Three keys to unlock the Indiana Pacers' offense without Oladipo

The Indiana Pacers offense is going to change with Oladipo. Here is how they can maximize it.

Victor Oladipo‘s season-ending knee injury took the air out of the Indiana Pacers. Their leader, who had been fighting through injuries all season, is done. Although Oladipo had taken a step back statistically, he was still the engine for the Pacers’ offense. Even when he wasn’t hitting shots, opposing defenses had to pay attention to him.

Now, the Indiana Pacers begin their second stretch without Vic. In the first 11 game stretch, Indiana rattled off seven wins and only lost four, keeping the team afloat. That was the beginning of the Indiana Pacers’ big win streak, culminating in a 32-15 record. The first game of the rest of the season was a tough loss at the hand of the Grizzlies, who had lost nine of their last 10 and were playing on the second night of a back to back.

The Pacers are a defensive minded team and will win games this way. But if the Grizzlies game was any indication, Indiana will not be able to win without major improvement on the offensive side of the ball. When Oladipo was previously injured, the Pacers had the luxury of a relatively easy schedule.

The Indiana Pacers have a sizeable cushion record-wise but end the season with an absolute gauntlet of a schedule. In the span of 11 games, the Pacers play the Bucks, Sixers, Warriors, Blazers, Clippers, Celtics, Nuggets twice and Thunder twice. Indiana’s offensive rating ranks 15th in the NBA, dropping to 18th when Oladipo is not on the floor. For most if not all of those teams, Indiana’s current offensive output simply won’t be enough. In the coming paragraphs, I will attempt to provide a solution for the Pacers’ offensive conundrum. Let’s go.

Make Myles Turner A Focal Point of The Offense

Before Victor Oladipo’s initial injury, he was the key fulcrum of the Indiana Pacers offense. His 18.3 field goal attempts per game were 8.3 more than second place Tyreke Evans.

Ever since, Indiana has taken a more team-centric approach to offense, which has been somewhat effective. Oladipo still leads the team in shot attempts with 14.8 but five different players take at least 10 shots per game and Tyreke Evans takes 9.8. However, the player who hasn’t received enough touches still is Myles Turner.

Over his first 18 games of the season, Turner struggled. He scored a pedestrian 10.9 points per game, grabbed 5.4 boards, and blocked 2.6 shots shooting an awful 20.7% from three on 1.8 attempts per game.

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He has turned a corner in his last 22 games, though. His averages have increased to 14.2 points and 8.6 rebounds. From the three-point line, he’s stroking a sensational 49.2% on 2.5 attempts per game. He is fifth on the Pacers in touches at 51.7 per game. Yet, this development was not a product of Turner being more involved in the offense. Rather, this was an internal improvement for Myles.

This is a massive problem. Fourth on the team in shot attempts per game, Turner has a case to be taking the most shots on the team. Nate McMillan’s offense restricts Turner, hiding much of his true talent.

The bulk of Turner’s usage comes as a pick and roll/pop big man. Turner is effective as a pop man but takes too many long twos. 26.3% of his total field goals on the season have come from 16-24 feet. Turner has to be extending the majority of his pick and pops to the three-point line. He can clearly do this effectively, as referenced before, and 2.5 three-point attempts per game are not enough for a near 50% shooter over the last 22 games. He shoots 31.2% of his shots within five feet on 66.2% efficiency, 76.1% of which are assisted. Although effective as a PnR big and a post up man, Turner’s leash needs to be extended.

Against Memphis, Turner had a chance to create and (shocker) the result was positive. McMillan still has few intentional actions for Turner, which is a problem on its own, but Myles flashed his offensive talent on multiple occasions. He has the handle and quickness to attack off of the dribble, as he gets into the lane and finishes strong over Jaren Jackson:

Again, he attacks off of the catch and drives to the paint, drawing the foul:

Myles flashes some of his passing ability here. Playing as a short roll big, he makes a snappy decision right after receiving the ball, finding the corner shooter:

Lastly, we have the piece de resistance, the creme de la creme and every other overdone cliche in the book. This play is truly special and had me falling out of my chair on sight. How many centers in the NBA, heck, ever, can create this much space on a one-dribble pull-up and look this fluid doing it? Not many. I don’t care if Myles missed, this play has to tell the Pacers’ coaching staff “hey, maybe we should involve this masked kid a bit more.”:

At this point, Turner’s development this season is significant. His talent is undeniable. He deserves to be utilized far more than he is and unleashing Turner could be a major saving grace for Indiana. Drawing up specific plays to get him the ball will be effective but simply putting the ball in Turner’s hands more often works too.

Push the Pace

Plenty has been made of the lack of a correlation between pace and good offense. “Pace” is the hot new buzzword in the NBA and every team wants to run and gun. But a fast offense is not necessarily a good offense. Houston boasts the second-best offensive rating in the NBA at 113.7 but the third slowest pace at 97.8. On the other hand, Atlanta is the fastest team in the NBA with a pace of 105.18 but has the fourth worst offensive rating at 104.5. Five of the top 10 NBA offenses have a pace in the bottom ten and four have a pace in the top 10.

