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Mike Dunleavy Jr

The Pacers’ January Defensive Letdown

by Jared Wade on January 28, 2011 at 10:58 am · 1 comment

In recapping the Pacers loss to the Magic, I tried to illustrate just how poorly the Pacers have been playing on the defensive end of late. Here’s a refresher.

They have given up at least 97 points in each of the past six outings, a stretch of futility during which they have allowed an average of 108.7 points per game. The FG% defense isn’t any better with an average FG% allowed of 49.0%. The one good showing came up in Portland, where they held the Blazers to 42.2%, but the other five squads have all shot north of 45% — with four of them finishing above the 50% mark. (The worst was the 54.3% allowed to the Clippers.) And they haven’t been much better protecting the perimeter, giving up at least 10 threes in each of their last three games.

This is weird because the team was excellent defensively in November and still borderline elite throughout December. But now, it seems as if the team has begun to concentrate so much on repairing its broken offense that they lost focus on the one thing that could help turn this season around.

Mike Wells decided to ask the team exactly what is going on.

“It’s like we’re overly concerned with our offense because it’s been a struggling point for us, that we’re slipping on defense,” swingman Mike Dunleavy said. “We need to get back to defending the way we’re capable of.”We just need to worry about the offense secondarily, because I think we’ve tried so hard to solve that, we’ve neglected the defense and now we’re not doing either one well.”

Danny Granger identified what is the most obvious reason for the recent defensive futility: Roy Hibbert has not played well enough to keep himself on the court, and the team is much harder to score on when he is clogging up the interior.

“Roy hasn’t been playing a lot lately,” forward Danny Granger said. “Roy used to give us a back line of defense when teams would drive on us. We’ve also had so many different lineup changes, too. That plays a part in messing up our schemes.”

Regardless of the “why?” question, the team now looks to have a below average defense to go along with one of the worst offenses in the league. A lot of teams have made the playoffs with a terrible offense and a high-level defense. Conversely, a lot of other teams have made the playoffs with a high-level offense and a terrible defense.

But to my knowledge, no teams have ever made the playoffs with both a terrible offense and a terrible defense. And I don’t see that trend changing — so the Pacers are going to have to pick it up on at least one side of the ball if they want to play more than 82 games this season.

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Pacers Beat Sixers in Philly, Win First Road Game Since November 30, 2010

by Jared Wade on January 11, 2011 at 11:31 pm · 3 comments

The fact that I felt the need to include the year in the post title tells us all we need to know about how desperate the Pacers were for this one. They certainly out-played the Sixes in Philly but still nearly found a way to cough the game up before making their final five shots (not to mention their last eight free throws) to put it away 111-103. Considering that prior to going flawless from the field and the line in the final 4:33 the Pacers were down 94-92, this was arguably the team’s best crunch time performance of the year.

And … GOOD LORD … did they need it.

Even back when Indiana was playing good basketball (if you can remember that long ago), it was obvious that this current stretch of the schedule was going to be rough. Philadelphia was in the middle of a five-game stint of contests against the Spurs, Hawks, Sixers, Mavericks and Bulls. After that gauntlet, they immediately head out West for a four-game road trip. Then their homecoming gift is a showdown with the Magic.

All in all, wins were going to be tough for the better part of January.

So every victory right now is a big one. And with the team looking as hopeless and frustrated as it has for the past few weeks, it was a must to gain a little confidence in Philadelphia.

Perhaps they might coulda made that happen tonight. Maybe. (Note my certitude.)

Doing so required Darren Collison to play his best game as a Pacer. After having never recorded more than 7 assists in any of his first 30 games for Indiana and only twice scoring above 20 points, he did both — and then some — tonight. 21 points, 13 assists, 1 turnover and 3 steals for the point guard. Perhaps most importantly, his 8-for-15 shooting on the evening included a clutch, aggressive drive-and-pull-up-in-the-paint that put Indy up 101-99. And his perfect 5-for-5 shooting from the line included four freebies in the final 30 seconds. That’s what you need out of your floor general. As confused and frustrated as he has looked at times of late, let’s hope this is the performance he needs to help him realize that he is pretty damn good at this sport.

