Nembhard, Haliburton assist each other on defense

Turns out, the starting backcourt can also dish out help at the other end of the floor

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper 

By the end of the regular-season opener, way back in October, when Bruce Brown was still on the team and Bennedict Mathurin was still starting, both point guards for the Pacers finished the night with double-doubles -- a benchmark which was only reached once during the entire prior season. At the time, with T.J. McConnell (temporarily) out of the rotation, Andrew Nembhard had emerged as the lead initiator for the bench, tallying 12 points and 10 assists in reserve to Tyrese Haliburton, who in amassing 20 points and 11 assists, basically did what he has come to be known to do. Now, four months later, Nembhard is back playing with the first unit, occupying what has been the least solidified spot among the starters while likewise doing what he has come to be known to do: flashing his feel on defense.

Granted, his backcourt partnership with Haliburton hasn't been entirely seamless. Haliburton is coming out of a stretch in which he's played away from the ball as much as ever, appearing to be moving somewhat differently while also being moved to different spots within the offense. Meanwhile, up until recently, the team's collective urgency at the other end of the floor had only been predictable in that it was unpredictable. Still, in cooling down the West-leading Thunder on the road, Haliburton and Nembhard hearkened back to the first game of the season, once again racking up plenty of assists -- except, this time, in tandem with each other and of a much different variety.

Just look at this sequence of possessions. Toward the end of the first quarter, Lu Dort came up from the corner to screen Haliburton into the action. With Isaiah Joe simultaneously cutting from the wing to the block, Dort has room to create room for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, diving on the switch while rerouting the potential help on the drive.

Shortly thereafter, Dort approached to screen Haliburton into the action again, only with Joe leaking out to the wing. Of course, Haliburton never actually got screened into the action, because Shai never actually used the screen, as the rejection against Ben Sheppard instead lead directly to paint penetration.  

To be fair, Sheppard has impressed overall with his defense as a rookie, but he's putting himself at a disadvantage by conceding that much space before the screen and having to adjust his foot angle against someone as reactive as Shai, who plays basketball like a human slinky. By comparison, when defending against that same action, Nembhard directs the ball, attaching his forearm to Shai's hip. Then, after Haliburton jumps out to switch the ball-screen with Nesmith also communicating a switch on the slip out of the stack screen, notice how Nembhard instinctively pounces, blitzing the isolation to resolve the mismatch. 

In the reverse, Haliburton also made himself available to lend a helping hand, doing the quick math in transition to capitalize on taking away middle with an odd-man advantage. 

In this case, they both come to each other's rescue. On the pick-and-pop, in order to keep Myles Turner around the basket, Nembhard was veer-back switching to Chet Holmgren as the screener. If the recovery angle was imperfect, then the next nearest defender would cover for him on the catch, as Pascal Siakam can be seen doing here. 

With everyone else rotating in response to Siakam, Nembhard has to scramble, processing the floor rapidly to find his spot under the basket, where he then has to defend like a big, stepping up, in a figurative sense, to provide the first line of help behind Haliburton. But, there's the thing: Rather than literally stepping up, which would expose the rim and leave a bigger potential passing window, Nembhard helps laterally, sliding over just enough to insure that Haliburton can stay in front of the ball and contest.

As usual, for the most part, the Pacers were trying to provide as many safeguards around Haliburton as possible, while also protecting him from mismatches. As the game progressed, he was doing more show coverage to avoid switching on guard-to-guard ball screens, even to the point of chasing Isaiah Joe through multiple actions, but Shai was still able to get the switch he wanted by dragging out the hedge in combination with a rock solid screen.  Again, though, Nembhard was ready to pounce, sending the double as soon as Shai was alone on the perimeter with Haliburton. When Haliburton released too early from what Nembhard clearly thought was going to be a hard trap, the sophomore guard went from mirroring his chest to the sideline to still getting back in the play and contesting three different drives from three players of different shapes and sizes in Dort, Holmgren, and Shai.

It's that type of friction that was missing all too often in San Antonio, particularly when the Pacers had to call a timeout after surrendering multiple blowby drives and second-chance opportunities on the same possession.

For that reason, when the starting backcourt is assisting each other on defense, with Nembhard popping up out of the shadows and Haliburton finding opportunities to shade to the ball while also being shaded, it's also that type of friction that (ironically) has the potential to make some of the seams that have occasionally been visible at the other end of the floor, at least in the absence of Buddy Hield and Bennedict Mathurin, easier to glide over.