How Pacers' ‘wear-down effect' has drained playoff opponents: ‘We want to make it hard'

New York Times

5 hours ago

OKLAHOMA CITY — As Tyrese Haliburton's finger roll passed through the net with less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of Game 1, assistant coach Jenny Boucek rose to her feet and implored the Indiana Pacers to apply more defensive pressure.
Andrew Nembhard didn't need any encouragement. He was already making his way toward Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, preparing to deny the Thunder point guard and keep the MVP from touching the ball after Haliburton cut the Pacers' deficit to four points after trailing by 15 just five minutes earlier.
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But that wasn't enough.
The Pacers needed the rest of the team to join him, so Boucek continued to wave at players to find their assignments in the backcourt. As Nembhard ran circles around Thunder big man Chet Holmgren to keep Gilgeous-Alexander from touching the ball, Myles Turner made his way across the half-court line to apply more pressure to Holmgren as he brought the ball up the floor.
Holmgren, a younger and quicker big man, eventually got past a backpedaling Turner as he tried to go coast-to-coast, but the Pacers' long-time starting center didn't give up and contested Holmgren's finger roll that fell off the rim and into the waiting hands of Pascal Siakam.
By applying full-court pressure, the Pacers encouraged the Thunder to do something out of character and try to make a play they don't normally make, which led to a quick defensive stop. Their pressure, pace and tempo encouraged the Thunder to play in a chaotic manner during clutch time.
It was exactly what Indiana wanted.
Throughout the playoffs, the Pacers have been using what they call the 'wear-down effect,' in which they use their depth and speed to fly around in transition and the half court and apply full-court pressure defensively. The impact, over 48 minutes, is that the Pacers expect their opponents to wear down and make uncharacteristic decisions late in the game.
'We want to make it hard,' Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said during media availability on Saturday. 'Each game in the series is going to look different. A playoff series is a series of seven chapters, you know, and each one takes on a different personality.'
Typically, lineup rotations shorten during the playoffs as starters play more minutes. But Pacers coach Rick Carlisle has been using an 11-man bench with T.J. McConnell, Obi Toppin, Ben Sheppard, Bennedict Mathurin, Jarace Walker and Thomas Bryant each coming off the bench.
Instead of relying heavily on his starters and star players, Carlisle uses his bench to not only give his starters rest, but to create a bit of chaos for opposing teams to tire them out. By staggering substitutions and keeping at least one starter on the floor most of the time, Carlisle can maximize his personnel while maintaining pace.
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'I think it's just playing to exhaustion,' McConnell said. 'That tires other guys out, and with our depth, if all of us are able to do that, it's hard to play against us for 48 minutes. We press all year to get ready for … the playoffs.
'I think it's a testament to the guys we have here that Rick trusts them, especially in the playoffs, and it's about taking pride in just doing your job. If you're playing for two minutes, 28 minutes, 15 minutes, just do your job and do it at a high level and play for the four other guys out there with you.'
In Game 1 against the Thunder, the wear-down effect was in full effect.
Down by 13 early in the third quarter, the Pacers created a catch-and-shoot look for Siakam. He missed, but that didn't mean the Pacers were going to drop their heads and get down on themselves. Instead, they moved to the next possession.
Nembhard was ready to pick up Gilgeous-Alexander 80 feet from the basket. When the MVP got past Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith was waiting to switch onto him as Nembhard peeled off to the man that Nesmith left, perfect execution of a two-tiered defensive approach the Pacers used on the Thunder point guard all game long.
When Turner grabbed the rebound off the rim and found Haliburton to start the fastbreak, Siakam sprinted down the middle of the floor, just as he always does, and scored one of the easiest buckets the Pacers got the entire night.
'We're just mentally and physically conditioned,' Turner said. 'We spend a lot of time, especially (in) offseason training camp, preparing ourselves … and it's tough on them mentally. You never know when your number's gonna be called. But what it is you expect to go out there and pick up full court, do your job defensively, and be in the right spots offensively. I think we just have elite role clarity.'