The best part of DC’s drive was that it came on the subsequent possession after Danny Granger (27 points, 7 dimes, 5 boards) was even more aggressive while scoring a hoop. If you have been watching the Pacers play this year, then you know that Danny all too often settles for jumpers late. Here, he took his ass down to the post, demanded the ball, made the catch, battled for position on the block, then broke off the back-to-the-basket stuff, dribbled across the lane and went up strong for a power lay-up on the other side of the rim. It was a wonderful move and something we have seen from him very few times. It was also similar, if less aesthetically jarring and miraculous, to the sweeping Mike Dunleavy Jr. skyhook a few minutes prior and the looooooong fadeaway jumphook from Roy Hibbert a few minutes later.

The guys just willed this one out. It sounds cliché, I know. But what else can you call all these big, unconventional buckets?

They didn’t go to something comfortable. (Shoot jumpers.) They didn’t go to something reliable. (Because that doesn’t exist in this offense.) They just made plays when they needed to make plays. I’m not sure many of the late buckets should give fans a ton of hope that this offense is any better than it was throughout December. Granger post-ups, Dunleavy Lew Alcindor impressions and Hibbert mid-range hookshots aren’t particularly replicable.

But they made em.

And perhaps what that may show us about their pride is more meaningful than what we already know about their offense.

I personally didn’t expect this offense to get fixed this year anyway. But I was starting to question whether or not these guys were ever going to start taking their embarrassingly play personally.

Tonight, even after they let a team back into a game that they should have put away earlier, when it mattered, they did what was needed.

For one game at least, that was enough.

Now if they can just find a way to knock off either Dallas or Chicago, perhaps this season on the brink may save itself from falling off the precipice for another week.

A few final notes:

  • Tyler Hansbrough once again played pretty well as a starter, shooting 6/11 for 12 points to go along with 9 boards. Let’s stick with this, Jim O’Brien.
  • Roy Hibbert was still gross. He hit that one big hookshot, but still just looked off out there. He did grab 8 rebounds in just 24 minutes, however, so … baby steps.
  • TJ Ford added 2 points, 3 assists and 0 turnovers in 11 minutes, which combined with Collison gave the Pacers a total of 1 turnover. They only had 12 for the whole game (two of which came on Hansbrough charges in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter). For a squad that averages 14.9 per, that’ll work.
  • I love me some Thad Young. Also love me some Marreese Speights. Larry Bird should trade for both of them. I’m not a GM, but I would offer James Posey and a lottery-protected second round pick. Who turns that down?
  • Jeff Foster played rather excellently. I’ll let Nathan S. of IndyCornrows explain: “Jeff Foster had a season high ten points to go alongside his 8 rebounds. The most exciting play of the night were pick and rolls involving a running Jeff Foster for an easy bucket. Foster’s night was tremendous all night.” All night.

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When Dunleavy Starts and When Rush Starts

by Jared Wade on December 24, 2010 at 11:21 am · 3 comments

We have already been over the fact that this year’s Pacers team doesn’t actually have a starting shooting guard. That doesn’t mean that Indiana only starts four players; it just means that the roster features two guys, Mike Dunleavy and Brandon Rush, who might be on the court during tip-off one night or another depending on match-ups or, presumably, their recent play. But neither can ever be sure he will get the start very far in advance.

When do they find out though, wondered Andrew Perna of Real GM, who rightly speculated that can cause some uncertainty for the players as they prepare?

With the pair switching roles so often, I wondered how much of a warning O’Brien gives them heading into each game.

“He’ll usually tell us in shootaround the day before, but it doesn’t really matter,” Dunleavy said.

Just to be sure, I asked Rush the same question. He corroborated with Dunleavy’s answer.

“We’ll know the day before the game or sometimes during a morning shootaround,” Rush said.

So it sounds like the guys have learned to deal with the situation.

With that cleared up, Perna decided to investigate just how well the team has fared depending on who opens the game — something our own Tim Donahue broke down not too long ago.

When Dunleavy starts over Rush, Indiana is 10-9. As would be expected he averages more points (12.8 to 10.3), rebounds (5.8 to 4.0) and minutes (32.4 to 24.1) when he’s on the floor first. However, he shoots the ball at a 53.3% clip when coming off the bench as opposed to just 43.2% as a starter.

