The Pacers made the "play better" adjustment

May the praise be as loud as the criticism 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

Defense shouldn't only be assessed by makes and misses. After all, there are times when players make tough shots, and there are also times when players miss open shots. Just look at this possession from Friday's loss to the Miami Heat. Miami frequently employs high ball-screens, get actions, and pindowns connected to hand-offs, with 45-cuts accompanying each one. Generally speaking, that combination sets off a chain reaction of decisions for the defense in which (at least for this roster) there isn't an obvious right answer.

If the nail defender (Tyrese Haliburton) plugs the nail to aid the defender chasing over the hand-off, his man might get an open layup. Alternatively, if Haliburton releases from the nail to stay attached to the 45-cutter, that will open up a double-gap for the ball-handler. At that point, once the double gap is created, the player guarding the shooter in the corner is either going to have to help one pass away or rely on the help from the weak-side to prevent the layup.

Of course, the Pacers never even reached that point of the decision-making matrix, as Haliburton effectively jump-switched onto the ball as the next nearest defender in conjunction with a meandering Bennedict Mathurin, who neither peeled off to the 45-cutter nor veered into the legs of the hand-off setter, which meant that a somewhat casual Jarace Walker was left to pick his poison between tracking the 45-cutter and exposing the corner.

Not great! Turns out, nearly the same thing happened during Sunday's win over the Miami Heat. Just like in the loss, the 45-cutter is putting a lot of tension on the player defending at the nail. See how Siakam is effectively glitching between preventing the ball-handler from getting downhill and releasing from the help to stay with the cutter?

And that's even with Mathurin and Turner switching the ball-screen, which didn't occur in the prior example. In that case, Siakam should've left with the cutter, as help shouldn't be as necessary when the on-ball defender isn't chasing over. At any rate, Haliburton ends up being confronted by the same dilemma as Walker: risk giving up an open layup to the cutter or expose the corner. Just like Walker, he chose the cutter, resulting in an open three, as Siakam was late to rotate in recognition of the off-ball switch. The only difference is, the shot didn't go in.

All things considered, with the exception of the switch from Mathurin and Turner, which arguably would've been ill-advised with Tyler Herro as the ball-handler in the loss on Friday night, the process wasn't necessarily better, even though the outcome was obviously more favorable. And yet, the same can't be said for the game as a whole, nor when doing side-by-side comparisons of many of the other breakdowns. In that regard, when evaluating both from the standpoint of methodology, as well as the final result, the Pacers were significantly more tied together in their bid to tie up the regular-season series.

As such, following plenty of criticism, here's equal amounts of praise, highlighting their adjustment to "play better," presented in the form of yet another cheesy listicle: "Five Times the Pacers revealed a dramatic before-and-after effect on defense."

1) When the statement they made on the opening possession was as loud as the vibrant hues on their uniforms against the backdrop of a grayed-out court

For reference, that is the exact set play that Miami ran coming out of halftime on Friday, when the Pacers made it seem as though a cross-screen was some sort of complex labyrinth.

Granted, Kevin Love still got a shot off in both instances, but there's a sizable difference between getting pushed outside the paint to turn into a jump-shot, with Siakam chasing through, rather than basically completing a Mikan drill from under the basket, after Siakam ran into contact with Haliburton seeing the ball and only the ball.

2) When Bennedict Mathurin got a steal defending a cut

That may seem rudimentary, but it isn't always guaranteed that Mathurin will even recognize that someone has cut behind him, let alone snap his head while extending his outside arm to maintain vision of the ball while tracking his man.

Remember, this was a thing that happened on Friday.

That obviously isn't the same play-type; however, after making a strong initial thrust (like veering back to the screener in that instance), he has a tendency to relax as though the work is done. This time, he snapped himself, quite literally, back to action.