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'Shot making is important in this league, but especially in the playoffs, they are not as important as coming in there possession by possession, grinding down and doing what you're supposed to do.'
Facing their largest deficit of the game early in the fourth quarter, the wear-down effect was once again in effect. Rather than throwing in the towel, the Pacers kept fighting.
Going against one of the NBA's most physical defenders, Nembhard didn't back down and ran through Alex Caruso wrapping him up for a foul like a running back trying to get into the endzone and finished the tough layup through contact to keep the Pacers in the game.
Indiana's use of intensity, pace, physicality and high pressure has become a strategy it's known for. In this year's playoffs, the Pacers have frustrated teams, forcing opponents into their play style and getting them out of rhythm.
'We wear it on them for 48 minutes at the end of it,' Haliburton said during Indiana's second-round series against Cleveland. 'They came out, pressed us full court and they played more our style, and by the end of the game, they were tired and I feel like that's part of the wear-down effect of 48 minutes.
'I think that our roster is just constructed for everybody to play the same way. We don't change the way we play when a guy is out. We play the same exact way. We got two fives who can space the floor, make shots, and then everybody likes to run. We got a lot of guys who play well in transition, so I think kudos to our front office and our coaching staff for the roster construction in the first place.'
Both the mental and physical fatigue of the wear-down effect magnify errors at critical points in the fourth quarter, which aid Indiana's ability to capitalize or, in some cases like in Game 1 against the Thunder, make a comeback.
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'They're a very fast team,' Gilgeous-Alexander said at media day on Wednesday. 'I think, like, above all, they understand how they're playing and they're very, like, stubborn in their approach. They kind of like grind you with the way they play. They wear you down.'
After the Pacers forced the Thunder into chaos with their full-court press and Holmgren missed his full-court attempt at the rim, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault decided to go to a smaller lineup that could handle the ball better and still apply pressure on the perimeter.
But that tactical decision meant Siakam was the biggest player on the floor and the same effort he showed at the start of the second half would end up coming up clutch as the Thunder tried to close the game.
While Siakam didn't touch the ball on the possession above, he knew if he continued to work and do his job, he could outwork the smaller Thunder players around him and put himself in position for a rebound.
Two minutes later, the Pacers let Nembhard try to work in isolation and make another stepback 3, like the amazing 10-dribble triple he hit a few possessions earlier, but his shot came up short. While it could have spelled disaster for the Pacers, Siakam once again worked his way into the right position and grabbed another offensive rebound:
After cutting the deficit to one, the Pacers went to work on the defensive end. They forced a miss, but couldn't play through the contact from Oklahoma City to finish the possession. That just meant one more defensive possession where they forced Gilgeous-Alexander to work through Nembhard's tough-nosed on-ball defense.
With less than 14 seconds to play Thursday, Gilgeous-Alexander missed a shot that would have given the Thunder a three-point lead. After a Nesmith rebound, the ball found its way to Haliburton, who hit his fourth game-winning/tying shot of the playoffs.
'I don't know. It happened so fast,' Gilgeous-Alexander told reporters after the game. 'I feel like we got matched. He got down going right. Pulled up from middie. Knocked down the shot.
'I don't know, it didn't feel like anything crazy. He just made a play with the time winding down. Made a good play.'
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That's exactly how Indiana wants it.
'It's part of a formula. I think that when you get to this time of year, you don't switch up what you do,' Turner said of the impact of the wear-down effect. 'We know this is a younger team. It's a team that kind of has the same philosophy as us. In the fourth quarter, when you get picked up full court or you get worn down a bit, the shots are a lot harder to hit. Those 3s that you've been hitting all game are a little bit different in the last three minutes when you're a little more tired.
'I think that it's an overall philosophy thing, but at the end of the day, you gotta continue to keep running it up.'
(Photo of Aaron Nesmith, Andrew Nembhard and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: Alonzo Adams / Imagn Images)