For Jarace Walker and the Pacers, how ready is ready?

Previewing Pacers-Bucks through the lens of the player who didn't play in the two most recent games against the Bucks

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

On March 17, when the Pacers dug deep into the bench to snap Minnesota's eight-game win streak on the road with Tyrese Haliburton, Aaron Nesmith, Pascal Siakam, and Myles Turner all unavailable, Jarace Walker hadn't played in any of the prior three games and his play during the fourth quarter and overtime, up until he limped off the floor following an awkward landing, seemed to indicate why.

Over a span of roughly three minutes, he committed two live-ball turnovers and racked up three fouls. Tellingly, anytime he was the primary assignment on Anthony Edwards, the Pacers committed two defenders to the ball on screening actions. When he was left alone in isolation, he got whistled for tripping up the star guard while parallel to the ball. On the next possession, he was no longer guarding Edwards. That responsibility had been transferred to two-way guard Quenton Jackson. Instead, Walker was opposite from Julius Randle. Or rather, behind and also above Julius Randle, as the sophomore forward got beat on a quick spin move in the post and left his feet on the contest before looking unsteady when he eventually returned to his feet after recording yet another shooting foul.

That's how his night ended, which arguably validated why his night never started in the prior game as a potentially critical match-up in the battle for homecourt advantage with the Milwaukee Bucks. And yet, while his presence in Minnesota didn't exactly justify carving out minutes for him against Milwaukee, his absence in Milwaukee, at least in terms of the length and size that was needed, appeared to make his case for him. And, quite frankly, along with his steadier play down the stretch of the season, should probably also make his case for him now.

On the night, the reserves for the Pacers didn't have much in reserve for the Bucks, as they were outscored 35-18 in bench points with Bennedict Mathurin and T.J. McConnell both finishing minus-34 on the court even though they each played less than 20 minutes. Granted, that's not an individual stat and single-game plus/minus can be noisy, but the blaring, minus-34 siren wasn't exactly sending a false alarm as to how much that group struggled. McConnell lacked his usual zip, coming up short around the basket while also looking too short in his defensive assignment against Kevin Porter Jr. Mathurin barely resembled Mathurin, as he only attempted a total of three shots, while appearing unusually deferential. Ben Sheppard's only shot was an air ball, and Thomas Bryant's lack of friction leveling up at the level of the screen ultimately resulted in Obi Toppin closing the game at the five after only logging five minutes of action against the Bucks in the prior match-up earlier that week.

With respect to Walker, that last piece of information, as it relates to the back-up five spot, is arguably the most pertinent. Just take a look at the sequence that transpired just before Bryant was subbed out in the third quarter and never returned after only logging 4:40 of action. If he wasn't going to load to the ball in transition, he has to wall up doubling from the top against the post mismatch -- or at least not get split after Giannis Antetokounmpo easily scales the wall.

Granted, that game occurred on the second night of a back-to-back for the Pacers, and there aren't back-to-backs in the playoffs, but it begs pointing out that neither Jalen Smith nor Isaiah Jackson played more than 25 minutes in last season's first-round series with the Bucks. Of course, this is a different Bucks team. Part of the reason why the Pacers went small a year ago is because Milwaukee was playing spread lineups with Bobby Portis and/or Danilo Gallinari at the five. Also, it remains to be seen whether Damian Lillard will be available after being diagnosed with a blood clot in his right calf. Like Smith, Bryant struggled to maintain the edge of the defense in space against Lillard while applying extended pressure.

If Lillard is healthy enough to play on a team that will now, unlike last season, also feature a healthy version of Antetokounmpo, it seems likely that Obi Toppin, or perhaps even Pascal Siakam, could once again end up taking on more minutes at nominal five -- especially since those small-ish bench lineups for the Bucks are still going to exist, just (you know) with Antetokounmpo generating a slew of rim shots or threes for Gary Trent Jr., Kevin Porter Jr., AJ Green, and Portis.

