3 Reasons why Indiana Pacers pulled off surprising win over Miami Heat

1. Balanced scoring on historic efficiency

When a team is left without the engine to their offense and the beacon to most of their points, you would expect that team to put a subpar offensive performance forward.

That would not be the case for the Indiana Pacers against Miami. Despite Haliburton being out for the night, almost every other player stepped up to fill his shoes nicely.

This is extremely evident when you look at the box score and even the final score. Despite missing Haliburton, the Pacers still scored 144 points and had six players in double figures, with every single one also scoring over 15 points.

Out of the nine players that put up shots, only Buddy Hield and Andrew Nembhard shot under 50 percent, with Hield shooting 3/7 and Nembhard shooting an atrocious 1/9 from the field. However, Nembhard made up for his bad shooting by dishing out 11 assists and playing some solid defense.

Many have questioned the Pacers ability to generate offense without Haliburton, but on Sunday they showed that they have no problem doing that on certain nights. Of course, a night with this efficiency is definitely not sustainable, but it is nice to see almost everyone on the team put forth a brilliant offensive performance despite their star not playing on the night.

Of the six players to score in double figures, four had 20 or more points. Of these four, two will be discussed later, but the efforts of Obi Toppin and Aaron Nesmith cannot be looked over at all. One of the most efficient players on a night full of efficiency, Toppin put up 22 points on the night on 7/8 shooting and 4/5 from three-point range.

This is just another night in his resurgence in the past 10 games after starting the season off a bit rocky scoring-wise. In addition to Toppin, Aaron Nesmith also had a fantastic night, scoring 20 points of his own on 7/9 shooting and 4/6 from beyond the arc, with one of those threes coming after making Kyle Lowry fall to the ground without even dribbling once.

This game served as one of the reasons why Indiana has the best offense in the league. On any given night, whether or not Tyrese Haliburton is playing, one or more players are bound to have a good scoring night. This time it just so happened to be everyone.