7 ways to get Tyrese Haliburton more than 7 FGA

On how to increase the star guard's shot volume ahead of Game 2

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

In his debut playoff game, Tyrese Haliburton posted his lowest usage rate of the season, attempting only nine shots while seeing his volume of drives dwindle to just 8.9 per 100 possessions by comparison to 17.7 during the regular season. Granted, this isn't the only reason why the Pacers lost, or perhaps even the main reason why the Pacers lost. After all, there were plenty of mistakes made on defense, just as there were also plenty of shots missed to start the game on offense. Still, some of those factors were intertwined with how Haliburton was all too often ensnared above the break, whereas the same arguably took too long to be the case amid what was an incandescent scoring performance from Damian Lillard during the first half. In that regard, there should be plenty of motivation for Haliburton to start applying counter pressure on a defense that was likewise pressuring him.

As such, here's seven ways he can attempt more than seven shots in Game 2.

1) Shoot

That's simple enough, right? As expected, the Bucks cross-matched Brook Lopez onto Pascal Siakam so they could either switch or blitz on ball-screens involving Myles Turner. That means, when Lopez is in drop, Haliburton should be finding the soft spots of the soft coverage -- especially when he isn't being pestered by Patrick Beverley at the point of attack.

For example, here Haliburton takes a reset dribble, effectively waving the white flag and allowing Pat Connaughton to get back in front, rather than pulling up from mid-range.

On the season, Haliburton shot 54 percent on the 104 dribble jumpers he attempted inside the arc. If the alternative is a kamikaze drive from Jalen Smith against Lopez at the rim, Haliburton probably needs to consider taking what the defense gives him.

2) Pass to him when he is open

Is this revolutionary? Absolutely not.

Is it nitpicky? Yes, probably so.

Still, it must be pointed out that T.J. McConnell, after previously misfiring on a three on the very same possession, purposefully chose to reload, hoisting up yet another shot from deep when Tyrese Haliburton was standing shot-ready immediately to his right.

And, here's the thing: Haliburton was being face-guarded and pressured for the majority of Game 1. Sure, he can be overly deferential at times, which is arguably both a virtue and a vice, but there's no way he doesn't let the ball fly there -- so long as the ball finds him.

McConnell has made 18 threes on the season. There was eleven seconds left on the shot-clock. He doesn't need to be a grenadier, just a vehicle for the potential assist. This would've been one of the easiest shots that Haliburton had on the night. Let the player who has made over 10 times as many threes take the shot (and worry about if he doesn't later). .

3) That sinking feeling 

Speaking of McConnell, this was an odd positioning of players.

The word positioning is used in that sentence, because this certainly cannot be referred to as spacing. As expected, the Bucks were considerably more aggressive at funneling Tyrese Haliburton to his left than they were during the regular season. On middle pick-and-rolls, Beverley would prevent Haliburton from using screens to his right. Meanwhile, the same also applied to side pick-and-rolls on the left side of the floor, with Beverley turning his back to the screener in "ice" coverage to push the action toward the sideline. To counter, Pascal Siakam was changing the angle of the screen, preemptively flipping into a step-up screen so that Haliburton could access the other side of the floor.

The only problem is, once he got there, he typically found himself dribbling into a wall of bodies, with the high weak-side defender collapsing on the drive. On the one hand, Haliburton bears some of the responsibility to manipulate those dig downs or squirt through them, as he more frequently would prior to his injury with his low, crafty gather and long, bounding strides. On the other hand, however, this is a two-way street and the Pacers also bear some of the responsibility to, ahem, widen those driving lanes. Again, McConnell isn't going to space the floor, so why not have him swap places with Aaron Nesmith in the ball-side corner? That way, his defender would at least be tethered away from congesting traffic in the middle of the floor.

4) Get going

Buddy Hield isn't on the roster anymore, but Bennedict Mathurin still is and possessions like that are where the Pacers miss the second-year guard. For better or worse, Mathurin tends to favor imperfect action over perfect inaction. Sometimes, he drives when he should shoot, and he still occasionally shoots when he should pass, but he's rarely hesitant and will almost always do something, including punching gaps and cutting behind defenders.