Indiana's lineup construction has already been trending in that direction for awhile, regardless of match-ups. Since the aforementioned road win over Minnesota, Bryant has only averaged 6.8 second-half minutes per game, compared to 8.3 over his prior 39 games. Whether fronting Domantas Sabonis in the post or merely downsizing when other teams (such as both the Luka-full Lakers and Luka-less Mavericks) have downsized, it's seemed as though the Pacers have been gearing up for the playoffs by testing their ability to play bigger without a traditional big on the floor. That matters, because the secondary rim protection can't look like this in hybrid units when Antetokounmpo is on the floor.

As previously mentioned, McConnell got overwhelmed by Porter's size on a few occasions in this game, and it's getting harder to ignore how much less he's been guarding at the point of attack recently.

For example, there was a possession against the Brooklyn Nets when Siakam was assigned to D'Angelo Russell instead of him that ended with him getting spun out while defending a second-side action. There were more than a few possessions in Denver when Mathurin and Johnny Furphy were opposite from Russell Westbrook rather than him, and it was telling when he only logged a total of five half-court match-ups against Lillard in Milwaukee.

If McConnell continues to look a step slow, as he has since returning from his pair of ankle injuries, then even more pressure will be on Siakam and/or Toppin to turn the ball back from the restricted area. In the clip that was shown above, the group that was playing didn't take away anything: not the ball-handler, screener, or secondary release valve. And that's with Jericho Sims lurking along the baseline; not with a shooter spaced out to the corner, waiting to reap the benefits of Antetokounmpo's gravitational waves.

When Andrew Nembhard isn't on the floor, Ben Sheppard is the stickiest on-ball defender among the bench options. With his rapid ability to slide his feet and cover ground, he allows the lowest blowby percentage on the team, at just 14.11 percent, but his ground-bound, straight up-and-down contests don't always have much effect, especially if he has to absorb a bump. And he's also been sidelined the last few games with a toe sprain. If he's cleared to play and can find his shot, there could still very well be a place for him in the rotation as a wheel-greaser between actions on offense while dialing up the pressure on defense. That said, it's hard to forget what happened during closing time against the short-handed and short-limbed Mavericks when Pascal Siakam was repeatedly attacked in isolation at the five as part of a lineup with Nembhard, Sheppard, Mathurin, and Nesmith.

On the one hand, he and Sheppard were integral to the full-court press that led to Siakam's game-winning steal. On the other hand, there just isn't enough rim protection on the floor -- even after Nesmith was swapped onto PJ Washington in place of Siakam.

Siakam has been sturdier as part of those smaller attacks in recent games. Late in the nail-biting win over the Kings, he stayed down on a pump fake from DeMar DeRozan and then also stuck with Malik Monk in isolation, all while going from chasing over to veer-back switching to playing in drop to switching again. But, there was a key difference. He only played 7:51 in the fourth quarter of that game, in which he also hit a big, late-game three. In the win over the Mavericks, he played the entire final frame, picking up Washington full-court on the very first possession of the quarter until eventually he was cast off onto Spencer Dinwiddie and then also Max Christie.

On the season, the Pacers have been a mammoth 12.2 points per 100 possessions better on defense with Siakam on the court, which ranks in the 100th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. Along with Nembhard, he's been among the biggest reasons for the team's turnaround at the end of the floor, with his improved understanding of scheme, buy-in, and ability to pounce on leaks while toying with angles and providing a shadow presence as a roamer. But, similar to McConnell, he can exhibit steep declines when playing too many consecutive minutes in conjunction with all that is asked of him on offense as well as defense. In Milwaukee, after he did a bunch of heavy lifting in the second quarter, tallying 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting to pull the Pacers to within five going into halftime, he started showing some signs of fatigue late in the third quarter against Antetokounmpo, when he looked as though lunging in recovery may even be asking too much.

There were times where he still managed to impress while pushing through obvious signs of fatigue. Here, at the end of the second quarter in which he played all 12 minutes, he can be seen at the bottom of the frame giving Nesmith a gentle push toward Antetokounmpo, as if to say "tag me out."

After relenting himself to play the part of Atlas yet again, hoisting the weight of the cosmos back up on his shoulders, he knocked the ball loose from Antetokounmpo while putting a stop to an empty-side dribble hand-off between Milwaukee's two most central stars. At the start of the fourth quarter of the home win, Siakam scored or assisted on 11-straight points. By the end of the fourth quarter, Antetokounmpo had been held scoreless, while attempting only one shot.

