T.J. Leaf debuts in Summer League with the Indiana Pacers

T.J. Leaf played his first game with the Pacers in an 84-77 win against the Hornets in the Summer League. While he showed good signs, there’s a lot of room for improvement.

T.J. Leaf made his professional debut with the Indiana Pacers Summer League squad on Sunday, and it was much less of a Funeral and much more of a Pablo Honey.

Though he was part of a winning effort, Leaf’s contribution of 12 points, 5 rebounds and 3 turnovers was of only meager benefit to the cause. His stat line looks decent for a first act, but there were definitely points (especially early on in the game) where he struggled.

Of course, being his first semi-real experience in the NBA, it’s difficult to critique his performance too much, or to even dissect the Summer League that deeply as a whole.

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But, the Pacers’ last first round pick, a kid by the name of Myles Turner, did pretty alright in his first Summer League action. It’s fair to surmise that while performing well in the Summer League might not be indicative of NBA success, not performing well in the Summer League could be a very bad sign.

It’s hard to say that Leaf performed badly —  his team won and he put up a decent amount of points and boards. But for those who were unable to tune in and catch the game live, here are a few key observations from Leaf’s performance against the Hornets:

He had a rough start. The first two times he touched the ball ended in turnovers. It didn’t seem as if he was really settled or comfortable on the floor until late in the second quarter.

He got bodied down low, often. Five rebounds, while not an abysmal total, was weak in comparison to his teammates and in the frontcourt. He finished the first half with just one board, and for a brief five minute period got completely destroyed by 300-pound Przemek Karnowski.

He won’t be battling against many people of that size in the NBA, but Leaf’s lack of strength was exposed with that matchup.

This isn’t unexpected, but his defensive IQ is still pretty low. Too often during the game he looked out of place on D, and his play on-ball was weak as well.

-On the positive side of things, Leaf did show up offensively. On a few occasions during the game, Leaf exploded for a nice basket, as shown here:

And here:

His three-point ability wasn’t feature too much in his first game, but he did calmly knock down this shot off of a nice pass from Joe Young.

He recovered nicely from a rough start. Despite an awful first quarter, Leaf turned it around in the second quarter and beyond to put up a game that could be considered closer to “decent” than “bad”.

The star of the 84-77 victory was Leaf’s Summer League teammate Travis Leslie, however. With his 20 points and 4 rebounds off of the bench, Leslie has made noise that’s hard to ignore for coach Popeye Jones.

https://twitter.com/iPacersblog/status/881648189786509312

Other key contributors include Young  (14 points, 7 assists), Chris Johnson (11 points, 7 rebounds) and Jarnell Stokes (10 points, 7 rebounds). The win puts the team at 2-0 for the week, after a 85-74 win against the Magic yesterday that left Georges Niang with a sprained left knee.

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• 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?

As far as Leaf is concerned, though, it’s important to remember two things: it was his first game, and he was less than 24 hours removed from being the best man at his brother’s man. Be it jet lag or the Irish flu, it’s probable that Leaf wasn’t at precisely 100% physically.

All in all, there isn’t too much to take from his debut in either direction. No one should be convinced that he is going to be good or not good from this game. Luckily, he has three more chances to prove himself this week, starting tomorrow against the Heat. It’ll be a game to watch, as the Heat’s Bam Adebayo, the 14th pick in this year’s draft, will likely be matched up against Leaf.

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If he can follow up his Pablo Honey with a The Bends, then Leaf could be on his way to a great summer league. He showed small sparks of greatness today- in time we’ll see how much of that spark is fire.