3 Main reasons why Indiana Pacers lost to lowly Portland Trail Blazers

Following two days of rest after a spectacular takeover win against the Detroit Pistons on Friday, Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers welcomed the struggling Portland Trail Blazers to town. Before this matchup, the Blazers were near the bottom of the West at 4-12.

The expectations for this game were that Indiana would welcome Portland to Gainsbridge Fieldhouse and use their top-ranked offense to overpower the Blazers en route to an easy win.

This, unfortunately, was not the case, as the Pacers went into the fourth quarter tied 83 apiece. Unfortunately, lights-out shooting in the fourth quarter and 17 points from Jerami Grant were too much for the Pacers to handle, and they eventually lost embarrassingly.

This game was the quintessential Pacers loss and showcased every reason why they are not a serious playoff contender yet.

From the opening bell, the Pacers decided to play like they had the day off and completely disregarded Portland as an opponent, leading to their carelessness coming back to bite them as Grant and company torched them in the fourth quarter en route to a 110-114 win.

So far, every Pacers loss has showcased a scary pattern, and Monday's loss was no different. The Pacers have had the same issues plague them since the start of the season and have done little to nothing to rectify them, even going back on clear progress from the past Detroit game. Overall, there were three reasons for the Pacers' loss, one being new and the other two being recurring trends.

1. Poor scoring output

This is certainly a first. Unlike many nights, the Pacers did not deliver much on offense on Tuesday, with the main scoring contributions coming from one man, Tyrese Haliburton. Haliburton was fantastic on the night as usual, scoring 33 points on 11/17 shooting and dishing out nine assists to lead the Pacers.

However, he was the only Pacer to score above 11 points, as this game really exposed Indiana's lack of a second star alongside Haliburton. While Myles Turner, Bruce Brown, and Bennedict Mathurin tried to keep the scoring load up, scoring 11 each, it was just not enough, especially when you consider the contributions from Portland's side.

While Indiana is still a young, developing team, it seems clear that they have something in Haliburton and company, but they are just not on the level of the NBA's elite yet.

The Pacers are currently good, but still a ways away from reaching that top team status that they can approach and some fans have suggested to speed up that process via a trade for a star such as Pascal Siakam.

Whether this is necessary or not is anyone's guess. One thing is clear, though: For the Pacers to make some noise in the playoffs, the supporting cast is going to have to step up. Bennedict Mathurin is fantastic, but he is going to have to display more consistency going forward, as his name has already been put in trade talks this season due to inconsistent play and inefficient scoring,

Hopefully, this is just a bump in the road and the young Pacers players step it up in the future. Turner, Mathurin, and Obi Toppin all have shown signs of being great scorers in this league, but it is up to one of them to permanently step up and be that extra help Haliburton needs, especially when April rolls around.

2. Poor defensive effort, especially when closing

This was disappointing, to say the least. After showing some defensive progress in Friday's win over Detroit, the Pacers seemed to forget what worked just three days ago and revert back to their old ways of not playing a lick of defense and letting players have career nights.

Before, it was Giannis Antetokounmpo and Tyrese Maxey. This time, it was Jerami Grant who exploded for 34 points on 12/18 shooting; 17 of Grant's points came in the fourth quarter alone, showcasing a disturbing trend.

Indiana has, of course, had problems with defense all season. However, there is one position that they struggle with more than anything. The Pacers cannot guard forwards at all. In almost every game this season, win or loss, the Pacers have allowed a fantastic game from the opposing team's forward.

This is indicative of a scary trend that could follow the Pacers to the grave if they match up with a team like Miami with Bam Adebayo or Milwaukee with Giannis Antetokounmpo in the playoffs.

It's not necessarily smart to put all the blame on a team's problems on one player. Indiana clearly has good defenders on their team. However, with the power forward position usually held down by Obi Toppin or the undersized Aaron Nesmith, it is hard to get consistent stops on the defensive end.

This all boils down to one thing that has been echoed by Pacers fans for the whole season: Playing Jarace Walker. If you look at the player builds and matchups, Walker matches up with just about any player on defense, especially the forwards.

With his impressive combination of size, strength, and agility, he would be fantastic to slide in at the power forward position and give the opposing team's top forward hell inside and outside.

With these attributes and abilities, it's shocking that Rick Carlisle has never used him outside of garbage time, even declining to use him when otherwise frustrated by his team's efforts on defense, like he was on Monday with Bennedict Mathurin.

Indiana has had problems on defense the entire season and will all positions. However, their struggles in dealing with good scoring forwards have been hurting them all season and should be the main issues they deal with come the trade deadline, if they are still adamant about not playing Walker.

3. Playing down to competition

This is perhaps the second most frustrating thing from the Pacers this season, aside from defense. I said this after the Pistons and Raptors games, but the Pacers truly do not know their own strength.

This has been so much of an issue so far, in fact, that it may warrant its own article breaking everything down. To keep it short for now, the Pacers have routinely been in dogfights with teams they should realistically be pummeling and not giving much attention to.

Besides their Opening Night win against Washington, and the blowout against San Antonio, the Pacers have not exactly had a wire-to-wire victory. Their first matchup with an injured Cleveland team came down to the wire and required Tyrese Haliburton's heroics to get them a victory.

This was followed by a close home loss against the currently 5-13 Chicago Bulls and a blowout loss against Boston. After barely beating a healthy Cleveland team, Indiana once again suffered a home loss, this time to the Charlotte Hornets in the final minutes, a team that is currently 5-10 and was missing Miles Bridges at the time.

Following the aforementioned Spurs blowout, the Pacers once again got a win against a bottomfeeding team off fourth-quarter runs, this time beating the Utah Jazz after Utah kept it close for the first three quarters.

Finally, while the final score of the Detroit game looks impressive, this was also due to fourth-quarter runs and some stellar defense down the stretch, as the Pacers only led by one after three quarters.

In recent weeks, the Pacers' inability to take advantage of inferior teams' mismatches has gone from a small concern to a large problem and could come back to bite them in the playoffs and maybe even cause them to miss the playoffs altogether.

Indiana fans have relatively high expectations for the team this season, and one of those is for them to at least take advantage of inferior teams and get some easy wins, especially if they're on their home floor.

This loss puts the Pacers in the seventh seed in the East at 9-7 as they look towards two matchups with the fifth-seeded Miami Heat on Thursday and Saturday.