Siakam is capable of measuring up, but he's going to need a boost from his teammates to maintain the heights of his defensive ceiling. If the toll on him was already noticeable in the regular season; it's going to be immense across a seven-game series.

Again, some of that can probably be attributed to the fact that both of these games occurred on the second night of a back-to-back, which won't be occurring in the playoffs, but guarding Antetokounmpo at all is somewhat contrary to his normal role on defense. For example, when the Pacers played the Raptors, he didn't start out opposite from Scottie Barnes or RJ Barrett, he was guarding Ochai Agbagi. By and large, barring a few exceptions such as Kevin Durant, who attacks more so with the high release of his shot than blowby speed, Siakam typically takes on lower usage assignments so that he can fill in the cracks of the defense with his lateral size. And yet, with 136 half-court match-ups, the player he has defended the most this season is Antetokounmpo. In part, because if not him, then who?

Over the last two games of the regular-season series, the only three players who logged 15 or more half-court match-ups against Antetokounmpo were Siakam (71), Nesmith (22), and Turner (15), the latter of which materialized predominantly by way of switching on 4-5 screening actions rather than relying on Siakam's sometimes shaky screen navigation. Nesmith reps will likely increase. He can climb the Antetokounmpo-Lopez screening actions without requiring a switch, and there's wrinkles the Pacers can try to minimize the size advantage in the post or when hanging around in the dunker spot that could potentially pay dividends on the glass. (For more on the potential Nesmith-Antetokounmpo match-up, read "Why the Pacers shouldn't fight that sinking feeling")

Otherwise, no one else has really factored. There was a pinch of Bennedict Mathurin picking up full-court, with the team dropping into a zone that could perhaps be further explored, but the results got gnarly in a hurry when Siakam and Nesmith were both off the floor while Antetokounmpo was still playing (i.e. the possession when Bryant didn't load to the ball in transition and Haliburton, of all defenders, had no choice but to latch onto Antetokounmpo is a thing that exists!).

It may not have happened much, but the Pacers got outscored 18-9 in only four minutes played under those lineups conditions in the two most recent games.

That means, the Pacers will either have to stagger Siakam and Nesmith to match Antetokounmpo's minutes, with no exceptions, or try the only other wing-sized wing on the roster: Jarace Walker.

In March, Walker played zero minutes against this version of the Milwaukee Bucks, let alone opposite from Antetokounmpo. He did, however, take on that assignment for a bit during the fourth quarter of the loss on New Year's Eve. During that stretch, in addition to giving up an odd-man advantage for a layup while applying full-court pressure, Antetokounmpo knocked down a pair of contested jump-shots outside the paint.

The Pacers almost always double from the top against post mismatches, so in that case, although Antetokounmpo technically made a tough shot, Walker needed to force him to turn middle into the help.

On the season, Antetokounmpo has shot 44.2 percent on jump-shots inside the arc, which is up from 34.6 percent a year ago. In games against the Pacers, he's gone 8-of-15 (53.3 percent), outperforming his expected effective field-goal percentage on those shots (35.9 percent) by 17.4 percent.

He's added that shot to his arsenal for the playoffs, and in a sense, that's probably what the Pacers will have to be willing to live with, especially if the majority of the attempts are hoisted over Siakam or Walker, who can play closer to the ball than what reasonably can be expected from Turner while also providing more length to contest than the rest of the non-center options on the roster.

Plus, even if Walker doesn't take on any of the burden against Antetokounmpo directly from Nesmith and Siakam, his hand activity and ability to rotate as the low-man could potentially lend an (ahem) helping hand in terms of rim protection to lineups without a rim protector. Over the last two meetings, the Pacers narrowly outscored the Bucks, 41-40, in 14 minutes without either of Turner or Bryant on the floor. But, that's just it. They were definitely reliant on "outscoring" the Bucks, as they gave up 133.3 points per 100 possessions in those minutes (small sample size alert!), with Milwaukee shooting 80 percent at the rim. This is quite a bit different from what was possible with the ultra-small lineups against Dallas.

