Tyreke Evans leads uninspired bench performance by the Indiana Pacers

Tyreke Evans was unimpressive after a one-game benching by the Indiana Pacers. But the entire bench struggled in the loss to the Portland Trail Blazers.

Everyone loves a good story. Even in the stats-driven world of the NBA, the narrative still reigns supreme. After a one-game suspension for tardiness and unprofessionalism, the table was set for a bit of redemption for the Indiana Pacers’ sixth man, Tyreke Evans.

However, he and the rest of the bench were extremely disappointing in the loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night. Evans’ 7 points (on 40 percent shooting), 3 turnovers, and a block weren’t any less impressive than his fellow benchmates’ numbers, but they certainly didn’t spell redemption.

If the game hadn’t been preceded by his best performance of the young season — 19 points and 5 assists in San Antonio — there might be more cause for concern, but it was none the less it was a disappointment.

What happened to the Indiana Pacers bench?

Overall, there’s little need to worry. Indiana’s bench is still one of the NBA’s more efficient groups. But on Monday we saw what happens when they don’t pass the ball.

As Tony East tweeted last night, coach Nate McMillan wasn’t pleased with that.

“We didn’t have the ball movement offensively. That frustrated us,” McMillan said. “When you play without passing, everyone frustrates each other. You feel like the next time you get the ball it’s your turn. Tonight they really never got into a flow. Defensively they never really got any stops. I ended up having to go with the starters.”

Sometimes those are just copy-and-paste coaching quotes when coaches talk about ball movement, but outside of Domantas Sabonis, the bench wasn’t passing the ball nearly as often as they usually do. Evans usually slings the ball to his teammates around 30 times a game, but that dropped to 18 against Portland.

The bench’s main ball handlers, Evans and Cory Joseph, only had a total of 12 passes that ended up as shots for the Pacers, and none of them were made. For comparison, on a normal night, the Pacers get around 10 made baskets off of that duo’s passes. To get none simply means something was going very wrong.

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The bench was a combined 5 of 15 shooting thanks to the fact no one was getting great looks at the basket or were simply settling for bad shots, save for Sabonis’ 2 of 3 performance. The Blazers didn’t feel threatened by anyone unless the ball was in their hands, making defense easier.

When that’s happening, as Nate said, he has to lean on the starters. All of Indiana’s starters were in the positive in +/-. However, the bench players surrendered between 14 and 22 points while they were on the floor, with Evans registered that game-low -22.

When Victor Oladipo nearly gets a triple-double and the starters are clicking, you can complain about missed shots by the starters but it was the bench’s fault the Pacers lost to the Trail Blazers.

Evans is the star of the show coming off the bench, though Sabonis is arguably the more liked and better player. It’s up to Tyreke and a lesser extend Cory to get the rest of the team going. When they more iso-ball than team basketball, the entire bench becomes a liability.

While Evans isn’t at risk of getting booted off the team, he could certainly use a bounce-back performance against the New York Knicks on Wednesday. That could start to build up good will and get him out of McMillan and everyone else’s dog house.