Ranking the Pacers' opponents in East Group B

A team-by-team look at the competition for the Pacers in pool play of the NBA Cup 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

Although it remains to be seen whether the Pacers will once again be rolling out the special oceanic blue court as they attempt to roll back advancing to the finals of the league's midseason tournament, what is known is who they will be up against and when. Overall, group play of the NBA Cup begins on November 12, but the Pacers won't be in action until that Friday, opening their campaign at home against the Miami Heat. Here's the full schedule:

• Friday, Nov. 15 vs. Miami Heat, 7 PM ET

• Friday, Nov. 22 @ Milwaukee Bucks, 7:30 PM ET | ESPN

• Friday, Nov. 29 vs. Detroit Pistons, 8 PM ET

• Tuesday, Dec. 3 @ Toronto Raptors, 7:30 PM ET

Of course, with those dates still three months away, plenty is set to transpire between now and then, including training camp, preseason, and also the start of the regular season. Nevertheless, given that Indiana's roster has mostly stayed the same whereas the group they are in has almost unilaterally changed (with the exception of the Detroit Pistons as the only carryover), there seems like no better time than the present while slogging through the doldrums of August to take stock of East Group B, power ranking the other four teams in relation to how they match-up as opponents against the Pacers.

1. Milwaukee Bucks

Last season, the Pacers went 8-3 against the Milwaukee Bucks, including going 4-1 in the games in which Giannis Antetokounmpo was available. Of course, all of those games were during the regular season. In the playoffs, the Bucks found "some" traction defensively when they went from switching on 12.6 picks per 100 possessions in Games 1 through 4 to trading assignments on 36.4 in Game 5, as they held the Pacers to just 102.2 points per 100 possessions. Beyond switching, part of the strategy that night was for Brook Lopez to stay low around the basket while "guarding" Aaron Nesmith, who mainly stayed anchored to the corners and shot 1-of-5 from three.

In Game 6, when the Pacers made the simple counter for Nesmith to get moving as the screener, the Bucks didn't stick with that match-up for long, as Lopez only stayed assigned to the 3-and-D wing for a total of four possessions in what became a big game for the combination of Indiana's role players, with Nesmith, Obi Toppin, and T.J McConnell each tallying 15 or more points.

Overall, the Bucks never exactly found their way at that end of the floor; however, for a team with a top-10 offense, they at least project to have more options next season -- especially with Giannis available. In that event, the two-time MVP could guard Turner and switch ball-screens with Lopez once again testing the waters against Nesmith. Or, if they're skittish about Khris Middleton holding up against Pascal Siakam, they could go "small" with Giannis at the five. Taurean Prince spent most of his playing time at small forward for the Lakers last season, but that wasn't the case the prior year in Minnesota, when he logged 52 percent of his minutes playing the four. If Prince is at power forward in lineups with Giannis playing center, then Middleton could theoretically stick with Nesmith, while defending mostly in spot-up situations. Prince can struggle to stay in front against quickness, but he's shown he can use his length to contest against players who look for their jump-shot from mid-range, which certainly applies to Siakam. Of course, part of the reason why Prince is able to press up so close as to get a hand on the ball during Kevin Durant's jump-shot here is because Anthony Davis is lurking in the background while flooding over to the strong-side.

Then again, that's also a specialty of Giannis, who is arguably at his best when rotating to and acting as a deterrent around the rim. At any rate, the Bucks seems to have added some lineup flexibility on the margins, and they outscored opponents by 16.6 points per 100 possessions in the 677 total minutes that Giannis was on the floor with Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton, and Brook Lopez last season. The Pacers still have reason to feel confident. Gary Trent Jr. is an upgrade over Malik Beasley defensively, but the same probably can't be said by comparison to Patrick Beverley. Meanwhile, Lillard is still going to have to guard at least some on-ball against Andrew Nembhard, and Milwaukee never exactly managed to keep up with the Pacers in transition, as they averaged the fewest fast-break points per game of any team during the first-round of the playoffs. That said, Giannis is a fast-break unto himself, and it took building an exaggerated three-player wall at the free throw line for the Pacers to "limit" him to 26 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists in what, albeit, still turned out to be a win in early January.

Overall, the Bucks get the nod here mainly because, as long as their Core Four is available, they are the best team among Indiana's opponents in this group, and they likely project to at least be more settled defensively while not undergoing as much constant turmoil as last season.

2. Toronto Raptors 

The good news for the Pacers in this match-up is that they won't have to guard Pascal Siakam, who racked up 36 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists against them last November before he was traded. The bad news for the Pacers is that the Raptors very much have a "if you can't beat them, join them" vibe as it pertains to this particular match-up. Before Scottie Barnes went down with a broken hand for the final 22 games of the season, Toronto scored 84 points in the paint against the Pacers on Valentine's Day, while also racking up 47 points in transition. Then, later that month, the Raptors plundered the Pacers for 78 points in the paint. Notwithstanding the In-Season Tournament Finals loss to the Lakers, which is technically lost to the annals of stats history but saw LA score 86 points in the paint, no team piled up as many points in the paint against the Pacers last season than the post-trade deadline Toronto Raptors.

