Will Frank Vogel Continue to Trust the Pacers Bench?

Can the Indiana Pacers trust their bench again? Will Frank Vogel shorten the rotation or continue playing his struggling reserves?

Frank Vogel chose to trust in his bench players on Tuesday night, but that trust is being put into question after the coach’s reserve units gave away two big leads in Indiana’s heinous Game 5 loss.

If the Indiana Pacers go on to lose this series — a likely outcome as they trail the Toronto Raptors 3-2 — Vogel’s decision to play a bench unit featuring none of his starting perimeter players and leave those reserves in for a long as he did will be cited as the team’s biggest mistake. There is no doubt that the awful play of the bench players was the largest factor in the team’s fourth-quarter collapse. And Vogel’s inability to recognize a meltdown in progress and respond by bringing in his better players was puzzling at best and an unforgivable blunder at worst.

But as always, it is a little bit more complicated than that.

The second unit Vogel used in Game 5 was primarily made up of Rodney Stuckey, C.J. Miles, and Ty Lawson, with Solomon Hill and Ian Mahinmi joining at times. Solo wasn’t the problem as he was 3-of-4 from the field, with all his made shots being 3-pointers. Throw in a pair of free throws and you have 11 points. Mahinmi didn’t do much, but he wasn’t a negative either. His defense, even as he battles a bad back, is always a plus for any unit.

The other three plays, however, combined for 3-of-19 shooting and 7 points in 46 minutes.

Horrific Offense When Paul George Sat

Obviously, this is bad, and the less time on the court the better. But while Paul George has said he is ready to play 48 minutes in Game 6, as a rule, the starters have to rest at some point.

And for the entire time that Paul George sat, which was less than 7 minutes, the team was awful. Not just bad but “How is this an NBA team?” horrific.

The Indiana Pacers did not make a single basket, shooting 0-for-10, and only scored 1 point in the 6 minutes and 55 seconds that George spent on the bench. They were outscored 19-1 by the Raptors during this time. That is nearly impossible to do and speaks to just how unthinkably awful every reserve performed in Game 5.

Myles Turner, George Hill, and Monta Ellis often were resting in those stints as well. Had some combination of those starters been mixed into the lineup while Paul George rested it may have led to better results. It would have almost had to, since it’s hard to score less than 1 point.

This “staggering” tactic of not resting your best players at the same time — essentially always having at least one of your core players/scorers on the floor — is increasingly being used across the league. Dwane Casey of the Raptors uses it, with his so-called Kyle Lowry + Bench units, every game more or less, and Frank Vogel himself used to employ this strategy by letting Lance Stephenson run the second unit.

He has gone away from that, however, even though giving the ball to Monta Ellis and letting him create alongside reserves seems a natural strategic successor to what he once did with Lance.

But Game 5 certainly didn’t see anything like that. Instead, two stints featuring nearly all bench players are the few minutes when everything went wrong for the Pacers at the start of the second and fourth quarters. This is what cost the Pacers the win and now have them on the brink of elimination.

The All-Bench Unit Disasters

Indiana had led by as much as 17 in the first quarter. But as the second quarter got rolling, the Pacers’ then-15-point lead started to disappear. In three and a half minutes, Indiana’s lead shrunk to only 5 points. Lawson, Stuckey, Miles, Solomon Hill, and Ian Mahinmi were on the floor during that period, and before any reinforcements arrived, that group combined for 1 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 turnovers during the 12-1 Raptors’ run.

Yikes.

With the return of Paul George and Monta Ellis (Solo and Lawson went to the bench), Indiana counter punched with a 15-5 run and closed out the quarter by adding C.J. Miles, Myles Turner, and George Hill to take a 51-42 lead into halftime.

More from 8 Points, 9 Seconds

• 2 Studs, 1 dud from gut-wrenching Indiana Pacers loss to Charlotte Hornets
• Handing out early-season grades for Pacers’ Bruce Brown, Obi Toppin
• 3 positives, 2 negatives in Pacers In-Season Tournament win vs. Cavaliers
• 2 positives, 3 negatives from first week of Indiana Pacers basketball
• Should Isaiah Jackson’s days with Indiana Pacers be numbered?

