The Small Mistakes That Cost the Pacers a Win Against the Clippers

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The Indiana Pacers suffered a brutal loss last night in Los Angeles. Following an eight-game losing streak, the team got off the snide against another City of Angels squad, the Los Angeles Lakers, on Monday. A follow-up victory on the road could have done wonders for the psyche of a team that has been struggling to even compete lately — let alone get wins.

But the Los Angeles Clippers showed why talent and continuity usually win out in this league. They were more precise down the stretch and executed better while the Indiana Pacers committed a few blunders that ultimately cost them the win.

Here is a breakdown of the most-critical possessions.

It is difficult to assign blame on this defensive play. A first look makes is seem like, of course, David West is at fault. And that’s probably the most-correct assessment.

West didn’t box out DeAndre Jordan, and he then fouled Jordan on the put-back attempt. But if you look at why he missed that box out, it was because he was worried about Chris Paul passing to Blake Griffin, who had been killing the Pacers all night. CP3 had been doing more probing and dishing than shooting throughout this game, so it’s understandable that West thought Paul would absorb the double team from C.J. Watson and Lavoy Allen then find Griffin (who was open due to Allen’s double).

So West made a calculated gamble towards what he thought was the more-dangerous threat. The threat he prioritized, however, was much further from the hoop, and West’s call was clearly wrong. And, somehow, Jordan hit both free throws to give the Clippers a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

After that, two unsuccessful Pacers’ possessions, a Paul bucket, and a Griffin free throw extended that Los Angeles advantage to 4 points. Indiana was still in the game, but they couldn’t afford many more mistakes.

But they made a few more.

Watson threw the ball away in a pick-and-roll with West then Paul/Griffin ran that same action on the other end and shredded the Pacers defense. Here’s that play (in slow motion), which shows the team’s inability to stop the threat.

It was here — and, really, almost every play in the final four minutes — that made it look like Roy Hibbert would have been Frank Vogel’s better option to close the game than Lavoy Allen.

Allen’s inexperience was on full display late, as he displayed a deer-in-headlights look several times after catching the ball in the closing possessions. And on the other end, the Chris-and-Blake show was able to have its way against a defense that had no rim protector.

West is clearly uncomfortable in the role, and seems to have a Jordan rebound in mind as he stays close by DeAndrew while Griffin moves towards the rim. But what was he to do? He doesn’t have the athleticism to challenge this play after Lavoy Allen fully commits to stopping CP3 from getting off another close shot. It is a position that Hibbert finds himself in often. and West is unaccustomed to.

The case for Hibbert’s defensive presence is also lifted by what happened as soon as he got back on the court, as the video above shows.

Vogel re-inserted the big man with 40 seconds left and the Clippers up 1. Paul and Griffin again ran their pick and roll, but with the help of some insecure ball handling by Griffin, Hibbert was able to break up the play. The Pacers got a steal. This was the patented Hibbert sagging approach to the pick and roll and it worked perfectly.

The stop gave the Pacers a possession with a chance to take the lead — which couldn’t have come closer to working. Look here how the Pacers nearly scored.

Rodney Stuckey got the ball on the wing and went to work on J.J. Redick, backing him down in isolation. Stuckey did exactly what he wanted, and created enough separation to get off a great look. It looked good and couldn’t have been closer to falling. But it didn’t go down. Those are the breaks, and Redick’s ensuing free throws meant that Indiana would only have one last possession in hopes of hitting a 3-pointer to send this into overtime.

That possession went … poorly.

As seen here.

The design and execution were quite nice actually. The team ran C.J. Watson up the middle of the paint through a double pick that completely took his defender, Chris Paul, out of the play. This is a common set in the NBA these days — called “Elevator Doors” for the way the two bigs slide together after the shooter-to-be slips between them. And it almost got Watson a wide-open look for the tie.

But Blake Griffin was keen to the play and snuffed it out, jumping out to Watson and preventing the pass.

After that came a chaos that culminated in C.J. Watson making the awful decision to make a layup. With just two seconds left and no timeouts remaining, Watson would have been much better off just heaving a prayer 3-point attempt.

But he blew it. And that was the difference between a much-needed win and another devastating loss for a reeling team.