With all of this being said, utilizing pace can actually help give an offense like Indiana’s a major advantage. If the Pacers will refuse to let Turner be a half-court creator and still elect to have Tyreke Evans and Cory Joseph create a majority of the offense (yuck), then running a bit more can help guys like that out. Improving their 24th ranked pace could help create more easy buckets to help compensate for a lack of an elite shot creator in Oladipo. Pushing the pace creates this mismatch for Bogdanovic. The Grizzlies have to help out the undersized Conley, freeing up Turner on the perimeter:

Cory Joseph immediately goes into a pick and roll with Sabonis before the defense can set up. The defense isn’t ready to rotate and a good cut from Leaf further opens up this Holiday triple:

Occasionally, the Indiana Pacers will run quick screen action right as the ball gets into the frontcourt. The Sabonis screen frees up Bogdanovic who can get himself an easy shot:

Again, Indiana flows right into a handoff for Bogey, who turns the corner right to the basket:

One caveat to mention: the long-two problem persists even in these advantage situations. Long mid-range shots early in the shot clock are almost never a good option, especially when the said shooter is currently shooting an icy 36.7% on shots from 16-24 feet on the season:

The benefits of pushing the pace – the right way – are clear, but Indiana still plays too slow for a team that no longer features an elite initiator. As we’ll see in the next section, too many of Indiana’s possessions don’t start until half of the shot clock is gone. With the offensive talent on the roster, giving them as much leverage over the defense should be a priority.

Revamp the Halfcourt Offense

I’ll be prefacing this section with a few points. First, nothing in this section is actually going to happen but I believe it is still worth discussing. Second, Nate McMillan is not a bad coach. He is not a good offensive coach to me, but comparing him to the likes of Jim Boylen is asinine given all he has done with this team over the last two seasons.

Putting it lightly, Indiana’s halfcourt offense is underwhelming. This is nothing new. The Pacers were able to hide behind the facade of Oladipo’s shotmaking goodness but that veil is gone and the offense is ripe for exposure. I have quite a few gripes with this offense so I’m going to dive right into the film. The first is the complete lack of motion on a regular basis and how stagnant the offense is. The majority of Indiana’s sets include a PNR or DHO and nothing else. No screens, no motion, no secondary or tertiary action. Collison dribbles in place for six whole seconds before passing to Evans, who thought driving into three defenders was a good idea:

In the 8p9s Slack chat, we play a virtual drinking game. Whenever Cory Joseph takes a bad floater or layup, take a virtual shot. No weakside action, just a side pick and roll and a lefty finger roll over two defenders:

Only one player touches the ball on this possession. Unfortunately for the Pacers, Tyreke Evans couldn’t do much. He dribbles to the short corner, tries to post up Jevon Carter and fails miserably:

Here is a miserable attempt at an after-timeout play by the Pacers. It’s not a horrible concept, with pin-downs on both sides. However, everyone is walking out there, Turner sets an awful screen and Young’s screen doesn’t even make contact. Another Tyreke PnR with no weak side motion results in a near giveaway:

The Indiana Pacers do in fact have some effective and creative sets in the playbook. However, there are a few problems with this. Almost all of these sents are rudimentary and include no secondary action and the Pacers can’t make the most out of the advantages created by the plays. I really like this wrinkle of a simple DHO, with the Holiday screening Evans’ defender. But Evans bails out the defense after a well-executed offensive set with a horrible shot:

Evans’ decision making is too often dreadful as we have seen throughout this tirade. It’s not like he can’t attack the rim but plays like these are few and far between:

Here the Pacers bust out a set out of horns, something they should do far more often than they do. The horns alignment has two players at the elbow and two in the corner. It is useful for its versatility in creating openings. Before you watch the play below, click here to watch how the Utah Jazz uses the horns formation. Now compare that to this Pacers’ horns play. Joseph enters the ball to Sabonis and the two-man game with him and McDermott gets Indiana free throws. But once again this play has a dearth of any secondary action, ball movement, or off-ball motion:

Transitioning to a few good Pacer sets, this play is Indiana’s ‘signature play’ that they save for the beginning of halves. I bet you’ve seen this play before even if you haven’t paid any close attention to Xs and Os. Bogey passes to the top of the key who enters to the elbow. Bogdanovic then runs off of a cross screen for an open layup or good post position:

The Pacers clearly have found something good with the above play but I wish they did more with it. They could add more wrinkles with Bogdanovic coming around for a handoff or looking for a weakside pindown. Onto another nice set, Bogey curls off of McDermott who then curls off of Sabonis. He has a clear lane downhill and draws the foul:

The Pacers don’t often fully commit to player and ball movement but when they do, it works. Instead of running a PnR immediately, the Pacers flow into it after two handoffs, taking advantage of pre-screen motion to give the PnR and even bigger advantage. Holiday makes a great pass to McDermott, who should have shot this ball but missed a wide open Holiday on the perimeter on this drive:

The last few clips of an effective offense are the exception rather than the rule. The majority of Indiana’s offense is vanilla and that needs to change. With Victor Oladipo on the floor, a creative, modern offense isn’t a necessity because of his sheer gravity. But if the Pacers want to keep up with the best of the NBA, they need to change with the times.

Bonus Key: Get Doug McDermott the Ball

Many have noted the positive relationship between

Doug McDermott

‘s effectiveness and his points scored. When the Pacers involve McDermott, good things happen. His shooting gravity alone opens up the floor for everyone else and he can have an impact even when he isn’t scoring. The Pacers should run more sets like this for McDermott, where he can add an easy three points to the scoreboard:

Given the past tendencies of the Indiana Pacers’ coaching staff, none of these proposed solutions seem likely to happen.

Next. The Pacers are stretching the floor in unexpected ways. dark

And that is ok, really. Even if the Pacers offense could be fully optimized, they still aren’t going deep in the playoffs without Victor Oladipo. Hopefully, the offensive incompetency to come will be a wake-up call to Nate McMillan that he needs to get under the hood and update a few parts. So when the Pacers’ V8 engine is back running at full capacity, the car can accelerate at speeds faster than ever before.

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Three keys to unlock the Pacers’ offense without Oladipo

By Ben Pfeifer | Jan 27, 2019