Pacers use best teamwork since Pascal Siakam trade in win over Mavericks

The Indiana Pacers look like a well-oiled machine, and that is bad news for the rest of the league.

Following a blowout win over the Detroit Pistons to start the second half of the season, Indiana came around and did it again to an even better opponent, this time destroying the playoff-contending Dallas Mavericks.

After keeping pace with Luka Doncic and his 10 points in the first quarter to end it tied 32-32, Indiana took charge from that moment on, ending the first half with a seven-point lead and not looking back the rest of the way to finish the game with a 133-111 win in Indiana.

Leading the way for Indiana was the hometown Dallas kid, Myles Turner. Usually penciled in to have a good night against Dallas whenever they pop up on the calendar, Turner delivered on those expectations on Sunday, as he scored a season-high 33 points on 10-15 shooting to go along with eight rebounds.

In addition to Turner's fantastic night, he was joined by plenty of scoring help. All in all, seven players on the Pacers scored in double figures on Sunday, with Tyrese Haliburton having his nightly double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds, Andrew Nembhard and Ben Sheppard adding in 15 (Sheppard's career-high so far), Bennedict Mathurin chipping in 14, and Pascal Siakam and TJ McConnell contributing 12.

While this collective scoring output has been seen from Indiana before this season (they have the best scoring bench in the league, after all), it is the first time this type of scoring balance has been seen since the Pascal Siakam trade. In fact, Siakam only scored 12 points on the night.

Now, while those 12 points were certainly crucial, the point is that Indiana has certainly gotten what they lost in the first few games after the trade, which is sound teamwork and beautiful ball movement.

After averaging 31 assists per game before the Siakam trade, and 30.6 in the 16 games from the trade being made to the All-Star break, the Pacers have seemingly ramped their ball movement up to never-before-seen levels.

Already leading the league in assists per game by a decent margin, the Pacers may look to increase that lead even more by the looks of things. Against Dallas, the Pacers strung together 38 assists as a team, a season-high and what may be the new precedent for the remaining games in the year.

Long story short, every East team's worst night may have just come to fruition. The Indiana Pacers have finally built up chemistry with Pascal Siakam and look like an even better machine out there with a secondary playmaker and primary finisher to take the load off Tyrese Haliburton and Myles Turner.

Going forward, the Pacers are going to have to determine who their third scorer will be and how they can improve their defense even more to compete in the playoffs. One thing's for sure:, if they keep this level of play up, they will be some East team's nightmare in the playoffs.