The Indiana Pacers needed all five players to pitch in for Glenn Robinson III’s game-winning shot over the Atlanta Hawks.
Glenn Robinson III delivered the Indiana Pacers the win on Sunday, but it truly took a team effort in those final seconds to come up with the victory.
Starting from the Atlanta Hawks miss (with Robinson contesting), Teague forced the action from the moment he grabbed the rebound. By pushing it up court — and coach Nate Robinson not calling a time out — the Hawks were never organized or in a position to stop the Pacers.
Teague wisely didn’t push the ball against the three Atlanta defenders, handing the ball off to Paul George. Teague’s work was already done as the Hawks were scrambling to cover him and Paul George.
George continued to put pressure on the Hawks by driving to a basket. Obviously. none of this is scripted, but it looked like he knew there were two outcomes: The first being a chance at a layup/dunk or foul, and the second being a variation of the “Nash” play — inspired by Steve Nash — that has been in Indiana’s playbook the past few years. When a player is under the basket, they often have several passing lanes to work with or on the off chance the defense screws up, they might get an open look themselves.
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George had three players on him, though Myles Turner tried breaking them up by getting in the way, but that also meant someone was open on the floor. Paul George saw C.J. Miles and Robinson on the wing and elected to pass to Miles. Turner deserved a little credit for disrupting the swarm and giving PG more room to pass.
The unselfishness continued from there as Miles wrangled in the ball. Instead of resetting and taking a contested 3-pointer over Dennis Schröder, he sent the ball over a few steps on a tap pass to Robinson.
From there, it was glorious domination. Robinson hits the basket with 0.6 remaining, knocking down his first game-winner of his career, and his second attempt. This was the second time Robinson took the Pacers final shot in a situation like this, missing a shot from a similar spot when Indiana played to the Oklahoma City Thunder in November.
This play was just another step for Glenn Robinson III. He went from proving himself in the Summer League, becoming a starter (temporarily), winning the dunk contest, settling into a role as an important bench player, and now hitting game-winners.
Indiana let the Hawks take the lead late, but what matters was they didn’t crack under pressure as we’ve seen too many times this season. They didn’t come up short and they played team-basketball perfectly to get the win.
Next: Indiana Pacers’ Inconsistent Bench Finally Getting It Together
Hopefully next time they don’t need a last second shot, but at least we know they can execute one on the fly.