Analyzing the Pacers Spacing and Defensive Challenges

The Indiana Pacers have a talented core, but a presumed Mighty Mouse back court and a lack of shooters means that coach Nate McMillan has challenges to overcome.

This is a guest post to 8 Points, 9 Seconds that was written by Donovan Reed of Patterns of the Pick and Roll. Read his previous breakdown of second-year Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner.

The Indiana Pacers are nothing if not interesting (to me at least, although my favorite show is Paid Programming, so take that with a grain of salt). They say they want to run, so they hire Nate McMillan and sign Al Jefferson. They say they want to space the floor, so they bring in non-shooters Thaddeus Young and Jeremy Evans. Not to mention, they sign guards like they’re fighting a height discrimination lawsuit.

All of this prompts the question: What in the hell will the Pacers’ starting five even look like, and how will they fare?

Plugging Jeff Teague in for George Hill is an easy swap; Indiana didn’t pine after Teague for months just to bring him off the bench. Paul George is a given at the 3. There’s been a lot of noise about George at power forward in the past, but his reluctance to play big and the addition of Thaddeus Young should keep him from making the transition just yet. Al Jefferson is an interesting piece at center, but he fits better on the bench where his meaty hooks have the lowest opportunity cost, and the Pacers need to find out what they have in Myles Turner.

Shooting guard is where things get as complicated as my ex, Karen. (She says she wants to get a million miles away from me, then she gets a restraining order saying I’m alright as long as I’m not within 100 feet of her. Either that’s a signal she wants me back in her life or I just don’t know women like I think do.)

Aaron Brooks could inject some nice spacing and jitterbug ball-handling, but he makes the other Pacers guards look like giants, and Indiana doesn’t seem to view him as a starter. Ditto for Joe Young. Rodney Stuckey offers size, but he’s a disaster on or off the ball.

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Monta Ellis feels like the natural choice. He comes with many of the same bugaboos as his competitors, but he’s the incumbent, and he was the nominal shooting guard in six of the seven most-played Pacers lineups last year, per 82games.com.

While no one will confuse Indiana for Golden State, their starting lineup should have enough firepower to keep the paint from becoming Japanese-subway crowded. Teague-hoisted triples don’t keep coaches up at night, but you can’t ignore them. Mama’s Boy shot 40% on trifectas last year, and sits at 35.5% for his career.

Paul George is an excellent shooter, period. Opponents respect him from deep, and his off-the-catch prowess keeps weakside defenders occupied when he’s away from the play.

If Paul George is the heart of the halfcourt offense, Myles Turner is the iron lung — without him, nothing could breathe. You can survive with only three dependable spacers. Two is treacherous. Turner’s midrange game is nice, but the time for him to start bombing away is now. There is almost always an adjustment period to the NBA 3-point line, so it’s unlikely Turner will scorch the nets this year, but his form, midrange touch and free-throw shooting are all reasons to believe he can cross the 34% threshold. If he does, his gravity will be more valuable than most: When Jeff Teague catches a defender in his orbit, he pulls an elf out of the paint; when Myles Turner does so, he neutralizes a giant.

Monta Ellis and Thaddeus Young are the warts on the model. Both are shooting just over 31% for their career from the NBA’s great beyond, and teams ignore them to take away penetration — the lifeblood of good offenses. But as long as the Pacers get creative — involving Ellis and Young in actions and encouraging opportunistic cuts — they can work around them.

And each can provide a sort of Houdini spacing: When they’re hitting jumpers, you’ll see it; when they’re not, you won’t. We like to look at spacing as static and absolute, but shooting is volatile; even the worst shooters can get hot, and there are far worse shooters than Monta Ellis and Thaddeus Young. When neither is connecting, it will be up to Pauly G and Co. to scrounge up enough points to get by. When one (or, on that oh so heavenly day, both) finds his range, the Pacers will have a lot more room to roam.

