Why Tyrese Haliburton, T.J. McConnell, Andrew Nembhard shined | Pacers 2023-24 player season recap

Why Tyrese Haliburton, T.J. McConnell, Andrew Nembhard shined | Pacers 2023-24 player season recap

finishing up the Pacers player season review Series today with deep dives into their point guards TJ McConnell Andrew nard tyes hurn all under the microscope after a great season for all three it’s all coming with Caitlyn Cooper on today’s lockon Pacers podcast you are locked on Pacers your daily Indiana Pacers podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day what up y’all happy Friday congrats you made it through the week and welcome into another edition of the lockon Pacers podcast where we of course talk about the Indiana Pacers as always my name is Tony East I cover the team for Forbes and Si and today we are finishing up the player season recap series it’s the last day before draft week which flows right into free agency which flows into more free agency which flows into summer league getting into at the buzzer kayln Cooper and I here to talk about the point guards Tyrese Halbert T.J McConnell and Andrew nard we run through all of their 2023 24 seasons under the microscope one Stat one over under and one clip to tell you everything about their campaign and looking forward in a lot of cases I had the Halton and McConnell assignment so you’ll get a lot better stuff about n hard because kin’s the best at this uh you should subscribe to her patreon at Bas it’s called basketball she wrote I’m wearing her gear today uh if you’re here for Pascal seum stuff the two episodes preceding this one are both about that one in detail on the contract why it made sense for the Pacers why it makes sense for SE yakum the length all that that’s two episodes ago the one immediately prior to this is about the deal more details what it means for the rest of the Pacers free agency the rest of their players their finances all sorts of that stuff and I’ll do more on seaka probably like July third or fourth as free agency progresses a little bit but we’ve got to keep focusing on offseason stuff and then this weekend there’ll be a bonus episode now because of the seak timing with the last free agency preview episode looking at the centers looking at that specific position for the Pacers so of good stuff coming but we got to finish up with Kaylin great episode on the point guards today let’s just get right to it after an hour of talking to myself about Pascal sakam thankfully someone else is here now so I don’t sound like a yel at myself back finishing the player season review series it’s Kaylin Cooper from basketball she wrote we talked about zakum on Tuesday he made $200 million one day later so today tyres halber and and mhart and T.J McConnell better be listening very closely two of them extension eligible this summer as we’re running through the point point guards Caitlyn this is a very fun group of players to talk about they had all delightful seasons for different reasons and I’m really looking forward to diving into all three of them I’m looking forward to the aggregator tweets after this where it’s like Tony East from lock on Pacers projects nort and McConnell to get paid hey look we we have the power except we don’t at all in fact Kaylin and I privately discussed that I had to put the episode up early in case pasaka resigned which happened 12 hours after I put the episode up so that worked out great um anyway lots of if you are interested in Pascal seak the last three episodes of this podcast if you’re interested in these three players you’re in the right place because today we’re talking about some fun players who had great Seasons I had T.J McConnell and Tyrese halberton who had more nominal point guard roles Caitlyn had Andrew nart who had some point guard roles some other roles along the way but is mostly a point guard and should certainly be in this episode as opposed to someone else and because I don’t know how to type names in order on the side of the screen we’re going to start with TJ McConnell and specifically we’re going to start with a stat because I think that what I’m about to say is kind of formative about his season in a way that’s interesting to me and his future in a way that’s interesting to me the stat is 1562 per. do you have a guess what that is before I say what it is no idea okay that is his increase in scoring after Benedict mine’s shoulder injury 8.9 per game pre that Dallas game 13.9 points per game for T.J McConnell after that specific Dallas game so to be clear he was very good this wasn’t some fluky like he’s got more opportunity and is just making it work he did have more opportunity I don’t want to just limit it to that but he was legitimately an excellent score like very efficient even on higher volume getting into the lane was the entire bench like for a long part of that last stretch of the season I kept talking about this the Pacers would win games because they would start the fourth quarter up by a certain amount of points and it would be their bench versus team starting lineup trying to catch up and TJ McConnell would play and score so much that it would end the game right there because then the Pacer starters come back in fresh and end it it was an unbelievable stretch and it kind of carried into the postseason where he averaged 12 points per game and so on one hand this is a stat to say T.J McConnell as the only ball handler with a second unit was extremely effective huge huge data point for the Pacers to know with this current team that they have huge for McConnell to have that kind of stretch the most valuable as a scorer he’s ever been all of his splits of shooting from all over the quarter great and yet a key player was injured for all of it and I think how they kind of run through the middle of those things will be a fascinating thing to watch going forward because they have proof of concept of