3 reasons why Pacers lost to Trail Blazers in Pascal Siakam debut

The Pascal Siakam era in Indiana has officially begun, and it is not off to the greatest start.

Just one night after a miraculous win in Sacramento against a fully healthy Kings team, the new-look Indiana Pacers, sporting a debuting Pascal Siakam and a returning Tyrese Haliburton, made their debut against the Portland Trail Blazers.

For Haliburton, this was his first NBA game after spraining his hamstring vs Boston on January 8. For Siakam, this was his first game as a member of his new team after being traded two days earlier.

As a result, Siakam was not given any time to practice with his new teammates or learn much of the playbook and had to do plenty of on-the-fly learning as Indy tried to make it two wins in a row against a Portland team missing Shaedon Sharpe and Anfernee Simons.

Surprisingly, despite not knowing much about the team and only landing in Indiana the day prior, Siakam produced very nicely in his Indiana debut, scoring 21 points on 9/14 shooting, grabbing six rebounds, and dishing out three assists. In addition,

Tyrese Haliburton looked to have zero injury rust in his return, producing a classic stat line of 21 points and 17 assists on zero turnovers, as he has been known to do. Myles Turner also added some firepower to the team, scoring 29 points on 6/10 from beyond the arc and grabbing 12 rebounds with five blocked shots.

Unfortunately, besides these three performances and 18 and 12 points from Buddy Hield and Aaron Nesmith, respectively, Indiana did not produce much of anything, as Siakam's debut was spoiled by Jerami Grant and company.

Portland led for most of the game and, despite an Indiana scare near the end, won by three points. In many ways, this game was the opposite of the Sacramento game the night before, and here are the reasons why.

1. Non-existent bench production

This may seem surprising at first, but it ends up being more understandable when you look a bit deeper. Regularly touted as having one of the better bench units in the league, the Indiana Pacers bench unit was the exact thing that kept them out of this game.

Just one night after having 34 points and leading a short-handed Pacers team to victory against the Kings, the Pacers bench massively underperformed against Portland, scoring only 14 points and shooting an abhorrent 4/24 from the field.

Bennedict Mathurin, in particular, was terrible. One night after leading the way for Indiana with 25 points, Mathurin shot an abysmal 0/8 from the field and scored 2 points in 23 minutes on the court, all from free throws.

While it is understandable why the bench would be sluggish here, as they had just come off a grueling win in Sacramento with increased roles, shooting 4/24 is completely inexcusable, no matter the context.

Without the starters on the court, the Pacers looked more like a glorified G League team as the tandem of Jalen Smith, Obi Toppin, and Mathurin looked like shells of who they were just a day ago in Sacramento.

With Indiana being given a day of rest before their final game of the road trip on Sunday against Phoenix, one can hope this would be enough time for everyone to get adequate rest in anticipation of another crack at Pascal Siakam's first win in Indy.

2. Fouls and free throw discrepancy

Besides the complete ghosting from the bench, this may have been the most undisciplined Pacers game of the season so far, and only so much of it can be blamed on the referees.

While the Pacers have rarely been subject to completely fair refereeing in recent years, there is only so much of an advantage the referees can give a team until it goes back to the players playing too aggressively, which was the case in Portland.

Call it getting too aggressive, or call it getting lazy. Either way, the Pacers committed far too many fouls, committing 26 in comparison to Portland's 21. This, in turn, led to more free throws for the Blazers, as Indiana shot 25 free throws on the night while Portland took a staggering 35, with 18 coming in the 4th quarter in comparison to Indiana's 13.

This free throw discrepancy also led to some funny moments on social media, as Raptors fans tuning in to watch Siakam's first game in Indiana were also shocked at the amount of calls the Blazers were getting and wondering if this was a nightly occurrence.

However, as I stated earlier, only so much blame can be put on the officials. A lot of the issues came down to Pacers players not being able to defend cleanly on inside drives, with Aaron Nesmith fouling out and Siakam himself struggling with foul trouble with five fouls on the night.

Speaking of foul calls, one of the most puzzling moments of the game, and the moment that put the proverbial nail in Indiana's coffin came near the end, when Portland's Jabari Walker traveled on a rebound and then was called for a technical foul after getting tangled up with Aaron Nesmith.

Instead of the Pacers getting free throws, however, Walker was given two free throws, putting the Blazers up five points and making the deficit too large for Indiana to recover from. This play perhaps summed up how the game went for the Pacers in general, as while Aaron Nesmith did also get called for a technical foul, there was seemingly no penalty for Walker's technical or the travel that was committed before it.

3. Lack of interior defense

Where have we heard this before?

Even with the changes. Even with Pascal Siakam coming to Indy, some things unfortunately never change, Indiana's poor interior defense being one of them. To keep things short, Portland obliterated Indiana in the paint, scoring a staggering 66 points in the painted area compared to Indiana's 26, another uncharacteristic stat from one of the best paint-scoring teams in the league.

At the heart of Portland's inside attack was Jerami Grant, who led the way with 37 points on 14/28 shooting and a barrage of crafty inside finishes, including plenty of moves that made Indiana's defense look foolish.

Of course, part of this had to do with the foul spread, as Pascal Siakam, in particular, had to drastically change his defensive strategy in the fourth quarter, playing with five fouls.

Despite this, Portland still should not have gotten this much paint production from players like Grant and Malcolm Brogdon, who scored a season-high 30 points on the night and used his slow, methodical style of offense to get to the rim at will around defenders like Aaron Nesmith, Siakam, and Bennedict Mathurin.

One of the biggest problems Indiana has faced this season pertaining to their defense has been height. Of course, swapping 6'4" Bruce Brown for 6'8" Pascal Siakam should help those issues a bit but they still have a ways to go before they can put those issues behind them.

One thing to hang their hat on, however, is that things can only get better from here. With Siakam officially knowing what it feels like to play in the Indiana Pacers system and rotation players Andrew Nembhard and Isaiah Jackson yet to return from injury, the Indiana Pacers look to build some momentum after a day of rest.

We will see how they fix their issues on Sunday against Phoenix in the last game of this road trip.