How Obi Toppin can stay active with the Pacers (Patreon)

And how active is too active?

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

If and when Chris Duarte gets traded to the Sacramento Kings, it will almost be like the Pacers swapped him for Obi Toppin. Two second-round picks is all it took to land Toppin from the Knicks, and some form of draft compensation is expected to be the return for Duarte. Toppin was selected No. 8 overall in the 2020 draft, and Duarte went to the Pacers at No. 13 a year later. With one billed as a shooter with limited athleticism, and the other being a power forward with hops to spare, the two players couldn't be more different; and yet, the way in which they each operate within a similar action speaks to what will change for Toppin with the Pacers, as well as what will change for the Pacers with Toppin.

Take a look at this lob set, wherein a cutter either flips the ball back to the original ball-handler or sets a ghost screen before circling around a big at the elbow, and notice how Duarte doesn't quite have the lift to get the job done.

To quote Tyrese Haliburton ,if that's Toppin, "F--k, it," he'll be "up there somewhere."

Turns out, the Knicks ran a play with that same lob opportunity last season, but watch Toppin. Rather than curling to the rim, he spaces to the corner, observing as Mitchell Robinson sets a screen for Evan Mobley to switch onto Jalen Brunson.

From there, Brunson motions for Toppin to screen with Donovan Mitchell guarding him, because, yes, Toppin is where the Cavs chose to hide Donovan Mitchell. Except, the Cavs don't switch. This is a show from Mitchell that puts Mobley back in the action and forces him to navigate. In the end, Toppin shakes loose; however, with Robinson parked in the dunker's spot, it's all for naught, as Lamar Stevens is able to bring help in a hurry and meets him at the summit.

Brunson is fantastic, but he doesn't have as much size for position as Haliburton, so throwing lobs over the top of giants from outside the arc doesn't come quite as easily, nor does creating indecision with the threat of his pull-up shot from deep.

Another difference is the positioning of players. Whereas the Pacers station someone at the weak-side wing, the Knicks empty out that entire side of the floor.

Here's why that matters. When the lob option gets covered up for the Pacers, as is the case here with Jaren Jackson Jr. sliding underneath the big at the elbow to beat Nesmith to his spot, they counter with that big setting a high cross screen for the player at the wing to reject and then become the stack-screener. Ultimately, the play still results in a lob -- just for a different player.

That's not the only reason everything goes to plan, though. The Pacers are meticulous when it comes to maximizing spacing. As such, when Nesmith gets taken out of the action, notice how he relocates to the ball-side corner, so as to occupy Jaren Jackson Jr. outside the lane. At the same time, Buddy Hield is purposefully stationed on the back-side of the action, shaking up from the corner as Nembhard dribbles downhill. Normally, Hield's movement would create a longer closeout for the tagger, but Ziaire Williams is staying glued to his side, barely moving a muscle.

And, therein lies the rub. If Toppin is standing in for Nesmith, that means he would be occupying the ball-side corner, with Bruce Brown most likely being inserted in place of Hield behind the action. In that sense, Brown is quirky in that, over the last two seasons, he's shot significantly better from the right corner (53.8 percent on 91 attempts), where Toppin would be, than the left (20.3 percent on 74 attempts). During the 2022 playoffs, Brooklyn made things easy on Boston with poor spacing (i.e. why aren't Seth Curry and Bruce Brown swapped in the corners?), but the impact of that discrepancy could be visualized by how willing Marcus Smart was to turn a blind eye to him while also moving, let's say, several muscles.

Of course, Brown was a more willing shooter with the Nuggets, and there might be another answer. When Nesmith rounds the bend on this possessions against the Wizards, look at how he slips behind a screen from Jalen Smith in the corner, with the two of them exchanging sides. That would allow Brown to get to the spot on the floor where he's more effective.

Plus, Toppin is capable of manipulating those types of screens with his activity. In that regard, even when he's standing in a spot, he doesn't often standstill. Here, he's once again being guarded by the worst defender. So, the Knicks go to him as the screener in order to get Duncan Robinson involved, but Miami doesn't switch and Robinson stays to help in the lane. At the same time, Isaiah Hartenstein is motioning for the corner pin-in screen. When Caleb Martin reacts, Toppin aborts his mission of exiting off the screen and grabs the lob.

Of course, a major key to that sequence is the fact that Martin reacted. In order to adapt to what the Knicks asked from him in a spot role, Toppin adjusted his game to be a quick-trigger, three-point shooter, but it was an adjustment -- and not every team adjusted in response. For example, when the Pacers played the Knicks in the penultimate game of the regular season, Nesmith was assigned to Robinson and switched ball screens with Isaiah Jackson "guarding" Toppin. It doesn't really make sense for Jackson to be building a wall at the nail when the screen has already been neutralized by the switch, but Toppin made him pay, regardless.