how their bench can be the best bench in the league with him running the show and yet they have another very good ball handler who’s going to return from injury to start next season so this isn’t an anti- McConnell having the ball segment this is a this was a very good stat that chose he can do this now how how do they build from that with the players they have on their team it’s definitely going to be an interesting trickle down effect to watch because as you and I talked about I think on the center pod with Isaiah Jackson and Jaylen Smith is that an underrated component of them being able to play Isaiah in lineups against the Knicks with Pascal seak and Obi toppin out there is that spacing in your head really doesn’t make sense but that’s quite possibly TJ McConnell’s greatest skill is that with the basketball he can make very weird spacing make sense because like I’ve compared his game many times it’s like you’re watching the song Fly to the Bumblebee come to life when he is a ball handler so I do wonder if that’s still the lineup and because we know if we look at certain combinations independently I like how T.J McConnell and Benedict maen play together as a combination but when the two of them play out there Ben’s usage typically goes up playing with TJ like I think his us 27% he plays with TJ and it’s far lower when he plays with Tyrese so I think more of the offense will likely tilt toward Ben when he returns and I think that that’s okay with TJ I think he’s fine being a facilitator stirring the drink for the second unit but if the ball isn’t in TJ’s hands as much and you are playing a grouping that includes Benedict Madan that quite possibly now includes Isaiah Jackson as the backup center Obi toppen who to his credit did shoot the three much better does that spacing make as much sense when Ben has more of the ball than TJ does because that isn’t something that we really saw over the second half of the Season yeah and you nailed something interesting there when you talked about the assists because the scoring went up a ton and the minutes didn’t change that much it was like from 17 and a half to 19 and a half but the assist stayed the same so it’s like he just had the ball a crap ton in like the same role and was still passing just as much but his scoring was just ridiculous for the stretch and so H if he can still be a facilitator and just ease up off of that is that actually better for the second unit I think is the question they’ll have to answer with him and I think he’s still terrific if he is just facilitator guy he earned and weasel his way into the role way before he had to become a scorer when when maon got hurt right like he clearly proved throughout the season like yo you I have to play every game you cannot sit me out of these but that that scoring jump is enormous and I would have just kind of written it off as like March MBA then he was good at it in playoffs too like almost not every game he had some some down games for sure but enough that you know you’ll remember most remember the last Pacers playoff series a key just mle in the series was McConnell was out of the rotation completely for game four of that Heat series they could not play him but at this level of player he is and we’ll get to one of the reasons why when we get to Clips it it it just changes who he is in the makeup of their second unit and to an extent their style which is will also come up later and I wonder how that that looks going forward for someone who just turned 32 and is now going to be blending with another ball handler maybe more than that because the fact of the matter is too is that TJ plays a very exhausting brand of basketball and I think this is probably something that might not have been talked about enough in the nick series when there was kind of the controversy over why didn’t they close with TJ in the closing lineup and for one it’s like if you’re having to have a discussion about why TJ wasn’t in the closing lineup and this is not me to disparage TJ I think you kind of have a bigger problem like I don’t think that’s a question you should have to ask but he’s better playing in shorter stints I mean I do agree with Rick car on that aspect of it because just to give people some numbers he leads the NBA and drives per 100 possessions he also leads the NBA and passes to the corners per 100 possessions like and he’s doing this while applying full court pressure 94 feet most of a game so to do all of those things into play for you know the end of the third quarter all the way to the end of a game is asking quite a lot of him it’s better when like I said it’s like six minutes on come off come back in um I think that’s probably the way that TJ needs to play and as you mentioned like he is on the other side of 30 so especially as he continues to age I think that’s going to be the case and that’s part of what made his season so remarkable to me is like like who Peaks at 32 in this way it’s like and especially this kind of player at no of the Y star did a great job with this like how many guards that never dunk and can’t shoot that well are like really good right like this is such a random Renaissance and the fact that that random is random sounds mean like T.J McConnell is very good and worked hard in his game I don’t mean it like that it just it’s a very unique situation that allowed this to pass can this come again next season I think that’s a fascinating thing because I’ve never seen a 32-year-old just totally evolve into this crazy Elite score which is where my Clips go and you just nailed one of the stats that’s part of it is that he was uh the leader in the NBA did he actually pass Shay I might be using the wrong stat and draft per 100 how close was that he was number one yeah I I was tracking that the whole season at one point I had a tweet where I was like I don’t know how many people outside of Indiana would know that like TJ drives to this level and this frequency and that he and Shay gilis Alexander are top two and TJ isn’t two he finished the season number one as well so the clips are um drives SL isolation plays because he more than doubled his isolation volume and I think that part of what makes him such an effective player and scorer if you look at his shooting splits he’s always been good at this random like six foot shot but his finishing around the rim this year too 74% by fire career high and so he doesn’t make every shot in these clips but just any kind of Defender Jaden McDaniels in the first one all the right of the rim for a bucket Jamal Murray in the third one draws a Fab easily against Dante dant ched of the pl blows right by him gets all the way to the rim we know T.J McConnell can drive and do it at high volume and it’s because of this stuff he this I wrote this whole story last year about how he nashes how he has this weird change of gravity all this sorts of stuff that it looks so innocuous and players know it’s coming this is what T.J McConnell does he does it more than anyone in the NBA as as you said he gets to the basket he drives and yet no one good Defenders bad Defenders weird Defenders even defensive schemes that have bigs behind the the point of attack Defender he gets all the way to the rim and that is what dictates and influences one a good isolation scorer which with his field goal percentages inside 10 feet it as soon as he gets below the free throw line he’s a threat he’s a great passer from there it stir the drink of the defense the drives and specifically the isolation dri is not requiring a screen he is the straw that stirs the drink of any lineup he’s in because of that sort of ability to just get by anybody in any random situation it doesn’t require a set it doesn’t require an action I think that is in particular what made his his Peak so impressive this past season I think it’s a combination of things because he’s very good at staying lower than his Defender so against a guy like Jaden McDaniels who does have a little bit higher hips TJ is going to be able to turn the corner there also I know Tyrese has mentioned it but it’s very true TJ likes to attack Baseline quite possibly more than any guard ever like if you run pistol he’s going to get two feet in the paint and because of that a lot of defenses are geared to you know take that away so if you send him middle that’s what they’re actually reversed at a lot of defenses are are sending people that way they’re not used to team to players who are that effective at going Baseline so if you send him middle that’s what defenses are so um that aspect of it and then he’s very good at using the Nash hip swivel in addition to actually nashing under the basket he uses a lot of little slide of hand tricks where you know he might slightely fake a hand off to turn the ball downhill his handle I think overall is pretty underrated and how he gets from point A to point B so yeah I mean just his ability to do that overall I don’t I don’t know like you know prior to prior to the season when there was rumors abounding about uh TJ potentially getting traded to Phoenix and you and I have talked about that off the podcast but like a lot of people Lament the fact that you know TJ never shoots threes how is this ever going to work and it’s like I I think it’s even more remarkable that like a player who uses every ounce of his being a lot of the time not to shoot a three can still do this to this level yeah I mean and you can see like another thing that I loved about TJ during the playoffs especially against Boston is that the Celtics many times during the regular season and the playoffs will’ll throw a center against TJ just be like you know sague off that’s where we’re going to put you he’s the least threatening shooter and TJ would either you know like Nash and then turn back against kristofh porzingis during the regular season but they also started using TJ as the rle man which was like fantastic to watch Tyrese halberton dribbling off a pick from TJ McConnell and then having TJ short roll into the paint and make plays from there or finish at the basket as the roller or you know he would get it in the middle of the paint and then do a get hand off for Tyrese to come back and get it at the Baseline like watching the two of them play off of each other was a whole another ass ECT of this as well that those minutes at the end of the first quarter were really quite successful for the Pacers and towards the end of the third when Tyrese would play with TJ so well part of the reason I mean there’s a lot they’re both good is the starting part of the reason TJ and Tyrese work so well together is this is the understated part to me of what makes McConnell’s drive game so effective you know you hear every time we hear from an opposing coach pregame about McConnell oh he’s such a pest I hate that guy and they actually love him like other players talk the same way about him but let let me let me talk about another player and that’s ish Smith ish Smith is six feet tall also and it’s pretty quick and kind of fast with the ball ish Smith last year shot uh 47 45.7% from 0 to 3 feet and 47.7% from 3 to 10 feet for his career that’s 56.8% and 37.8 that’s not great right I bring that up to say the reason McConnell works with halberton so well is even though he can’t shoot if he drives it’s like Panic for a defense because he’s so efficient in the lane and that finishing ability is so underrated and why these isolation Clips I just hold where so interesting to me is he didn’t even score on all of them but still you see defenses collapsing and panicking because it’s like uhoh this very efficient shot is now coming and that’s what separates him from other small guards who can get in the lane is there actually is fear of not any shot him shooting specifically so even with halberton yeah you can sag off him