To be fair, this coverage is different from what Haliburton was seeing in Game 1 (i.e. Lopez wasn't switching out to the ball and requiring emergency help at the nail), but look at how Mathurin gets the ball and gives it right back before knifing into the defense. 

Admittedly, that possession ends in a shot for Mathurin rather than Haliburton, but there's a chance that cutting the stunt might also serve to remove the stunt -- thereby decongesting the paint for Haliburton. If McConnell is going to stand above the break, he can't just stand above the break; he needs to get going into the catch, like when he curl fills behind the ball.

Of course, that works when his defender is too low and wide, opening an avenue to the middle of the floor, not pre-emptively clogging the middle of the floor.

Needless to say, if Mathurin can't be there in body, there could stand to be more of his spirit -- particularly as it pertains to, well, not standing.

5) Don't let Dame off the hook

At the risk of making the argument of countering an assertion of "do something!" with "no, not that something," this is an exception where McConnell would arguably be better off staying put. At issue isn't how the play finishes (McConnell is certainly capable of transforming into a human pogo-stick and springing into these shots); it's how the play starts.

Ben Sheppard is being defended by Damian Lillard; and yet, he merely relocates, cutting from wing-to-wing, rather than potentially manufacturing a favorable switch for Haliburton. Then, McConnell approaches as the screener instead, which just results in the defense committing to Haliburton. That's a missed opportunity not only to grease the wheels for Haliburton, but also to put some tread on Dame's tires.

That happened multiples times, though at times with Haliburton quickly moving off the ball in favor of making the correct read for the outside scope of his vision instead of identifying the weak links that could potentially be exploited directly in front of him.

While the Pacers were navigating how to stop Dame, they arguably could've forced him to manufacture more stops of his own.

6) Put a pin in it

When Tyrese wasn't the player on-ball, he was being closely shadowed away from it.

At times, that led him to be the screener, but he also arguably could've benefited from a few screens to shake him free from the exaggerated coverage.

For example, when Siakam is drawing extra attention in the post, Nembhard could take some of the onus off Siakam to drag out the help with a negative dribble by setting a top-pin on Haliburton's shadow for the star guard to orbit toward the ball.

Likewise, when Haliburton is being face-guarded and attempts to break free as the stack-screener, Turner could veer into a middle pindown as a counter against the blitz on ball-screens involving Portis so as to provide an additional obstacle for Beverley to navigate.

Neither of those are exactly new or innovative wrinkles, but if Haliburton is going to get relegated into playing away from the ball more often, then perhaps layering in more off-ball screens can act as a thicker hedge maze for his defender to chase him through so he can avoid getting lost in the weeds.

7) Pop-and-Get 

That said, the overall aim should still be to thaw out the ice coverage that is funneling him to his left and into getting off the ball without getting it back. After halftime, the Pacers went to more empty-side actions with Siakam screening as a pop big, which is a typical counter against ice coverage. From there, they were mainly trying to attack the coverage with movement by filtering the ball to the weak-side. Of course, that meant that Haliburton was immediately throwing the ball to Siakam on the pop and then immediately reverting to being denied, merely spacing around what could at times become a choppy possession of 4-on-4 for his teammates. Moving forward, if he isn't being top-locked, there would arguably be more utility for him as a scorer, and the offense as a whole, if that same action was reimagined only with Haliburton flowing into a "get" hand-off with Siakam. That way, he could get over the top and into the middle of the floor while turning the ball downhill and demonstrating how what is intended to make him "weak" (with regard to forcing him left) might actually make him "strong" -- not only in regaining access to attacking with his strong hand but also in reference to putting him in a stronger position, as with all of these examples, to score out of more frequent drives.

All of which is to say that, from the simple act of shooting the ball to more complex schematic tweaks, Haliburton ultimately has to come to his own rescue, but the Pacers should also be applying guardrails to rescue him from his, at times, exaggerated tendency to rescue everyone else at the expense of rescuing himself against exaggerated coverages.