On the night, Toppin was what the Pacers were willing to give up, and he knocked down five threes on a season-high of 12 attempts, while scoring 32 points as a starter. He'll need to continue letting the ball fly. Otherwise, there's a chance that more teams will cross-match him with fives, which could have an impact on Myles Turner, as well as the team at-large. Over the last two seasons, Turner has shot 40 percent from three when defended by centers, compared to 32 percent when defended by forwards. When that strategy picked up against Jalen Smith during Indiana's seven-game west coast trip at the end of November, the Pacers ranked 29th in offensive rating and 28th in effective field-goal percentage over that span.

While speaking with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN's alternate broadcast of the NBA Finals, Bennedict Mathurin indicated that he anticipates being part of the starting lineup moving forward saying, “I feel like next year, I’m going to have a bigger role as that starting three wing and there are a lot of things I need to improve on.” With Bruce Brown reaching agreement on a contract that will make him the highest paid player on the team, it doesn't seem likely that he's going to earn $22.5 million to come off the bench. It's possible Jarace Walker might also start, but Mathurin's rookie experience suggests that Toppin will be in pole position. If those assumptions are correct, then there will be a drop-off in perimeter firepower. Here's the catch-and-shoot numbers, via Synergy.

Last season:

• Nembhard - 38.1%
• Hield - 41.7%
• Nesmith - 35.0%

Next season:

• Mathurin - 31.8%
• Brown - 35.9%
• Toppin - 33.6%

That said, by virtue of the fact that Turner doesn't have to stay anchored to the dunker's spot like Robinson, Toppin won't be as tethered to the corners as he was with the Knicks, and the Pacers will take advantage of his natural inclination to move while doing what they can to distort the defense. A lot will depend on Mathurin. If he's deployed as the stack-screener, he's going to have to take the inflow shots that come to him, rather than double-clutching against short closeouts and being wired to catch-and-drive as his first instinct.

Likewise, there will also be some trade-offs in the open floor. As was laid out in the overview on Brown, Haliburton ranked seventh in total "pass aheads" last season, per Second Spectrum, even though he missed 26 games. Toppin is going to be "ahead" of a bunch of those passes, blowing by entire teams for transition lobs.

These types of sequences, with the three-point contest that leads to a leak-out after switching, will also likely be frequent sightings.

On the one hand, Toppin will be going from an offense in New York that ranked 17th in transition frequency to that of the Pacers, which came in at fourth. To that point, the Knicks played at a faster pace with him on the floor (98.8) than off (95.9). On the other hand, however, he'll also be leaking-out and leaving his teammates outnumbered on the glass for a team that ranked dead-last in opponent offensive rebounding rate, compared to the Knicks, who finished just outside the top-10 (12th). There's potential for give-and-take.

The rest of his defense is somewhat difficult to project. With Julius Randle starting and Tom Thibodeau reluctant to play without a rim protector on the floor, Toppin oftentimes only played in short spurts, mostly got assigned to bench players with low match-up difficulty, and didn't do much switching. For point of reference, according to Second Spectrum, he switched on 18.2 percent of picks when he was defending the screener. By comparison, Nesmith switched on 72.9 percent and Smith, with specific reference to when the screener was a forward, switched on 35.1 percent. Needless to say, Toppin will be switching a lot more often at the four spot with the Pacers. As can be seen on the aforementioned contest against LeVert, there are times where he can hang using his length, but there are also some clunky possessions against stars, where he has a tendency to stand up.

Remember, this is a tiny sample size, and it remains to be seen how Walker will look on switches against guards, particularly early in the shot-clock, but he didn't play that straight up and down when matched-up with wings at Houston.

Still, Toppin is active. As my friend Benjy Ritholtz from Knicks Film School pointed out, he can be intuitive with "next" pick-and-roll defense, jump-switching onto the ball-handler and communicating for the beaten defender to peel off and switch onto the nearest player on the perimeter. The Pacers went to that tactic at times last season to mitigate for their lack of size and struggles to contain the ball, so reacting in real time and demonstrating the intuition to know when that type of switch is necessary, as Nembhard often does, will be to his benefit.

On the flip side, part of playing help defense is knowing from where to help and when not to help. To repeat, Toppin is active. But, he can also be too active. For example, there's no reason for him to be helping in front of Hartenstein in the dunker's spot on this possession. If anything, he should be sinking into Adebayo's legs and preparing to recoil back out to the corner. Instead, he opens up the skip pass and practically leaps like a ski jumper on the closeout. That's being too helpful, and also tracks much differently than Walker's off-ball instincts at Houston, when he could tag the roller and still spring out to intercept a dart to the opposite corner.

Regardless, there is a lot more to be learned about both players. As it relates to Toppin, Haliburton will accentuate his strengths and Turner will accommodate some of his weaknesses, at least more so than what was possible with the bigs that the high-flyer has played with to this point in New York. It only takes one play, being that of the comparison between Toppin and Duarte, to see how he'll fit the Pacers, being optimized in a play-style that fits him. But, it may take many more to see whether, from what lineups he plays with to the degree to which he is defended and how he fares defending, he'll be able to return the favor in optimizing them.

Either way, when the price of finding out is only two second-round picks, there shouldn't be much reason for second-guessing.