This is nasty business.

As was giving up 33 points off cuts in the second game that month, which was the most points off cuts that any team had scored in any game up until that point last season. After trading for Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, the Raptors ranked top-five in both transition frequency and off-ball screens per 100 possessions. Overall, there's a lot of forward momentum and side-to-side movement to account for in their offense. That said, there's really no explaining why, after getting clipped trailing around this curl cut, Bennedict Mathurin overcommitted to Jakob Poeltl as the trigger man at the expense of leaving Pascal Siakam to guard both Barret and Barnes at the rim.

Needless to say, if he's going to pursue a potential loose ball with Andrew Nembhard and Myles Turner already both in the vicinity, the ball better actually be loose. Otherwise, the cutter in that offense surely will be. Even so, Mathurin wasn't the only player responsible for why the defense got carved up on that particular night. It was a group effort. Still, while it's reasonable to think that, with an entire playoff run of committing to picking up full-court and pressuring the ball, there might not be as much lethargy as what can be seen in the prior clip, with Siakam a bit late loading to the ball and funneling to the rim at the same time as Toppin isn't protecting the rim as the first big back, it's also questionable whether awareness, as far as containing off-ball movement, can be dialed up in the same manner as effort. In the end, the win on Valentine's Day came down to a game-saving stop from Ben Sheppard against RJ Barrett. Meanwhile, the Pacers lost the second game of the month, even with Mathurin exploding for 34 points and five assists in what was an incredible display of shot-making.

Granted, the Pacers looked more like the Pacers in April, racing to a 140-133 win with Haliburton looking more like Haliburton, at least with regard to not being quite as hesitant to attack off-the-dribble, but they still gave up 76 points in the paint and Barnes wasn't even available. All of which is to say that, the Raptors certainly aren't the best team in this group and also may not even be the second-best team among Indiana's opponents, but they're arguably the best suited of the bunch to give the Pacers a (literal) "run" for their money -- especially if their off-ball movement catches the blue-and-gold on an off-night from the field.

3. Miami Heat 

When the Pacers maintained control of their own destiny for the No. 6 seed with a 117-115 win over the Miami Heat near to the beginning of April, T.J. McConnell had to be reinserted into the closing lineup as a counter for the way in which the Heat were relegating Tyrese Haliburton off the ball. In fact, when McConnell subbed out of the game with 8:14 to play in the fourth quarter, the Pacers were ahead, 95-85. Four and a half minutes later, before the decision was made to go back to McConnell as a hot and steady hand, the Pacers were clinging to just a four-point lead.

In addition to bottling up Haliburton with switches, part of the problem was that some of their go-to actions as pressure releases to get him rolling downhill were being denied. For example, this play, which the Pacers refer to as "slice," is designed for Haliburton to toss the ball to the elbow and then chase his pass through a back-screen into a hand-off to attack with his strong hand.

Of course, that was with his defender trailing, not with the defense switching the back-screen and denying the hand-off, as Miami can be seen doing below.

To his credit, Haliburton kept playing, attempting to provide a bridge to the next action by motioning for wide-reject-stack, with him as the stack-screener. Except, when Pascal Siakam attempted to go away from the ball-screen, Bam Adebayo recovered out to Haliburton, resulting in yet another late-clock three, albeit with Myles Turner as the grenadier.

As such, within seconds of re-entering the game, McConnell was back at the controls, providing a means for Haliburton to drive into a tilted defense against a favorable switch with each of them taking a turn screening for each other.

Notably, two things have changed since then. On the season, the Pacers outscored opponents by 7.39 points per 100 possessions with any two of Haliburton, McConnell, and Nembhard on the floor. In this game, they closed with McConnell, but Nembhard also showed during the playoffs that he can handle steering the offense if the defense calls for Haliburton to start possessions as the screener or away from the ball. Another thing that has changed, though, will be who is doing the pressuring. In that first clip, Caleb Martin is denying the hand-off at the elbow and then switches onto Siakam when Haliburton moves to set the stack screen. In the second clip, he's guarding Siakam with Butler instead taking on the assignment against Haliburton. Now, Martin plays for the Sixers, which likely means that Haywood Highsmith is going to be responsible for taking on reps against either Haliburton or Siakam. Last season, Haliburton scored 83.3 points per 100 half-court match-ups when defended by Highsmith, compared to 31.1 when guarded by Martin, and 17.0 when checked by Butler.

