith took on the assignment against Porzingis with Turner defending the corners.

That's no different from last season. When the Pacers played the Wizards, Turner matched-up with Deni Avdija in order to keep his passive size around the rim and out of ball screens actions. Meanwhile, Hield or Nesmith would defend Porzingis -- albeit with mixed results. That made sense for a roster that was typically playing eight guards and could be explained by wanting to switch to take away the pop and needing Turner as a backstop. In that regard, Porzingis obviously no longer plays for the Wizards, but the Pacers even had Turner defending Avdija at the end of the first half of the regular-season opener, with Nesmith checking Kyle Kuzma and Nembhard assigned to Jordan Poole. And yet, for all of the discussion about the team's defense at the point of attack (which is warranted), there probably needs to be some discussion as to why they aren't having him swallow up pick-and-rolls despite playing in a lineup that includes Nembhard, Nesmith, and Bruce Brown.

When he's defending at the five in this scheme, he is expected to be up to a touch, only so far as to nudge the screener into setting the screen to protect against a quick out, before going into his backpedal. If the ball breaks the free throw line, the on-ball defender then veers into the legs of the roller, with him absorbing the ball. The goal is to defend the pick-and-roll 2-on-2 without fully committing a third defender. When Haliburton is at the point of attack, that becomes more of a challenge, seeing as how Coby White managed to engage both Turner and Haliburton at the same time without anyone attending to Nikola Vucevic.

Here, the match-ups are swapped, with Brown defending White. Haliburton is pulled over further and earlier than what is usually the case, which leads to a long closeout, but Turner's timing is a bit off on the rotation and then he doesn't exactly impact the shot -- although he's holding opponents to just 47 percent on field-goals defended at the rim, while contesting 10.5 attempts per game.

In the aforementioned possession against Boston, the Pacers aren't even switching the stack action. Nesmith pushes Porzingis to set the screen, like a big, and then retreats to break up the lob with Nembhard and Hield switching the guard screens. Meanwhile, Turner isn't over far enough to tag the roll or collect the rebound, and he still gives up the corner three. This seems noteworthy, especially in the sense that the cross-matching wasn't a product of who was available at the point of attack or the lack of options to maintain size at the four spot, if they so chose, to keep Turner as a five defending fives. No, in this case, he was deliberately deployed as a weak-side roamer to keep him out of the action and away from defending in space, which resulted in second-chance points.

There's certain match-ups and certain shooters where the Pacers will be willing to live with giving up those types of shots, which likely includes Horford (i.e. they didn't cross-match when Horford wasn't playing), but that type of coverage isn't easy to replicate with the starting lineup. For the sake of comparison, here is a rare sighting of Obi Toppin defending a the five against the same action as Nesmith. Except, Toppin switches the ball screen, with Jordan Nwora then assuming that they were going to also switch the back-screen. Instead, Toppin chases over, which they don't generally have him do as the on-ball defender, which results in Hauser knocking down the fourth of his five made threes -- matching Indiana's total as a team.

Again, defenses don't have a lot of impact on makes or misses, but they do have some control over the volume of attempts. Tatum made some tough shots without much, if any, breathing room. White was rising above the switch pocket like he was Haliburton in Miami, and Hauser canned a three while he was almost out of bounds. For the game, Boston shot 9-of-18 (50%) on contested threes, compared to 11-of-16 (68%) on uncontested threes. Everything was coming up (or rather falling through the net) for Boston. Still the Pacers made a lot of burn-the-tape level of mistakes in allowing what they aim to discourage, like ducking under against hot shooters, giving too much cushion to the ball in transition, and not being watertight switching or not switching off-ball screens, while also breaking from scheme and highlighting the difficulty of executing the scheme with certain combinations. On a night when Haliburton didn't play, following a game in which he got repeatedly hunted, the defense didn't improve as a matter of addition by subtraction. Rather, for a scheme that's geared around limiting three-point attempts, some of the problems only multiplied -- including Indiana's ability to fight fire-with-fire when their opponent doesn't have to take the ball out of the net as often and Haliburton isn't available.