but he can get by anybody in any situation and it’s still a good shot so even without providing traditional three-points basing that still works well and the other part of it too is like I mentioned that he threw more passes to the corner per 100 that exactly what you’re saying when he gets two feet in the paint because you do have to rotate that weakside Defender over that allows TJ to manipulate the weak side Zone quite a bit you know a cut assist going from the 45 opens up those either a corner shooter or for the Pacers to make an extra pass from that spot as well and that’s why the bench was really good at putting opposing defenses into rotation to the degree that they were so my over under is kind of a blend of several of these things that we talked about and it’s looking forward at what his role should or could be um I this is two numbers I’ll start with the first one and then get to my actual over under last year TJ McConnell scored 26.2 points per 100 possession by far a career-high that is higher than Jordan P that is higher than Benedict maen that’s higher than damont sabonis like th which all this just sounds completely crazy to me that’s higher than D’Angelo Russell like scratch that he played more a little bit the stretch to score more like that’s crazy good that’s that’s a crazy good scoring level previous to that his Peak was 20.2 so as you look at how the Pacers bench should play or how the Pacers sharing of the ball and shots should break out next year I would like to use his second best season which was with the Pacers in 2022 23 as the number here over under TJ McConnell points for 100 possessions next season 20.2 I tend to lean the under just because they’re going to be adding people back and because he will be a year older I don’t feel good about that pick I I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the over but I I would lean you’re saying it was 20.3 in in the borran season is that what you just said it was 20 point no it was 20.2 last year not the season that just happened the one before that second season of Carlile Bor season was uh 17.2 I believe I think another component of this too is I’m sure we’ll get into it in the nard section is also how do they Envision using nard in minutes when he isn’t playing with Tyrese which is why I tend to lean the under a little bit just to give people a point of reference and some of what I’m kind of tossing around in my head here is the Pacers very successful with any two of Tyrese nard or McConnell McConnell on the floor plus 6.26 and 597 minutes played Rick Carlile knows how to run a double point card offense I don’t have a lot of concerns for that one area where it did kind of show up in game three and four when Tyrese was out and nard was playing is nard had played so spectacularly in those two games they definitely wanted to tip more of the offense to nard and Pascal at the end of game three which meant TJ was playing more off ball and that was some of my concerns when the arguments were there for playing TJ in the game against New York that like You know despite how Tyrese had struggled in that game like are you really going to tilt the offense to TJ and have the ball in his hands in closing minutes of a potential play play off game I don’t know that you will and then it turns out in game three and four they didn’t really so much TJ was kind of taking up space at the opposite wing and Drew holiday was guarding him and Drew holiday was just playing free safety all over the place sending a lot of help to the coaching staff’s Credit in game four TJ was still kind of in that role but they were being much more active at having TJ cut into the dunker spot using him with a little bit more offall movement but the overall point in terms of your over under here is because n har has taken some steps forward because Benedict Ma’s going to be returning to the lineup I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the under and I don’t think that’s necessarily a commentary on TJ as much as the overall Talent that’s on the roster I agree with you uh I would have probably chosen like right around that number if you just made me like pick without an overunderwear droll wasn’t solidified with this version of the Pacers until mid-February I mean right like if that so what that starts next season as do they do they change the sub patterns to have nard have Chances with the ball more with the second unit with mccon on the floor with Halbert on the floor I don’t know he’s the guy that I think naturally some of that could go to and then the of course matheran return so with absolutely no fault of T.J McConnell who is just unbelievably good I think that it would be a little under that even though he just put up insane scoring numbers on insane efficiency and I do wonder if they try to okay we have these young guards let’s keep them involved let’s see what they can do if they go through 10 games and they don’t like how it looks if all of a sudden we just see some McConnell steady handness to open the season which would like you said in the playoffs be more of a commentary about the team than T.J McConnell once again and that I don’t want to say politicking but that aspect of it despite what I just said about you know Rick carile knows how to run a double point guard offense it’s a guard initiated offense for the most part the Pacers has been successful in those minutes if you’re trying to get n hard to be you know playmaking ball handler that he was and optimizing what he was in games three and four it’s harder to configure those types of things when you’re adding TJ into the mix than just considering how he’s going to blend with Tyrese um so that that is a component to consider for them moving forward despite the fact that like I said it it it’s worked for them to this point hey guys short little break here so we could talk about prize picks America’s