Walker isn't always that connected and timely with his off-ball defense, but no one else on the roster has the tools and measurables to provide the type of scaffolding that may be required for the Pacers to play bigger while still going small.

Given that he didn't play in the prior two games against this version of the Bucks, though, he will effectively be going from 0-to-60 if he gets hard launched into the rotation for Game 1 of the playoffs. There's been a gentle ramp-up of late. Since his somewhat disastrous end-of-game minutes against Minnesota, he's slowly earned bringing himself up to speed, averaging 16.4 minutes per game while making a few cameos in high-leverage situations, including as a stand-in for Siakam during closing time in Denver. Plus, he's been canning every three in sight, knocking down 25 of his last 48 three-point attempts, with over 20 percent of the attempts being self-created and over 50 percent being heavily contested. Put simply, he's really been slinging it.

That bodes in his favor for a few reasons. In addition to the fact that making shots is clearly better than missing shots, the Bucks rank fourth in zone frequency and third in zone efficiency, in terms of points allowed per 100 possessions, among the 21 teams that have played at least 100 possessions of zone. On New Year's Eve, Milwaukee stalled out the offense for the Pacers playing 27 possessions of zone while erasing a 19-point lead. Lots has changed for both teams since then. Indiana put in a new, swirling motion zone buster, and Milwaukee retooled their roster at the trade deadline, but they tend to go zone, as they did while clawing out of a big deficit against Minnesota as well as in Detroit, when the previously mentioned Antetokounmpo-Portis-Trent-Porter-Green lineup is on the floor.

As such, if Walker gets tapped to match small-ball with small(ish)-ball, his ability to stay hot from deep could be of extra importance and help him stay on the floor. Plus, like what was covered following the win over Sacramento, more teams have been cross-matching their bigs onto Walker and Nesmith rather than Siakam. Given that Brook Lopez only last two games matched-up against Siakam in the playoffs last season, if the Bucks opt to go that route in order to switch the Haliburton-Turner pick-and-rolls (i.e. Turner probably isn't going to keep shooting 3-of-18 from three against the Bucks as he did in the two most recent games), Walker will need to be able to hit the shots that the defense is daring him to take, while also knowing where to station himself after setting a screen and between actions.

Beyond the fact that Haliburton wasn't in the game, that was a bit of an issue on the final offensive possession of the night for Indiana against the Lakers. The Pacers got a favorable switch with Nembhard staring down Doncic, but Walker cramped the spacing for both Nembhard and Siakam with his positioning.

Offense is spacing and spacing is offense, neither of which are merely a factor of making or missing shots. There also continues to be some lapses in motor that don't exactly instill confidence when every possession has to be valued in the playoffs.

This is two missed rebounding chances in a row.

And then there was also a third -- all on the same possession.

To be fair, the team as a whole hasn't exactly been at the the peak of their powers in terms of energy and effort over the last few games, but that's slightly harder to explain for a player who has dealt with this recurrently throughout the season while also trying to carve out a spot in the playoff rotation. In that regard, if the team's coverage at the wing position against De'Andre Hunter (before De'Andre Hunter and the rest of the best players available for the already undermanned Cavs were pulled during closing time of the win that clinched homecourt advantage for the Pacers) is at all indicative of what can be expected with a spread floor against Antetokounmpo, then all of this will be a moot point.

Assuming that the Pacers elevate to meet the moment in the playoffs, as they so often have this season while playing to the level of their competition in ways both good and bad, Jarace Walker certainly won't be to blame as a rotation player if Indiana doesn't advance past the Bucks. However, for all of the reasons previously mentioned, he could very well be a critical swing-factor as to why they potentially do.

Either way, for a team that saw continuity and development as the right path to improvement, the stage is set for the Pacers to find out how ready is ready -- both as it pertains to him as well as their current model of team-building.

Walker provided retroactive reason in Minnesota for why he didn't play the prior game in Milwaukee. When evaluating the games since he limped off the floor during overtime against the Timberwolves, there aren't enough reasons in this match-up with the Bucks for why he shouldn't be proactively tried and given the chance to both redo the past and live out the future while playing, from 0-to-60 and (hopefully) at full-throttle, in the present moment.