New Merch: Nobody said it would be Nembeasy

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By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

Down five with 35 seconds to play, the Sacramento Kings needed a quick score. As Zach LaVine rounded the bend of an off-ball screening action, it appeared as though he might have an easy shot at the basket. Crouching low on the catch, he attempted to snake his way to the rim while leaning into the body of Andrew Nembhard.

Then, he air-balled a layup.

"LaVine missed everything," Mark Jones said on the play-by-play of the Kings broadcast. "That one is really injurious. Now they're really hurting."

"I think he was expecting the contact," color commentator and former WNBA player Kayte Christensen added during the replay.

Like so many All-Star guards and talented up-and-comers before him, LaVine didn't know what hit him -- because, well, nothing ever actually hit him. As he has been doing all season, Nembhard countered for the bump-and-go by unexpectedly pulling the chair on the drive (yes, a drive). It's one thing to do that against a static post-up action. It's quite another to process the exact moment the contact is coming against an attacking, live-dribble. And yet, Nembhard has caught Jaylen Brown with this very maneuver in transition.

He's somehow predicted the next step of the human slinky that is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

He found the skeleton key to Trae Young's hostage dribble.

And he scrambled Shaedon Sharpe's jets midflight.

The list goes on: Devin Booker, Jordan Poole, Coby White, etc. By the end of their drive, they've all learned the same hard lesson. The Nembharder they push, the Nembharder they fall. After all, nobody said it would be Nembeasy.

Except for this shirt, that is.

Last season, from "hot girl basketball" to the "agrarian economy of buckets," the gear available for purchase through the Basketball, She Wrote shop at Teepublic paid tribute to an offense that at times seemed like a self-contained machine of inevitability, allowing the Pacers to win games even when they gave up 152 points against the Atlanta Hawks or were down multiple starters on the road in Sacramento. Now, the Pacers are still capable of putting up massive numbers (i.e. scoring came so easily in their 162-point, franchise-record setting performance against the Washington Wizards that they ended up taking multiple shot-clock violations to avoid further running up the score), but they've also found balance at the other end of the floor, with the imbalance created by Nembhard oftentimes factoring as a central figure.

As such, this isn't just the shirt for his innovative defensive tactic, in which he pulls the chair on drives; it's also about the push that the team has made this season in manufacturing a sturdier attack, very nearly ranking top-10 in both offense and defense since the start of the calendar year.

Turns out, "pretty girls" really can guard, too.

For all of these designs and more, here's the link to the Basketball, She Wrote shop -- where you can feel free to take it Nembeasy, as you dress to impress in an homage to the improved defense that is oftentimes spearheaded by none other than Andrew Nembhard.