The Indiana Pacers fell to the Cleveland Cavaliers Tuesday night with a final score of 127-124. It was a tough-fought night for Indiana, who had 8 of 9 players score 10 or more points. Oshae Brissett was the only exception, finishing with 5 points and 4 rebounds.
The end of the game was difficult for one of the newer Indiana Pacers, Jalen Smith. Smith fouled Darius Garland with under twenty seconds remaining in the game to shoot free throws.
This is not a hit piece on Jalen Smith, everyone makes mistakes. For Indiana at this point in the season, young guys making those mistakes is what you can expect from a 22-45 team.
After Malcolm Brogdon gets the goaltending call, the Cavs tie the game at 124 off a putback by Mobley. On the next possession, Brogdon drives inside and is blocked.
Then, Jalen Smith fouls Darius Garland with 16 seconds on the clock.
Making both free throws, the game was left in the hands of Haliburton for nearly a full-court heave. It was short, the Pacers lose.
Jalen Smith had a great game despite this one play and played the entire fourth quarter. He scored 15 points and posted 5 rebounds while hitting two three-point shots.
One of those threes came in crunch time, where he tied the game at 120 with under two minutes remaining.
Since joining the Indiana Pacers, Smith is shooting 41.9% from behind the arc on 3.9 attempts and shooting 56.3% from the field. Before joining the team, he shot 23.1% from three and 46% from the field. A substantial difference to say the least.
Rick Carlisle was asked post-game about the late foul by Smith and put the blame on the coaching staff.
"“Yeah that’s on us, that’s on the coaching staff. We’ve just gotta make sure that guys in that situation completely understand the situation. It’s something that does happen and we just talked about it as a group. This is a kid that really cares so much and I told him we’re going to learn from it, you can mourn it for about 10 minutes if you want to then you got to forget about it”."
I understand why Carlisle places the blame on the staff but at the end of the day, this is just a teachable moment for Smith. At just 21 years old, he has a lot of room to grow and this experience is something he won’t forget going forward, which is good.
Smith had his own thoughts after the game regarding his decision to foul Garland.
"“It was just a bad play on my part. My team did such a great job at battling back and kind of threw all that away with that foul.I take full responsibility for it. I’m not going to let (the coaches) scapegoat themselves for my accidents. It was just a lack of awareness at that point. The adrenaline got to my head.”"
With the loss, the Pacers move to 22-45 on the season and now have just 15 games remaining in the 2021-22 NBA season.