3 lessons learned from Game 1 of the Pacers as they head into Game 2
By Ben Gibson
The Indiana Pacers struggled to score in their Game 1 loss to the Boston Celtics, but that’s not the only takeaway from the series opener.
Game 1 was not one that Indiana Pacers fans will want to remember, nor will the Boston Celtics, but at least they claimed a win on their homecourt. Indiana, unfortunately, looked a lot like the post-Victor Oladipo version of themselves.
In some ways, the game wasn’t quite as bad as it looked. A lot of Indiana’s shots rimmed out and it maybe if one or two go down early in the third quarter, they don’t force some of their shots in an effort to end the drought. That said, when you only score 74 points in a game, something is clearly wrong.
If Indiana grows basketball here a plague of locusts hit it followed by the second Dust Bowl.
The Pacers can certainly bounce back, but they’ll need to address the issues from Game 1 if they want to have any hope at evening the series.
The Pacers were completely broken offensively
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that teams have scored as many or fewer points than the Pacers in a playoff game and there have been as bad or worse quarters, but that’s about it.
The Pacers shot 33.3% from the field and a ghastly 22.2% from deep if you were wondering how they ended up with only 74 points. The Celtics shot poorly as well 36.4%, but that was countered by a 35.7% mark from 3-point range.
Hey, at least Cory Joseph isn’t slumping anymore. He was the only Pacers player to make over 50% of his shots (5 of 9), with the exception of Aaron Holiday’s 1 for 1 performance in garbage time.
When the Pacers ran their more conventional pick and roll plays, the Celtics seemed happy to deal with the consequences that came with them, as well as clogging up the paint. The Pacers had some success with off-ball screens in the first half, but if the screener and ball-handler didn’t make a point to create space, things went poorly for the Pacers.
The second half was as bad as it looked, but there were a number of shots that simply didn’t go down. You know the type: the ones that hit the back of the rim but have just enough zing on them to rim out. There were good looks after screens were set, but the ball didn’t settle down through the net.
There were issues, though. The Celtics knew what to look for when the usually efficient Domantas Sabonis went into the post, often double-teaming or at least bringing help in some form defensively. He very much needs to develop his right-handed shot.
The lack of 3-point shooting — both in the game and schematically — allowed the Celtics to hunker down in the paint as Indiana’s struggles continued. Boston knows that the Pacers don’t put enough value into them, so they planned accordingly.
When the Pacers did get down into the interior, the Celtics made sure to bury them in positions where they didn’t get clean looks at the rim.
The Pacers offense was bad enough where the Celtics could have not scored another bucket after the 7:51 mark in the fourth and they would have ended up tied with Indiana.
The Pacers don’t have a playmaker right now that can single-handedly break them out of slumps. That’s why these droughts can linger for the whole third quarter and longer at times. Indiana shouldn’t panic just yet, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to conjure up a few new plays and sets to shakes things up a bit.