Finding meaning in the death of a winning streak

While I'm still on the mend, Samson offered to cover the Thunder game from Toronto -- which means a very talented Canadian got to write about a lot of great basketball being played by Canadians on both teams. Enjoy his words on the spark of intrigue the Pacers showed, even in a loss.  

By: Samson Folk I @samfolkk 

With one minute left in the game and a 2-point deficit to climb over, the Pacers placed their 2-3 zone in front of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder. Andrew Nembhard chased J-dub over the top of a screen before Williams found Gilgeous-Alexander on the wing. Given that the Thunder’s MVP is one of the great drivers of all time, he drove his closeout against Bennedict Mathurin, but was thwarted by Nembhard, who let his momentum carry him into the gap. The ball went back out to Williams and Nembhard sprinted back out to close it down. The ball settled and stopped. The shot clock hit 10, the ball went back to Gilgeous-Alexander, and he canned a pull-up triple in Mathurin’s face - and against a pretty great contest. Gilgeous-Alexander was inevitable, scoring 45 points to lead a Thunder team (that struggled greatly) to a win against a Pacers team that is in the midst of finding their footing. 

Outside of their MVP candidate, the Thunder shot less than 40-percent from the field and 30-percent from the 3-point line. He rescued them again and again in that resilient, slick, impossibly twisty way that only he can. When I watched ‘SGA’ in Toronto earlier this month, he shot 1-10 from downtown. All this to say, if you were enjoying the Pacers win streak and their 10th ranked defense over that time? Not all hope is lost. The Thunder struggled immensely at the rim, didn’t get there often, and won the game in the mid-range and in transition. Silver linings shouldn’t come easily for a team that is now 15-16 half a year after going to the Eastern Conference Finals, but the Pacers did some things well and got outdueled by a future MVP (I hope). 

I’ll have more on Nembhard next week, by the way. 

As far as other trends go, this was the best defensive game I’ve seen from Myles Turner in quite some time. The block number is obviously big and gaudy, but the Pacers as a whole did a pretty good job of keeping the ball out front and while Turner isn’t the go-to switch man on the team, he played a very important middle in the zone and his drop coverage was better than usual. Not to mention the blocks, the defensive playmaking is a really important punch that the defense needs. He also (with Pascal Siakam) did a better than usual job of sorting things out on the defensive glass. 

Of course, Tyrese Haliburton is the defining player of this Pacers squad and he struggled immensely in last night's game. There have been games in the past where Haliburton’s passivity can just be part and parcel of a humming offensive game – it was okay as the Pacers got three early triples from Siakam and the Thunder clanked shots early – but there were fits and starts last night, and stretches where Nembhard and Siakam were sitting; in those moments it was up to Haliburton to create big, great gobs of offense and that didn’t turn out in the wash. Of his 8 assists most were rote pitches or ball movement after the advantage had been created elsewhere. This multiplied the struggles the Pacers were having trying to lock down the transition possessions – where they gave up 2.2 points per possession – by constantly putting themselves on the back foot trying to stop ball and matchup as the floor shifted underneath them.

The brightest spot, of course, was Nembhard. Over the course of the five-game win streak he was providing 14 points and five assists per game on 65% true-shooting. Plugging in exceptionally well next to Haliburton, and in a game against the Thunder where the Pacers continuously looked to the periphery for offensive creation – where they needed more than a plug-in – Nembhard was more than willing to step into that role again and again. The Thunder throw a lot of long, tough defenders at guards and Nembhard created in a multitude of ways, whether it was finding the pocket for Siakam so he could assess and score over Isaiah Hartenstein; finding the pocket pass, then the reset and the handoff with Turner before carving out an edge for a layup. Those slick, run-ending middy pulls that he’s always had in his bag. It was quality work from Nembhard, who isn’t going to provide those massive creation numbers that Haliburton often sleepwalks into, but he’s an incredibly strong change up. 

It’s tough to zoom out when a win streak ends instead of zooming in, but this Pacers team is invested in its core and they finally had a big run of games that gives them something to hold onto (even if the schedule wasn’t the toughest). You don’t let a game against one of the best teams in the league, who may end up being a Finals team, actually - you don’t let that break your spirit. The Pacers haven’t fixed everything, and the roster doesn’t have all the weapons that a truly elite team has, but they have enough to be tinkerers. They can tinker and adjust and problem solve throughout the season and put themselves back in a position where they can do the same during the playoffs. 

It’s not often that you can drop in on the Pacers and like what you see, but even in a loss, they managed to provide a spark of something more last night.

Have a blessed day.