After two great games for the Indiana Pacers, it is important that the team finds minutes for Aaron Holiday.
Aaron Holiday has been playing out of his mind in the last two games. After a sensational performance against the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday, many Indiana Pacers fans wondered if he could keep up that level of play in another game.
Boy did he. He was even better in the Pacers win over the Utah Jazz, showcasing an excellent feel for the game and scoring in particular. He didn’t look like a typical rookie in either game. He looked like a veteran.
But he is a rookie, which means it is important to A) see how real this stretch of two great games is and B) continue to develop him. To do both of those things, playing time is required. And not just garbage time, like he got early in the season. Real, legitimate playing time with rotation players and against rotation players is imperative in learning more about Aaron Holiday and helping him improve his game.
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That is where there is trouble. One of the best things about the 2018-19 Indiana Pacers is that they are incredibly deep. They have 9 or 10 guys who are effective NBA veterans who can help the team win on any given night. Add in TJ Leaf and Edmond Sumner, two young guys who have shown some stuff, and the Pacers have 12 guys fighting for minutes already. It is hard to find time for another guy (once Victor Oladipo returns from injury, of course).
But Holiday has been so good that you have to. Making room for him to play consequential minutes is the next step for the team. So let’s figure out who we can take some minutes away from to make room for the rookie.
Since Holiday is a point guard, looking at the point guard rotation seems like an obvious place to start. But it really doesn’t help us find an answer. Cory Joseph has been stellar this season. The way he fits with Victor Oladipo combined with his career shooting numbers and much-needed defense has Joseph looking irreplaceable at this point in time.
Additionally, while underwhelming compared to his earth-shattering season in 2017-18, Darren Collison has been important to the success of the current team. 47.1% of his threes have fallen over the past 8 games, and after a 7 assists/0 turnover game against the Jazz, it seems that some of his talents taking care of the ball have returned. DC’s role is reduced, and maybe you could scrape away one or two minutes from the veteran in lieu of Holiday, but that would not be my preferred route.
Simply replacing veteran point guard minutes with Holiday minutes seems impossible. So we are going to have to get a little creative. Thankfully, there is an easy and plausible solution.
The aforementioned TJ Leaf currently averages 6.6 minutes per game, but that number is deflated thanks to an injury. A healthy Leaf manages to snag about 8 minutes per game, and he grabs them late in the first quarter and early in the second quarter. If that first stint goes well for Leaf, Head Coach Nate McMillan will do that same thing in the late third/early fourth quarter.
The way Holiday is playing means you almost have to give Holiday Leaf’s minutes and get creative with the surrounding lineup. We know that Cory Joseph can play off-ball guard, so a lineup of Holiday-Joseph-Tyreke Evans–Doug McDermott–Domantas Sabonis could be a cohesive and talented bench group.
Holiday plays very well off of Joseph. He cuts away from the ball on offense and can guard the lesser guard on defense, CoJo is a great fit as a backcourt partner for the youngster. Aaron Holiday said as much himself after the game on Monday.
Plus, once the second quarter starts, you could mix-and-match a few starters into the equation as well. You could get creative. I was just pointing out an all-bench lineup to show how Holiday could fit into Leaf’s spot. But there are options.
Replacing Leaf with Holiday gets us to 8 minutes for the rookie. Combine those with one or two minutes from DC and you have 10. That’s probably enough to develop your rookie point guard adequately while effectively using his services. Plus, he will get significant minutes in blowouts anyway, so this is the best of both worlds. It will keep him fresh for those situations.
This is my personal solution to getting Holiday more minutes for the Indiana Pacers. Perhaps the team has different ideas. Regardless, it is imperative that they find a way to play him more. He’s been too good to ignore.