3) When they rotated out of the double team from the bottom of the defense against the mismatch without getting discombobulated 

Just like on Friday, Haliburton 3/4 fronted the post to force the ball toward the baseline, with Siakam doubling from the bottom. Unlike on Friday, however, Haliburton maintained the 3/4 front instead of getting leveraged into the full front. As such, Siakam came to double, inching over the midline on the flight of the pass rather than having to rush to protect against the lob that was already made. Additionally, although there wasn't an off-ball screen from Robinson to contend with, Haliburton filtered out to the weak-side and motioned for Mathurin to rotate down to the corner, as opposed to what happened here.

4) When the low-man functioned as the low-man   

This is not the same coverage. On Friday, Mathurin switched and Siakam didn't duck under the screen to switch, so the screener got loose at the rim. Meanwhile, the low-man was Haliburton, which means, for all intents and purposes, there basically wasn't a low-man.

On Sunday, Turner defended the two-man game screening action up-to-a-touch with Haliburton chasing over. When Adebayo was a quick out, Turner went with him, which meant the low-man needed to engage at the rim and, whad'ya know, the low-man actually engaged. Plus, since Mathurin jumped while staying vertical as the secondary rim protector, he was able to induce a hang-time pass, which bought time for Siakam to rotate to the corner.

5) When actual friction was applied against Bam Adebayo at point center

Anytime Adebayo was the bring-up ball-handler, Turner was picking him up higher up the floor and, typically, applying at least some pressure with his hand activity. There, after waiting for him outside the three-point line and not giving him room to attack off the dribble, Turner also played traffic cop, calling for Mathurin to engage as the low-man (hey, it happened again!), before starting the process to peel off to the corner, only to quickly double back in the direction of Adebayo after realizing that Siakam could make that rotation faster. Then, when he was square to Adebayo, he stayed square to Adebayo, even after absorbing a bump. In the end, the third time was also the charm. After going to set a screen and getting the ball back, Adebayo finally got a shot off, but he was leaning away from the basket on the release.

For reference, this was the last sighting of the starters on Friday before they were wholesale substituted for the second and final time in the game.

Notably, with Turner hopping around a phantom screen, Adebayo basically sauntered into an open shot, rather than being labored to even get a shot.

Overall, while certainly not a flawless defensive performance (if such a thing could ever even reasonably exist), it also very notably wasn't a feckless defensive performance. Adebayo, still got loose a time or two, finishing with 24 points, which included a few easy shots at the rim. Haliburton gave up a couple of back-cuts. They could've been better finishing stops with rebounds, as Miami became the fourth team this season to snatch 15 or more offensive boards against the Pacers, and there was a very clear and definite reason why, in addition to providing a pressure release for Haliburton on offense, T.J. McConnell got the nod in the closing lineup, albeit for an increasingly thin rotation, as he was needed to take on the assignment of playing closer to the ball against a late-game flurry from Tyler Herro.

Even so, there was obvious areas of improvement on that end of the floor when compared to the prior game, most of which were the product of better energy being applied to the scheme as opposed to expecting the scheme to do the work for them as the source of energy. To once again borrow from what Turner said at Media Day, in a call-back to what was written following Friday's loss: This time, the Pacers were "the motion," holding on just tight enough even as they started to let go of the rope, rather than merely going through the motions.

"I'm so emotionally invested into this season, more than I ever have been in my career," Turner told reporters following the win, in which he also amassed 34 points while playing sturdier defense in over 40 minutes of action. "I think there were a few years here in Indy, where I kind of felt like I was in limbo, just going through the motions, but I'm way past that now."

For this game, the Pacers made the ever-so-basic "adjustment" to play better and, more importantly, with more energy. Moving forward, the hope is that the need to make that particular adjustment will also be something the team, to borrow once more from Turner, can say they are way past now, with the effort being a bit more consistent and distinguished separately from the inconsistency and, sometimes, lack of control over makes and misses.

As the tension on those plays with 45-cuts baked in go to show, defending in the NBA is hard. What the Pacers proved on Sunday by comparison to Friday, though, is that they can make it somewhat easier by simply playing harder.