Why the Pacers shouldn't fight that "sinking" feeling

Previewing a potential playoff tactic 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

The playoffs start in less than two weeks. At the time of this writing, the Pacers are in solid position to claim the No. 4 seed, which means hosting a first-round series against Milwaukee or Detroit, rather than facing a top-three team on the road. Those two teams play each other twice to close out the season. So, even if the Pacers lock up homecourt advantage early (as they likely will), they could still potentially be waiting until the eleventh hour to find out who they'll be playing. Either way, while it may be too premature to start looking ahead to specific match-ups, there is one particular tactic that could have application against both potential opponents.

To understand why, think back to Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Prior to that series, the Mavericks had attempted a league-high of 4.3 lobs per 100 possessions during the playoffs. And yet, by the time the final buzzer sounded on the opening game of the Finals in Boston, neither Derrick Lively nor Daniel Gafford had completed even a single lob. In part, the Celtics were able to keep the bigs for Dallas grounded because they held their ground -- at least in one specific area of the floor.

Normally, when a ball-handler punctures the paint on an empty-side pick-and-roll, the defensive big will provide the first line of help, sliding laterally from the dunker spot to absorb the ball at the rim while also being careful not to expose the rim. At the same time, if the penetrating guard draws help from the dunker's defender, then the corner defender is tasked with controlling two players, sinking into the legs of the lob threat while also maintaining a lane to close out to the corner, if need be.

Boston inverted that rotation. Rather than helping laterally from the dunker, Jaylen Brown stays attached, with Derrick White protecting the rim as the sink defender.

In effect, the passing window to the corner was bigger while increasing the burden on everyone else to defend more space. But, the window for the lob was never even slightly ajar, and the Celtics avoided giving up the size advantage that traditionally would've materialized with White cracking down to Lively.

For the game, with that rotation running counter to the expected norm, Luka Doncic also only finished with three passes to the corners, none of which led to a shot.

While it may or may not have been intentional, the Pacers appeared to try something similar during their most recent pair of games against Milwaukee.

Here, when the ball goes to Brook Lopez as the screener out of empty-side pick-and-roll, look at how Obi Toppin rotates to help as the sink defender, just as Derrick White did against Doncic's penetration. Meanwhile, Aaron Nesmith stays glued to Giannis Antetokounmpo as the lob threat.

Or, at least Nesmith tried to stay glued to Antetokounmpo as the lob threat. Ideally, to buy time for Toppin to recover out to the perimeter, Haliburton and McConnell would more so play the part of interceptor, splitting the difference between the remaining three offensive players and rotating with Haliburton taking first pass as opposed to overcommitting to the corner. Otherwise, McConnell arguably has to cover too much ground, resulting in an off-balance closeout. In the end, Nesmith still has to step up from the very spot and the very player that the defense was trying to take away.

Of course, it should be noted that Antetokounmpo also gave him some (ahem) encouragement to step up, which opened up the passing window to him in the dunker spot. Even so, the same tactic also made an appearance against the Nuggets. Here, during the empty-side pick-and-roll between Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic, Haliburton completely abandons Christian Braun on the weak-side as Sheppard, quite literally, stays within arm's reach of Aaron Gordon under the basket.

Trusting that Siakam can account for both shooters above the break, Haliburton anticipates the pocket pass to Jokic and comes away with the steal.

In that way, while Haliburton isn't the same caliber of rim protector as Derrick White, he has improved at playing cornerback and sticking his arms in passing lanes with more leeway to be active as a help defender. Those types of instincts in conjunction with that inverted rotation could come in handy against Detroit. For example, just imagine if the Pistons start playing Ausar Thompson as a short-roller to prevent Pascal Siakam from roaming, with Jalen Duren lurking along the baseline. This is Tobias Harris against the Pelicans, but the alignment is still instructive. If that's Thompson, then Turner would stay attached to Duren with Haliburton executing the same choreography from the corner as what was the case against Denver.

Conversely, if Thompson is weak-side corner, with the Pistons potentially targeting Haliburton head-on in the pick-and-roll, then the Pacers will be able to maintain size with Siakam executing the atypical rotation as the sink man.

On the season, Duren ranks third in total lob attempts (93), trailing only Nic Claxton (95) and Kel'el Ware (94). Needless to say, this type of stuff is a regular occurrence.

Last season, when Doncic only completed three passes to the corners in Game 1 against Boston, he averaged 8.864 such passes per 100 possessions during the regular season. For Cade Cunningham, who has control of the ball more than 35 percent of the time as a proportion of Detroit's offense, that number is just 4.702. Needless to say, if helping with the sink defender was capable of scrambling Doncic's processing speed, even for just a game, then perhaps there's reason to expect that doing the unexpected would have a similar effect on Cunningham.

Another factor to consider is the potential impact on the glass. The Pistons lead the Eastern Conference playoff field in offensive rebounding rate. If the player guarding Duren is hugging him instead of stepping up to help with a smaller player sinking into his legs, that should help keep him off the glass, with the same also potentially applying to Antetokounmpo, although he will likely spend more time being fronted in the post by smaller players than hanging out in the dunker spot.

At any rate, while it may not yet be clear which of Detroit or Milwaukee the Pacers will be playing in the first round, there's reason to think that, when it comes to limiting lobs and/or second chances, they might give themselves more of fighting chance if they don't fight that "sinking" feeling with the sink defender.