Pacers take "liberties" with opening set

Another example of WNBA influence in the NBA, along with other observations from a win that didn't see the Pacers sleepwalking against Memphis

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

Back on the first day of December, when the Pacers played the Memphis Grizzlies on the road, Tyrese Haliburton was inconspicuously present, operating almost like an invisible string that existed only to pull and tug at the geometry of the floor. In that regard, whereas rookie Jaylen Wells only had eyes for Haliburton, attaching himself to the star guard as though he had sown himself to his shadow, there were times in which the camera completely lost sight of him.

Just look at this unhinged possession from approximately the 7:45 mark of the first quarter. When the ball goes to Andrew Nembhard in the corner with cross-matches everywhere in sight, Wells crawls even closer to Haliburton, ignoring the action developing behind him, as the Pacers proceed to play 4-on-4 with the camera panning over to the players still involved.

From there, with Turner scurrying out of frame to screen for Haliburton, while apparently oblivious to the fact that he's being guarded by Ja Morant, the camera gently sways between the action at half court and what's happening in the half-court, almost as if to provide a commentary on the haphazardness with unintentionally dramatic, cinematic effect.

Of course, despite being down by two players, there can still be an advantage to playing 3-on-3 with extra space, especially when Pascal Siakam is on the floor and capable of drawing two defenders. Still, it's telling that even when Bennedict Mathurin caught the ball at the opposite wing with no one within arm's reach to contest, Wells ultimately ran away from stunting to reattach himself to Haliburton.

Wild stuff! By the end of the frame, the Pacers had amassed 45 points, with Haliburton functioning like negative space in art to accentuate his teammates, but they ended up getting outscored 108-79 on just 42 percent shooting while committing 15 turnovers the rest of the way. With Nembhard on a minutes restriction that held him out for the second half of that game, there weren't as many secondary ball-handlers available to initiate as a salve while Haliburton was locked up in an off-ball wrestling match with the physicality he hadn't quite adjusted to yet.

Eleven weeks later, a lot has changed, including a change in approach from both him and the Pacers -- at least against this particular match-up. In December, Haliburton didn't attempt a shot against the Grizzlies until nearly four minutes into the second quarter. In this game, by comparison, he let the ball fly within the first minute.

That was by design. In anticipation of the exaggerated coverage, the Pacers took some, you might say, "liberties" to spring him free.

"We have a friend of ours, who's a German coach, the assistant coach for the New York Liberty, who's been visiting for three-and-a-half days," Rick Carlisle told reporters following Indiana's 127-113 win over Memphis. "He's also Sandy Brondello's husband. They coach together at New York. We had him draw up the first play, knowing how they were going to play Wells, and we got a great look."

This isn't the first time that the Pacers have drawn inspiration or gathered insights from the WNBA. During the Eastern Conference Finals, Indiana also ran an end-of-game, need-a-three play that was devised by assistant coach Jenny Boucek, with an origin story that dates back to her days playing flag football as well as to discussions she once had with Sue Bird while head coach of the Seattle Storm.

In this case, it seems likely that Olaf Lange, the German coach who Carlisle is referencing, may have borrowed directly from some of the concepts that the Liberty deploy as counters for Sabrina Ionescu.

For example, my friend, Evin Gualberto, who coaches at one of the most prestigious high school basketball programs in the country and has over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, shared this clip from the Liberty's playbook last season. When Ionescu is being top-locked, with Kelsey Plum's body parked between her and a potential screen, notice how she sheds the coverage by instead setting a back-screen and then receiving a screen to curl back toward the ball for three.

The initial alignment for the Pacers isn't the same. Indiana is playing out of delay, with Turner wheeling at the top of the key, whereas the Liberty actually triggered that action out of horns, but make note of Haliburton. With Wells top-locking him in the same manner as Plum, as expected, he rejects the potential pindown from Nembhard to instead set a slice screen (or back-screen at the wing) for Siakam.

Like Ionescu, after setting the back-screen, he then receives a screen to curl back toward the ball out of a similar screen-the-screener concept for an open three.

As such, it appears once again as though off-ball actions really do, in fact, exist in the NBA as well as the WNBA, but I digress. Overall, the machinations of the two plays clearly aren't identical, but that's likely for good reason. In addition to anticipating the coverage from Wells, Lange and the Pacers were likely also anticipating the coverage from Zach Edey. With the former Purdue standout typically standing in the lane while defending in drop, Turner created space with contact on the perimeter by veering out of a screen for Nembhard into a pindown for Haliburton out of what the Pacers call "smash" action.

In that way, Turner didn't just make an impact by draining shots out of the pick-and-pop in the second quarter, which eventually led to him drawing defenders from the weak-side after halftime, he also made an impact by making an actual impact with his screens, as well as, sometimes, not screening at all. When Edey wasn't on the floor, Turner would deliberately place himself in the ball-side corner, so as to tether Jaren Jackson Jr. away from the basket. Here, with the Pacers spacing the guards at the blocks with the bigs in the corners, there's considerably less size and length for Haliburton to contend with at the rim.

For a player who has attempted just 12 percent of his shots at the rim this season, marking a career low, that inverted spacing contributed to why he was able to glide into taking four shots in the restricted area, tying his second-most in any game this season. Meanwhile, the opposite played out at the other end of the floor. Similar to the Pacers, Memphis is flattening out the defense to create a wider gap for Ja Morant to attack into by filling the dunker spot; however, unlike the Pacers, the dunker spot is filled with Edey instead of a guard.

That means, Morant is driving into a considerably more size and length against Turner, than what was the case in reverse for Haliburton against Bane. Granted, that wasn't the only reason why Turner finished with seven blocks for the seventh time in his career, and the fact that Edey was around the basket meant that he was in closer vicinity to the glass (as can be seen above). Even so, those subtle adjustments, be it setting screens with contact, flattening out the defense with inverted spacing, or taking very literal "liberties" from the New York Liberty, contributed to why the Pacers didn't come out of the break sleepwalking against Memphis.

Shots may not have fallen early for the Pacers, as they immediately fell into a 12-2 hole, but they were certainly taken early, with Haliburton hoisting up just his fifth three-pointer of the season with at least 11 minutes remaining in the first quarter.

In contrast to the prior game versus the Grizzlies, he wasn't inconspicuously present. Rather, almost from the jump, in was what was designed from WNBA designs, he was noticeably -- and premeditatively -- activated.