Altogether, they should cobble together middling offensive efficiency. Middling is alright; middling work in the bedroom won me the best four years of my life with Karen. But the Pacers, like Karen, want something more, and forging a top-flight offense requires artistry that was lacking under the Vogel regime.

It will be interesting to see what Nate McMillan whips up; Paul George is one hell of a paint brush. George is the rare three-tool pick-and-roll ball-handler capable of penetrating, whipping passes wherever the defense sags off, and shooting 3s off-the-dribble. He connected on an Average Joe 33.8% of these hoists last season, but that’s enough to keep defenses from anchoring in the paint, and that number probably doesn’t do him justice. Per NBA.com’s player tracking stats, roughly 31.4% of George’s 566 threes last year were contested (defined as within four feet of a defender), and he sank only a quarter of those contested jobs. Weed them out and you have a player who can’t be left alone.

Getting weird with Teague or Ellis as screeners for George could generate mismatches and sift out some of the tight-quartered chucks. When defenses swap, George can isolate against a mite — a surefire way to draw help. When guys are slow to come out, George can walk into 3s over defenders who have about as much chance to contest his shot as my mom does. (Short wingspan, lackluster vert, keeps her hands low; she had a 10-day with the Suns way back when but just didn’t have the tools to stick in the league.)

Without the rock in his hands, George needs to be sprinting around staggered screens and baseline screens for open jumpers. Not all gifted shooters can shoot efficiently off screens; doing so requires the dexterity and body control to set your feet and square to the hoop at full speed. But George excels, and he’s mastered the quick stop — hopping off one foot, skimming the floor and landing softly with both feet angled towards the basket:

George’s off-ball forays can act as either the main avenue to buckets or as decoy actions, getting the defense leaning one way only to attack another. Most decoy actions occur away from the ball, but the Pacers should explore using diversions on the strong side to open up George 3s, pindowns and shuffle cuts on the weak side.

These types of looks were a staple of Bo Ryan’s offense at Wisconsin:

It’s easier to ignore fluff on the weak side; knowing the ball is on the other side of the floor screams “NO IMMINENT DANGER.” No one has the guts to ignore a strong side action, and it’s easy to punish their lack of attention if they do. Strong side fakes could help George find some breathing room when defenses are locked in on him.

Finding good looks for Jeff Teague will require a little less work; he gets wherever he wants, whenever he wants. Still: Teams will duck under screens against him in the playoffs, tempting him into pull-up jumpers. He can’t settle. Going under multiple screens is difficult for any defender; if he rescreens and rescreens again, he will get the look he wants.

And the more you rescreen, the closer to the hoop you start the pick-and-roll. That means less room to roam — tough on a player who struggles to finish in traffic — but it will be a lot harder for defenses to send help in time. If Teague drives, making the defending big commit to him, he can hit the roll man for easy layups.

Monta Ellis mimics Teague’s skill set without the off-ball credibility, so he may be the best choice of ball-handler behind Paul George. Maximizing Ellis means trimming the fat. He loves long two-pointers the way I love

appletinis and spooning

Johnnie Walker Red and playing “bloody knuckles.” The Pacers need to convince him to fly downhill and that his jumper is not his friend.

Myles Turner may be the key to changing Ellis and the rest of the Pacers’ pull-up-y offense. Respected pop men prompt defenses to trap, hedge and defend higher on the floor, committing two to the ball and gifting open jumpers and blow-bys. If Turner makes the progress the Pacers are counting on, Indiana will be able to trade some of those long twos for open threes and rim runs.

Using him as the pop man means positioning Thaddeus Young in the dunker spot (under the rim) — a blow to their spacing, but perhaps a necessary casualty when Teague and Ellis are at the controls. Unlike Paul George, Teague and Ellis don’t have the off-the-dribble artillery to prevent teams from dropping back; they could use a partner who can open up driving lanes, and while teams will switch Turner screens come playoff time, Indiana has the ISO ballers to punish them.