To that point, if the defense shows any slippage, there won't be a lot of room for margin of error, given that Miami has ranked in the bottom-10 offensively in each of the last two seasons. And, here's the thing: Miami also ranked second in the percentage of their shots they attempted as corner threes (11.76), which is the one thing the Pacers were consistently effective at limiting, as they allowed the lowest frequency of opponent corners threes in the NBA, at just 7.6 percent. In fact, Miami attempted a total of just 19 corner threes in games against the Pacers last season, which accounted for just 7.3 percent of their total shots. Put simply, the Pacers already limit corner threes more than any team in the league, and they allowed even less against a team that is known for generating plenty of those shots. For all of those reasons, while it's certainly possible that the Heat could bump up this list with further developments from Nikola Jovic and Jaime Jaquez as well as a potential change in floor spacing with Bam Adebayo taking a step forward by taking a step back behind the three-point line with Team USA, there's reason to question if the Heat have enough firepower to keep up with the Pacers to the same degree as the prior two teams, although their defensive versatility, including occasional forays with 2-2-1 full-court press, arguably provides them with the most reliable firehose, assuming the pressure maintains in the back-court with Highsmith no longer joined by Martin.

4. Detroit Pistons

Here's a curious stat: Cade Cunningham averaged 16.7 points against the Pacers during the first-half of games last season, compared to 10.0 points after halftime. That's not skewed by an outlier performance, either. He scored 13 or more points in the first half of all four games against the Pacers last season, and was held to single-digits during the second half in three of the four. One thing that stands out when reviewing the film of those games, particularly during the In-Season Tournament, is the simple difference that personnel can make as well as overall disposition.

Here, Myles Turner can be heard audibly pleading with his teammates, saying, "Come on, I need you guys there, that's two on me, bro" when he picked up his second foul with 5:08 to play in the second quarter.

By comparison, look at this similar sideline interaction from the second half. With Nembhard applying full-court pressure and turning the ball, Cunningham doesn't have the same option to quickly enter the ball to Jaden Ivey and chase his own pass for the hand-back. Instead, he has to flow into a hand-off to Ivey, which Mathurin then blows up, with Nembhard providing space for him to slide under and pressure the action on the other side.

For the most part, Buddy Hield didn't often get enough credit and was easy to blame; however, in this case, there is a very noticeable difference there when the ball gets picked up earlier and the coverage isn't miscommunicated. On the night, Cunningham was held scoreless on the 14 half-court match-ups in which he was defended by Nembhard, who obviously finished the season in the starting lineup. As such, his impact was also noticeable once that change was made, after Pascal Siakam had also been acquired. Here, for example, Nembhard can be seen pressing up over the top of the screen on both sides of the pick-and-roll, resulting in a live-ball turnover.

That said, in addition to dialing up the pressure, the Pacers also benefited from how Detroit's roster was managed. In that game, the Pistons were only down six when Cunningham and Ivey were subbed out with 4:23 to play in the first quarter. Over the next 2:26 seconds, the Pacers outscored them 8-1, as Detroit proceeded to play an all-bench lineup including Marcus Sasser, Evan Fournier, Shake Milton, Troy Brown Jr., and James Wiseman -- none of whom are still on the roster, with the exception of Sasser. On the night, the Pistons were minus-18 in 14 minutes without either Cunningham or Ivey on the floor.

If nothing else, as the roster currently stands, Detroit at least looks poised to be able to surround each of them with more spacing, while perhaps gaining a better sense of what Ivey is capable of as a lead initiator in his projected role of back-up point guard. To that point, assuming the team starts Cunningham along with Malik Beasley, Tobias Harris, Jalen Duren and either Simone Fontecchio or Ausar Thompson, then Ivey could be joined by Tim Hardaway Jr. and Isaiah Stewart along with whomever of Fontecchio or Thompson doesn't start. Between Ivey, Thompson, Duren, and Ron Holland (if the No. 5 overall pick from last season's draft ends up cracking the rotation as a rookie), there's still going to be a balancing act to avoid playing too many shaky shooters at once, but the whole generally appears to be more functional and stable than last season.

That said, as was pointed out in a prior piece about James Wiseman joining the Pacers, the Pistons ranked 29th in points per chance allowed defending picks last season, and while J.B. Bickerstaff certainly has a reputation for erecting sturdy defenses, he doesn't exactly have many reliable building blocks, particularly as it pertains to Duren and at the point of attack. As in, who exactly is the best perimeter defender among the guards on that roster? Probably Cunningham, right? Just by virtue of his size, but he already has his hands full steering the offense. The Pacers don't have much of an edge here, as they also languished near the bottom of the league in points per chance allowed defending picks last season, still ranking 28th (when including the playoffs) even after acquiring Pascal Siakam. That means, for two teams that tend to run a lot of pick-and-roll, this match-up likely projects to come down to offensive execution, with the edge going to the Pacers, who last season ranked fourth in points per chance scored out of ball-screens.

Still, with this game being played on the day after Thanksgiving while also being the only match-up that will be preceded by a prior meeting and thereby providing film to be combed over in advance, the Pistons -- not unlike how they project as a whole -- have a chance to make this interesting, even if they aren't necessarily as formidable from a match-up standpoint or overall as the other opponents in this group.