The Pacers are 3-4 with Rush opening the curtain and his numbers fall in line with what you’d expect as well. His points (14.5 to 11.1) and rebounds (4.1 to 3.6) are greater in his starts, but his minutes are more consistent than Dunleavy’s (34.1 to 28.0). Unlike Mike, he shoots better (47.9% to 44.4%) as a starter.

Those are the blunt numbers. Here he lists some others.

Indiana has an offensive rating of 105.7 in Dunleavy’s starts and 102.5 in Rush’s.

You’d expect the opposite to be true of their defensive rating, but the Pacers have a 103.5 defensive rating with Dunleavy as the No. 1 two-guard and a 104.3 rating with Rush. It will be interesting to see if this remains the case as the season progresses.

These are not all that much more precise considering we’re still talking about the whole 48 minutes in games they start and not just the time that each individual is on the court. (Not that that would be perfect either.) Regardless, I’m sure we will be taking a closer look at this again soon after we get a larger sample of games.

Still, the idea that they are essentially interchangeable and that neither has “earned” the starter role more than the other guy remains pretty accurate.

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Breaking Down the Pacers Buzzer-Beating Win

by Jared Wade on December 21, 2010 at 3:41 pm · 0 comments

Huge and much-need win for the Pacers last night. While the elation of the final tip-in was wonderful, it’s hard not to think that it shouldn’t have come to that. Indiana played fantastic defense in the first quarter in particular and held New Orleans to 39.8% shooting for the game. They led by as much as 13 points in the first half and caught (or helped force … probably both) an off-night for all-world point guard Chris Paul.

Then things got increasingly sloppy and the increasingly bad play of Roy Hibbert (2 points on 1-for-10 shooting and 0-for-0 from the line, 3 rebounds and 3 turnovers in 24 minutes) started to make it look like the Pacers would lose. It just started to feel like Indy had blown too many opportunities to put away a team that wasn’t playing well. Someone was going to have to win this one, and the Pacers looked just as uninterested in doing so as the Hornets.

As it so often does, it came down to the end.

Neither team executed beautifully throughout the final two minutes, but each team made some big plays. In the video below, I’ve done a breakdown of the final six possessions, highlighting both the good and the bad points for the Pacers.

Here’s a complementary written breakdown from Tim Donahue on the pick-and-pop from CP3 and David West that put New Orleans up by 1 with 3 seconds to play.

The Hornets run that play better than anyone else in the league, and Paul and West are the best pick-and-roll/pick-and-pop combination in the game. They executed it perfectly.

Foster was staying in the lane, and West came all the way out the three-point line to set the pick. Ford tried to go under, but West actually hopped a little to his right and caught Ford — hanging him up for a second. It was an illegal screen, but the type that never gets called. (Watch a replay of Foster sliding to his right to try to set a screen for Danny on the following play.)

Paul, meanwhile slides at an angle towards the elbow, creating enough space so to make it hard to cover both players. After Ford gets disengaged from West, he frantically tries to recover, and then — and this makes the play — Paul pump fakes a shot. The pump fake does two crucial things.

First, it gets Ford in the air and moving between Paul and the basket, which opens up a pristine passing lane to get the ball back to West. Second, it gets Foster to take one step up to challenge the shot — a half-jump that delays his recovery to West just enough to make sure West doesn’t have to rush it.

Beautiful work by the best in the business at it.

The other big thing was what New Orleans did with the other three guys. They got them completely out of the play. The wings — Jarrett Jack and Marco Belinelli both stood on the the sideline outside of the three-point arc, and Okafor actually set up out of bounds on the baseline. Jack and Belinelli drifted waiting for the pass, and Okafor came in bounds directly under the basket and started pushing Posey out to get rebounding position.

It was set up so that any help besides from any of the three defenders not involved in the pick-and-roll defense would have opened up a guy for a good look at the basket — leaving Ford and Foster on an island of sorts.

I criticize the Pacers for this play a little bit in the video, but Tim’s take is definitely more nuanced. Ultimately, this play is a lot like the Andrew Bogut tip-in game-winner: really good execution. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap. (Still, TJ letting himself get man-handled that badly can’t be considered good work.)

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