The Pacers are missing their engine (Patreon)

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By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper  

The Pacers have lost three of their last five games. The most recent loss, coming against a San Antonio Spurs team with the third-worst record in the league, can be summed up with two possessions that also sum up the current skid. 

With 4:28 to play in the second quarter, Tyrese Haliburton came out heavy-footed to the ball, appearing almost as though he was digging in his heels at the point of attack, before quickly relenting and reaching around from behind. On the spray out, Andrew Nembhard got caught too high and wide, giving up an avenue to the front of the rim. When the floater didn't drop through the net, San Antonio secured a second chance, with the shooter delicately tapping the ricochet over the unsuspecting head of Myles Turner. After the ball sailed back out to the perimeter, the Spurs misfired on yet another floater, which ultimately got recycled into more dribble penetration and, eventually, at long, long last, a dogged score.

For those keeping track, all of that amounts to four blowby drives, three field-goal attempts, and two offensive rebounds for San Antonio, resulting in one very swift and immediate timeout from the Pacers. It isn't sexy analysis, but there's nothing schematically to question about that sequence -- at least not in the sense that will meaningfully matter so long as the collective friction that is being applied continues to waver so dramatically and with such predictable unpredictability. For his part, while Haliburton certainly isn't known for being sticky, as far as getting clipped and/or overpowered, he isn't typically this weighted down, neither connecting nor directing the ball with a delayed first step while giving up a screen rejection that forces his teammates to scramble into making emergency rotations. 

That much is out of the ordinary, as is what developed during the other telling possession from this game, in which he was deployed as the cutter within a floppy set following a later, subsequent timeout. Normally, when the Pacers run this action, he's the ball-handler -- not the player doing the screen-the-screener dance under the basket and flying off a pair of screens.

In fact, according to Second Spectrum, this possession marks the first time this season that Haliburton has wheeled around consecutive pindowns from that angle and spot on the floor. And, here's the thing: in "wheeling around," he's mostly just rounding the corner. Even with his defender shooting the gap, he doesn't really use any change of speed or deception to fade or create separation. As such, Victor Wembanyama never has reason to step out from Turner's screen to deny the potential pass to Haliburton, which means the lanky big man has plenty of freedom to roam, enveloping Nembhard's drive. In essence, Haliburton is getting in some cardio while increasingly filling the role of movement shooter within the offense. 

To put this into context, consider how much his volume of ball-screens has dwindled. For the season, he's averaging 51.4 picks per 100 possessions as the ball-handler. Now, look at the last five games:

• 2/25 vs. Dallas - 38.2
• 2/26 vs. Toronto - 31.8 
• 2/28 vs. New Orleans - 33.8
• 3/01 @ New Orleans - 31.9
• 3/03 @ San Antonio - 29.7

Of course, it begs pointing out that New Orleans played a decent amount of zone, which can naturally limit pick-and-roll frequency. Meanwhile, for a team that moved on from Buddy Hield at the trade deadline, Ben Sheppard and Doug McDermott have both been unavailable the last two games, as well. Granted, Sheppard has only logged 20-plus minutes of action in six games this season, and McDermott isn't always even a lock to play after halftime, but at least they provide the Pacers with options as off-ball movers. As it is, of the 22 ball-screens that were set for Haliburton against the Spurs, only one involved a third player or anything remotely similar to a stack screen, with this more accurately falling under the umbrella of a shallow cut from Aaron Nesmith, who shot 0-of-4 from three.

Moreover, after Haliburton pulls out of the paint against the switch, notice how no one blurs in front of the ball with a non-contact screen to get to the next action or reignite the offense. For the game, Nembhard was the only guard who screened for Haliburton and neither instance involved him slipping out into space with any momentum. That means, the Pacers never even ran two of Haliburton's bread-and-butter actions  -- except for when the roles were reversed with him as the screener. In that regard, this is typically how the Pacers counter when teams dial up the pressure and face-guard him, but he's already popping out and functioning mainly like connective tissue within the first three minutes of action. 

Likewise, even with T.J. McConnell running wild and making practically every shot in sight for a season high of 26 points, it was still a bit jarring to see Haliburton tally five of the 11 total ball screens he's set for the plucky guard all season during the final seven minutes of a close game, in which he got denied pass-backs and continued looking hesitant against closeouts.

Admittedly, some of that conscientiousness can be explained by the pervasiveness of Wembanyama, who was seemingly altering shots just with his mere projected presence.

Still, Haliburton has averaged 18.99 drives per 100 possessions for the season and that number, like his ball screen frequency, has also dropped, falling to 12.69 over the last five games -- including in those when Wembanayama hasn't been looming in the background.

For example, it's tough to watch him take a reset dribble here and immediately get off the ball without picturing how he would normally load his shot or attempt to squirt through the help with his signature low gather and long, bounding strides. 

Again, this is out of the ordinary, and it isn't at all meant as a short-sighted commentary on his ceiling or overall caliber as a player. It is merely to point out that, from the pet actions that have mostly been out of circulation except for when he gets moved around differently to the different ways he appears to be moving, there's plenty of reason to view this recent stretch as an aberration from his stardom as opposed to his stardom somehow being an aberration. 

He'll eventually start making some of the catch-and-shoot threes that he missed, as will the Pacers, and everything always looks better when the ball goes through the hoop, but there are limits to what T.J. McConnell can do as a spark plug without a consistent engine. And that, in summary of what this game summarized about the current slide, is meant as a commentary on what can't be explained about the wavering urgency of the team as a whole -- not what seems very much explainable about what, specifically in the here and now, might be impacting the team's star.