But it is the next bench-led stretch, to start the fourth quarter, that is the one the series turned on.

Indiana had a 10-0 run late in the third quarter and the margin at the end of the period was 90-77. Myles Turner and Paul George played the entire 3rd quarter to help build what looked to be an insurmountable 13-point advantage.

But Vogel went with the same group of bench players he used to start the second quarter: Lawson, Stuckey, Miles, Solo, and Mahinmi. They quickly gave up 6 points before Frank called on Paul George and George Hill to return to the lineup. But the bleeding didn’t stop. With Paul George, George Hill and Myles Turner joining Stuckey and Mahinmi, they gave up another 2 points of their lead as Stuckey dribbled the ball out of bounds.

Stuckey was the worst of all the bench players, and after yet another egregious mistake, Vogel mercifully ended his time on the court.

At this point, the Paces still had a 92-87 lead. That is not much by comparison to how they began the fourth, but it still 5 points. C.J. Miles played another minute alongside PG, George Hill, and Monta, and Indiana gave up those 5 points quickly after two turnovers. The lead was now completely gone with 6:31 seconds remaining.

Frank Vogel then called a time-out and the starters — with Ian Mahinmi out and Solomon Hill in — would close out the fourth quarter. But the starters couldn’t turn back the tide this time as they had in the second quarter. Indiana gave up a 13-point lead in 6 minutes, and it got worse as the Raptors completed a 21-2 run to start the 4th quarter that came to an end with 3:25 left. At this point, the Raptors had a 98-92 lead.

Solomon Hill hit one desperation 3 to give Indiana some home at rallying back. Then he hit another. But it was a fraction of a second too late to force overtime.

After the shot was waved off, it was time for the autopsy to be performed.

Cause of death: The bench, with Frank Vogel refusing to render aid to a dying lead.

Yes, Vogel should have brought back the starters sooner or staggered his top perimeter players to ensure one was out there to guide the team when the fourth quarter began. But the Pacers inability to score while the starters rest puts the blame on Stuckey, Miles, and Lawson as well. The starters also have to take some blame for allowing Toronto’s run to continue.

Again, the futility of the team in Game 5 when Paul George sat is mind-boggling.

In those 7 minutes — when Indiana scored 1 point on 0-of-10 shooting, shot 1-of-4 from the foul line, turned the ball over 5 times, and committed 5 personal fouls — the team had a 7.8 offensive rating. That’s 7.8 points, per 100 possessions. On defense, they were equally terrible with a 133.8 defensive rating.

Damn.

When Paul George was on the floor, by contrast, Indiana made 52.4% of their shots (including 13-of-27 from 3-point range. In those 41 minutes, Indiana had a 125.1 offensive rating and a 104.8 defensive rating. That’s why they had double-digit leads in the first and third quarters. That’s even why they almost rallied back if Solomon Hill’s shot would have been quicker.

Trusting the Bench

Should the bench be trusted? The Indianapolis Star‘s Candace Buckner had a few interesting quotes from those bench players when she asked them that question.

Stuckey doesn’t sound very confident, but at least C.J. Miles took some responsibility by saying they have to do their jobs.

Their responses don’t matter as much as their play will. We know that some of the reserves must play — Frank Vogel can’t run all of Paul George, George Hill, and Monta Ellis for 48 minutes — and their performance in Game 6 will likely define the game.

If they don’t give away the lead, or generally get out-played by the Raptors like they did in Game 5, then Vogel may prove validated in his decision to continue trusting them. However, if they are anything like they were on Tuesday, Vogel better plan on staggering his lineups in the second half.

The most troubling stats for Indiana might be that in the series as a whole, their most-used bench lineup — Lawson, Stuckey, Miles, Mahinmi, Solo — has a 59.9 offensive rating and a 105.8 defensive rating. The other heavily used ones aren’t much better.

Next: Breaking Down The Indiana Pacers and Toronto Raptors Series

The series isn’t over, even if it feels like it after Game 5’s disappointment. The Pacers — the bench in particular — have the chance to redeem themselves if they can bounce back in Game 6. Vogel has said he “chooses to trust” them. Indeed, it is his choice. And whatever he decides in Game 6, he will have to be the one to live with the outcome.