06-08-2025
Rick Carlisle: 'Our fans this year are going to be in for a very interesting year'
Despite the seismic losses of Tyrese Haliburton for the season with an Achilles tendon tear and Myles Turner for a free agent contract with the Bucks, Rick Carlisle will still wants the Pacers to maintain a similar playing style in 2025-26.
Carlisle built the Pacers' uptempo approach and system of randomized movement around Haliburton's ability and desire to push pace and keep the ball moving. And even though Haliburton has been the Pacers' engine over the past three years, most of the players the Pacers have brought in to fit around him also work best in that system.
"Our game, if you watch the Pacers, is a hot-ball game," Carlisle said on the Bas"ketball She Wrote" podcast with Caitlin Cooper in an episode that published Tuesday morning. "It has to be. It has to be the way we're structured and set up."
It has to be, Carlisle said, because it works for not only their injured point guard but the two point guards the Pacers will use to replace him in Andrew Nembhard and T.J. McConnell, as well as their best remaining healthy player in Pascal Siakam.
"This is a natural style for Tyrese," Carlisle said. "It's pretty natural for Nembhard. For McConnell, the pace makes a lot of sense for him to play in this style. Pascal has adjusted, and I give Pascal Siakam a great deal of credit. He came here as a veteran player and he had to adjust to the tempo and the running and the speed of the game."
Carlisle also noted the easy fit of several other players into the system including wings Aaron Nesmith and Ben Sheppard who have made their living on running hard down the floor, spacing and getting open 3s. Forward Obi Toppin clearly thrives in such an environment as his greatest skills are rim running and finishing. Center Isaiah Jackson, who returns after missing almost all of last season with an Achilles tendon tear, also fits the bill well.
One player who isn't an easy fit is Bennedict Mathurin who Carlisle said will be the Pacers' opening day starter at shooting guard and it will be his job to lose. Mathurin is more inclined to play isolation basketball and try to score through contact or draw fouls rather than keep the ball moving, but Carlisle has worked on rounding his edges for years to make him a better fit and though it still isn't natural he's made clear strides. Mathurin averaged 16.1 points per game last season, though he averaged just 11.0 per game in the playoffs when he came off the bench.
"Benn Mathurin is going to get there," Carlisle said. "He has such great gifts as a scorer. Our job as coaches is to meld guys like him who aren't necessarily seamless fits into a style that is effective for the rest of the guys and bring forces hopefully closer together as time goes on."
All that being said, Carlisle noted specific adjustments will have to be made and the Pacers may have to lean into other strengths.
"Our game this year is gonna look different," Carlisle said. "There are going to be times it doesn't look pretty. We're going to be more physical. I think we're going to be a more physical defensive team, all those kinds of things. But things are gonna change."
For one thing, Carlisle said, the Pacers will have to be mindful of the burden they're placing on Nembhard, who has been nominally starting at shooting guard but will move to the point with Haliburton out. He has had secondary ball-handling responsibilities and has had to bring the ball up a lot even with Haliburton out so that shouldn't be a problem. That being said, he will have more ball-handling responsibility and more scoring responsibility when he's on the floor, and he'll also have to pick up one of the toughest defensive assignments whenever he's on the floor as he has established himself as a top-10 on-ball defender in the NBA.
For him to do all of those things, something will have to give, and that might mean his minutes. He averaged 33.4 minutes per game in the playoffs. He also has to find a way to stay out of foul trouble, which isn't easy when he's guarding that quality of player.
"Drew is going to have to adjust some," Carlisle said. "He's going to have to maintain his aggression defensively, because he loves to defend. This guy is a freak, OK, he doesn't say (expletive) to anybody. ... But we gotta protect Andrew. If we're going into this year and saying he's going to play 37 minutes, that's not gonna happen. He's going to have to be in the low 30s. T.J. is going to have to have another great year and we're going to have to have a third guy ready."
Among the options for a third point guard are rookie Kam Jones and two-way contract guards RayJ Dennis and Quenton Jackson. But the Pacers might also have to lean on Siakam to handle the ball some. That's something he did extensively in Toronto in his later seasons with the Raptors.
"Pascal is now going to become more of a primary ball-handler," Carlisle said.
And there are more decisions to make. They have to figure out the center position with Turner gone with Jay Huff, Isaiah Jackson, James Wiseman and Tony Bradley all currently in the mix. And they'll simply have to find the production that Haliburton brought that is now missing.
"Our fans this year are going to be in for a very interesting year," Carlisle said. "It's going to be a team that looks quite different. I don't think it can be overstated how great of a player Tyrese Haliburton is. ... We're going to miss Tyrese a lot. People are going to find out. I know how great he is. Unfortunately I'm going to find out even more how great he is by not having him with us this year."
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