Pacers Mailbag: Basketball, They Spoke w/ Alex Golden

Answering questions about the basketball played by the Pacers 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper 

As promised, for this month's mailbag, I was once again joined by a guest: Alex Golden from Setting the Pace. Coincidentally, yesterday marked a year since the first time I was a guest on his podcast, so I wanted to return the favor of the generosity he has shown me with his platform by asking if he would be willing to climb the paywall here at Basketball She, Wrote. Before diving into the questions about the Pacers and also sharing our experiences at All-Star Weekend in Indy, Alex also agreed to join me for what has become my traditional ice breaker.

In case you just want to listen to your specific question, here are the relevant timestamps:

0:00 - Introductions

1:01 - Ice Breaker 

7:21 - Assessing Bennedict Mathurin's sophomore season

14:49 - Projecting the best crunch-time lineup for the playoffs

18:43 - The NBA community's reaction to All-Star Weekend in Indy 

25:27 - Most "concerning" playoff match-up for the Pacers

33:26 - Looking ahead at playoff seeding

39:35 - Has analyzing basketball caused me to lose my fandom?

42:36 - Most "interesting" playoff match-up for the Pacers

48:45 - Protecting Tyrese Haliburton on defense + what ways he can improve

53:56 - Have the Pacers settled on the starters and bench rotation?

1:04:01 - Is Andrew Nembhard best optimized as a starter or reserve point guard?

1:15:19 - Small, unique things that various players do extremely well

1:24:48 - What are the biggest gains to be had in rebounding now that the roster is set?

1:30:23 - What has led to the dip in Myles Turner's defensive impact?

1:39:25 - Do I hold back my articles to prevent rival teams from gaining insights into the Pacers? 

1:40:25 - Should high school coaches open their minds to jump passing? 

1:43:00 - Have I ever published any flowery work that gets more romantic about the game?  

1:45:45 - Thank you and Goodbye