Defensively, the starting lineup doesn’t look the part of a world beater. Jeff Teague makes “wow” plays, but was a major negative last year (-1.81) according to ESPN’s real plus minus. Monta Ellis’ tenacity and quickness make him surprisingly formidable one-on-one, but he needs to cut out the nonsense gambles. Thaddeus Young knows where to be, but he doesn’t always try that hard, he takes bad angles against the pick-and-roll, and he’s a disaster at the rim; opponents shot 60.7% on attempts within six feet when he was the nearest defender, per NBA.com.

Thankfully, Myles Turner should be a definite plus, and Paul George steals people’s souls. Turner is neither the most airtight nor the most mobile defender, and he will struggle guarding on the perimeter against the deadliest bombers, but his rim protection is the real deal; he averaged 3.1 smothered chickens per 40 minutes this past season. He’s a better defender in reality than in a vacuum, thanks to what’s been called (by me) “The DeAndre Effect.”

DeAndre Jordan isn’t the most consistent help defender — missing subtle rotations and chilling at the rim while abrasive finishers barrel down the lane — but he’s still a major difference-maker because his sheer presence dissuades dudes from even trying to attack the rim. By the end of last season, Turner was generating the same brand of fear.

Paul George is one of maybe five perimeter defenders who make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Against the Raptors, he refused to be screened, making Demar DeRozan look like, well … DeMar Derozan. But, worse, somehow.

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Siccing George onto players like Damian Lillard and Steph Curry — for whom trapping is almost the only option — could be a creative way to combat their pick-and-rolls. Against like-size defenders, Steph and Damian can pass out of traps with relative ease, initiating the launch sequence for deadly halfcourt 4-on-3s. With George on them, they’d be forced to pass through a thicket of limbs, prompting deflections and live-ball turnovers — the deadliest plays in basketball.

On the flip side, sliding George onto a team’s preferred screener (Draymond for the Dubs, Mason Plumlee for the Blazers) could render their best action switchable.

But getting creative with George is difficult when you have to find livable matchups for the other guys on the floor, and bigger guards can bully Teague and Ellis. It’d be easier to work around one of them, but playing both at the same time makes it tough to cross-match (trading assignments on defense) without getting exposed.

As long as they stick with the Mighty Mouse backcourt, Indiana’s options will be limited, and switching will be nearly out of the question. They’re still the Pacers, so it’s fair to assume scheme will overcome talent during the regular season, but a lineup with such rigid liabilities runs the near certainty of encountering the wrong matchup in the playoffs.

A Monta Ellis/C.J. Miles swap for the starting lineup may be the answer. The Pacers have supposedly been shopping Ellis for weeks, and the motivations are understandable: Ellis is Teague-lite, and the Aaron Brooks signing makes him even more expendable.

Miles could inject some 2-4 switchability into the starting lineup. He isn’t the fleetest of foot, so Paul George would have to guard the most potent twos, but that’s an assignment PG takes upon himself anyways.

Miles is a streaky but respected 3-point shooter, giving Indiana’s starting lineup four legitimate spacers, and his screens unlock unique possibilities. With a traditional big as the screener, Jeff Teague can attack stiff bigs off the dribble, but may struggle finishing with them on his tail. With Miles as the screener, Teague can isolate against smaller defenders — ones he can finish over and blow by with ease.

Split cuts with Miles and Paul George could be deadly. The Warriors terrorize opponents with these actions; defenders can’t help on the shooter without their man cutting free to the rim, and they can’t go under the screen without yielding an open 3:

Teams will eventually counter with switches, but switching onto dudes cutting straight to the rim is tough; the velocity differential between defender and assignment is maximized, and the angle for a pass is often still there.

Monta Ellis for C.J. Miles seems like an insignificant trade-off.

No one outside Indiana would bat an eye, and from October to April, it may not matter much. But when the real season begins, every marginal change matters — just ask Frank Vogel.

One small lineup change during Game 5 of the first Round, and Vogel is probably still the head coach of the Indiana Pacers. Miles isn’t a stud — far from it — but he may be the key to masking a potentially fatal flaw come playoff time.