Despite staying the same, Pacers look awfully different (Patreon)

On their off night and how they also let Jalen Brunson off the hook

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

In Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals against the New York Knicks, Tyrese Haliburton was put into action 21 times as the screener defender, yielding just 0.810 points per chance for New York. Don't get that paltry number twisted. Haliburton definitely made some loud mistakes, particularly in the first half when the defense got split with him overcommitting himself, but he also steadily improved at holding the line as the game went on. As such, the greater impact was at the other end of the floor, where the star guard only received 16 ball-screens. In essence, after repeatedly jumping up above the level of the screen on defense, he ended up being targeted more often than he ran offense. In that way, regardless of how efficient those plays were for the Knicks, the strategy of hunting down Haliburton had the effect of marginalizing Haliburton, as they guarded him by forcing him to guard.

Four months later, in a game that saw Jalen Brunson score 26 points in 29 minutes, the Pacers didn't seem particularly keen on trying their hand at putting his hand to the fire in the reverse. Granted, the Pacers are not last season's Knicks team, and this Knicks team isn't even last season's Knicks team, but that almost provides more reason for why they arguably should've looked to the past to inform on the present. Just look at this possession from the first half. This is the end of Haliburton's second step after he gathered from squirting through the help.

To be fair, there's an argument to be made here that he could've been more aggressive looking for his floater, but he's definitely not getting to the rim from this spot. Meanwhile, the length and reach of Mikal Bridges in rearview pursuit is taking away the pull-up two, and O.G. Anunoby is stationed on the back-side of the pick-and-roll. That means, in order to manipulate the weak-side help, Haliburton has to throw a hang-time pass with air under the ball to Pascal Siakam in the opposite corner. Once Siakam has to jump to catch the cross-court dart, Anunoby has time to recover on the closeout. Needless to say, with Bridges at the point of attack and Anunoby lurking in the background, this alignment is a bit like trying to putt through a maze of spinning windmills at a mini-golf course. Notably, once the ball breaks the free throw line, Brunson simply turns his back to the action and faces Aaron Nesmith, who scored zero points on 23 match-ups with New York's star guard as his primary defender.

Oh, and here's another stat: Nesmith never set a ball-screen in this game, let alone with Haliburton as the ball-handler. Altogether, Brunson was involved as the screener defender a total of three times. This is the only possession in which Brunson was brought to the ball with Haliburton handling. Not unlike Haliburton, Brunson shows on the guard-to-guard screen to avoid giving up the mismatch. When Mathurin slips out of the pick, Karl-Anthony Towns switches onto Mathurin, with Brunson losing his place while peeling off to the perimeter. Amid the confusion, Anunoby takes his eyes off of Siakam for a split second and the result is an easy two at the rim.

Not bad, right? Well, that never happened again, at least not with Haliburton initiating on-ball. Of course, there are other ways to go about going after weak links. Think back to this play from last season, in which a flare and lift is executed on the weak-side at the same time as the Knicks are attempting to switch and switch back out of a touch screen and seal between Haliburton and Siakam.

With Brunson as the low-man, he has to choose between helping on Siakam and following Nembhard. Now, look at the same play from Friday night. Not only is Cameron Payne trapesing over the midway point of the lane, he's the low-man guarding Nembhard, rather than Brunson. Plus, Nesmith never sets the flare screen on his own man, which means Brunson also doesn't have to navigate that obstacle.

Then, when the ball eventually ended up getting reversed to Nesmith for him to attack the closeout, he couldn't find nylon on the same pull-up shot that fell for him in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden.

And, here's the thing: If that was the result with Brunson shifting his weight toward Haliburton at the nail, there's wasn't much chance that Nesmith was going to go at Brunson head-on from nearly a standstill, even when he had the whole right side of the floor to himself.

For the sake of comparison, here's Mathurin attacking the long closeout from Brunson and also side-stepping Towns at the rim.

To recap, Mathurin was the only player who set a screen for Haliburton while being defended by Brunson, and he also ripped the ball past him out of triple-threat. If someone was going to force Brunson to guard, he was the most likely option. After halftime, however, he didn't re-enter the game until there was 3:31 to play in the third quarter, when the Pacers were trailing, 81-59. Some of that waiting period likely had to do with concerns over the point of attack defense. When Nembhard and Nesmith came out, someone had to guard Brunson, which predominantly became the responsibility of Ben Sheppard but also T.J. McConnell, as shortly thereafter the Knicks started playing Deuce McBride, as well. At any rate, this happened less than a minute after Mathurin checked into the game.

On the next possession, he misfired a long two that was followed by a runout dunk for Bridges, which resulted in a swift and immediate timeout. Still, as Brunson made sure to let everyone know, Nesmith wasn't exactly sticking with him either, as the twitchy guard could be seen rejecting a pick to his left and getting all the way to the rim without a help defender in sight. To that point, the defense against Brunson looked a little different with Haliburton assigned to Hart and Siakam anchored to Anunoby in the ball-side corner, where he had previously strayed from both Hart and Anunoby to allow Nesmith to press up closer to the ball. Again, a lot has changed for both teams in the last four months, including the fact that the Pacers shot just 3-of-30 from three, marking the first time they had made fewer than five threes in a regular season game since March 24, 2023 against Boston.

As a quick reminder, the Pacers went 4-15 last season when they shot below 30 percent from three. Turns out, winning ugly is harder against the Knicks on the road following an embarrassing loss than what turned out to be the case against the Pistons, with all of their inexperience. On the night, the Pacers posted an effective field-goal percentage on shots from three of 15 percent, despite having an expected shot quality of 57.8 percent -- a massive difference of 42.8 percent. In a sense, it was one of those nights, especially for Haliburton, who finished with zero points and only four drives. Not all of that can be attributed to hang-time passes and the mini-golf course of spinning windmills that was Bridges and Anunoby, obviously. His decision-making has been a bit off to start the season, just like his shot.

All of which is to say that, if and until the Pacers can start better mimicking themselves, there was reason to consider mimicking the prior version of the Knicks -- guarding Brunson by forcing him to guard and perhaps making a lineup change, in the form of Mathurin, just as they did in Game 5 with McBride, to better facilitate that outcome. It was one of those nights, and it's only one game, but this isn't the same Knicks team; and, right now, despite how much the word "continuity" was discussed during training camp, the Pacers haven't yet shown themselves to be the same Pacers team either, albeit for entirely different reasons.