Obi Toppin gets rolling in his role for the Pacers (Patreon)

On how the fourth-year forward started trending in the right direction against Atlanta

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

Through three preseason games with the Pacers, Obi Toppin has yet to attempt a shot as the roll-man. Meanwhile, he's hoisted nine of his 20 field-goal attempts as threes. On the surface, that probably seems reminiscent of his existence with the Knicks last season, in which he set screens less frequently than ever while also posting the highest three-point attempt rate of his career. The film, however, tells a different story -- at least when Tyrese Haliburton has been available to author the pick-and-roll.

To understand why, flip back the pages to five months ago, when Toppin was screening for Jalen Brunson during the playoffs while being guarded by the weakest defender. In order to protect those mismatches, the Heat would typically counter by forcing the ball out of Brunson's hands. The only problem is, for as fundamental as Brunson can be as a scorer, size is still size, which means traps can be hard for the smaller guard to circumvent with over-the-top passes. As such, he would typically advance the ball to the wing for the wing to advance the ball to the screener. Except, rather than completing the triangle, Toppin would end up lost somewhere in Bermuda, felled by the presence of a big around the basket.

It's just preseason, which isn't the same as the playoffs for obvious reasons, but Toppin's play context has already started to show visible signs of change. The Hawks, who were down by Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, and Clint Capela, defend the pick-and-roll with the intent of corralling the ball-handler and forcing the screener to make a play. 

Schematically, although not executed nearly as well, the coverage is loosely similar to what Brunson was seeing when he got a favorable switch, with two defenders committing to the ball and the player at the nail angling their chest toward the middle of the floor. In this case though, as opposed to playing empty side pick-and-roll for the purpose of creating an isolation for Brunson, the Pacers have both corners filled, which allows Haliburton to play cat-and-mouse with whomever the tagger is on the back-side of the action, jumping up with his added height to not only see over the top of the coverage but also read it with his vision.

And, there's the literal rub. Although Toppin doesn't attempt a shot in either possession, his roll-gravity, as he streaks down the lane, is creating a shot for someone else, who is actually capable of shooting. That's quite a bit different from being pigeonholed as the capable shooter, wheeling around an exit screen while largely going unnoticed and unimpeded.

A lot of the credit goes to Haliburton, not only for escaping the soft traps but also for skipping the ball ahead in advance of rotations and/or mistakes. That said, part of the reason why those cross-court passing lanes were so open was because of Toppin's technique. He didn't only dive down the middle of the floor. He also evaded the tag, rolling on a slight diagonal to get inside the corner defender and lengthen the rotation to recover.

Here, half of the court is (likely unintentionally) fixated on Toppin, with the on-ball defender veering in front of him at the same time as both helpers are pulling over. In turn, Haliburton gets off the ball quickly, throwing a dart to Turner in the opposite corner for a swing-swing pass that leads to yet another screen from Toppin.

Again, Toppin sucks in the defense as a quick out, which frees up Turner to let the ball fly from deep. Of course, given that Onyeka Okongwu and De'Andre Hunter are both converging on Toppin from different sides of the floor, it seems like the Hawks still have a lot of kinks to workout with executing their new style of defense. Even so, according to Second Spectrum, Toppin set 15.0 picks per 100 possessions in which he rolled to the basket against the Hawks, compared to 3.68 last season for the Knicks, including the playoffs. If that continues and wasn't just contingent on keeping Okongwu away from the rim, it will be interesting to see whether opponents will start cross-matching their fives onto  Toppin and what impact that will have on Turner's shot profile and overall involvement in the offense as a contrast to last season when he was more often a center defended by centers.

In that regard, when the roles were reversed, the outcomes wasn't quite the same -- even when they were guarded by their usual match-ups, although it should be noted that Toppin  had to step into a bounce pass as opposed to catching the ball in his shooting pocket.

At the other end of the floor, Toppin also put together some improved possessions when considering how many errors there were in the last game, when he botched several switches and jumped on the finishing move after defending Jalen Green's initial burst. This is better, both in terms of maintaining contact with the screener on the switch and being physical while quickly swimming the post.

He'll face more of a test on Friday, when Cleveland comes to town and he has to switch out to Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, which brings to question whether the Pacers will actually have him switch or switch the coverage. Either way, he's being asked to move in directions, be it laterally when changing angles on defense or in straight lines after setting a screen on offense, that weren't often expected of him at his prior team.

For now, as far as the match-up against this type of coverage goes, Toppin made strides in the right direction -- toward the basket. With the starting spots around Tyrese Haliburton supposedly still up for grabs, Toppin will have to maintain that momentum, adjusting for whatever adjustments are necessary, in order to continue standing his ground.