number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active users they’ve got tons of promotions and it’s super easy to play all you do is pick more than or less than on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in it’s the easiest the most exciting way to play daily fantasy sport they have a huge Community the finals are over but your Hoops action doesn’t stop women’s basketball’s heating up Caitlyn Clark Angel ree Asia wils and Brianna Stewart The Works you can win up to 100 times your cast watching all of them allall out on prize picks which available in 30 States across the country including California Texas and Georgia for example to set your lineup on prize picks Kaylin Clark more than or less than three and a half three point made shots and brianda Stewart for more than or less than 23 points or if you’re a baseball guy Kyle schwarber for more than or less than a nine hitter fantasy score Etc all sorts of that you can turn $10 into a thousand with the right skills so down the price picks have today use the code locked on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 that’s the code locked on NBA on priz picks for a first deposit match up to $100 pick more pick less it’s that easy that’s a good segue right to Andrew nard and I’m gonna start with the Andrew nard clips that I sent you which I did not provide a title for but I don’t know if you’ll be able to tell but the first clip that I sent in this package is actually from the November game where they lost by 51 points and Tyrese halberton did not play in that game either just like he didn’t play in games three and four the difference you’re going to see though is White’s guarding Andrew nard he Ducks under that screen n hard’s getting into the paint he gets off the ball gives it to Aaron nouth in the corner and as he relocates he actually turns his back to Aaron neith as the ball handler doesn’t have eyes on where the ball would even be and in that game I think he finished with 14 points and only three potential assists he saw several unders like what we’re seeing in this clip again whenever Tyrese was out he saw a couple unders in game three as well but Drew holiday’s guarding in this clip Andrew immediately gets off the ball similarly throws it to Pascal SE yakum at the top of the key but this time you’re going to see that the whole time he’s looking at where he just passed the ball as he relocates back out to the arc he’s getting it and he’s immediately looking to attack Drew holiday and that close out the only time he glances away from the rim is for a very deliberate purpose of Shifting the defense so that he can regain access to the rim where he ends up finishing the layup likewise from game four Derek white ducks under Turner screen Andrew neard as he’s known to do very much wants to use his physicality does a bump and go to actually beat Derrick White to the spot on that under and then regain access to his floater when he’s getting there the reason why I wanted to show those three Clips is like from a narrative standpoint some of it I think gets too easily boiled down to while Tyrese wasn’t out there so n hard just has had more freedom to you know do his thing with the ball in his hands and run point and it’s like no you can actually see very different progress in his game throughout the playoffs and also from the beginning of the Season against Boston when he was the primary ball handler to what he was doing in games three and four against Boston as the primary ball handler at the end of the season I don’t think that was all directly a commentary on him I think some of it was I missed the entire preseason because I had a kidney stone and that messed up my float at the beginning of the season and then oh hey I hyper extended my knee and then after I got back from hyperextending my knee I had the back soreness and it very clearly impacted my handle for a portion of the season but when you’re thinking about it and you remember that during the inseason tournament nard played four minutes against the Boston Celtics like T.J McConnell had usurped him as the backup point guard he wasn’t even in the regular rotation when they played Milwaukee he came in I think with like four minutes to play in the first half and then ended up having somewhat of an impact against the zone so to see what he did in fullon playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks against the Boston Celtics where you can see you know exact same dribble combination move he’s doing it against the Bucks and he’s executing it in ways that he wasn’t in the middle of the Season how he was navigating and manipulating some of these unders from November to May he’s another really good development story and that’s very hard to do as we’ve brought up in the episode with jarus when you’re a winning basketball team it’s hard to blend that with development and probably no player showed that more this season than Andrew nard as being a s a success story yeah I found it fascinating in those last two Celtics games and these clips illustr this to an extent like they could not keep him away from the rent and and for all the things Andrew nimart is like I don’t think of him all the time is just like if this guy gets the ball no one can prevent him from getting to the basket but even being guarded by whatever you want to consider Drew holiday as a perimeter Defender best top five whatever one of the best perimeter defenders in the league and if not one of the Celtics many other core pieces he found a way whether it was when he on his first catch by moving the ball by doing whatever and that really stood out to me as what led to those games of him looking so poised so composed and like taking such a meaningful step forward and it was really hard for me at the end of the season not to like get too high on him from those last two games of the season because like everything he did in those games is what you would hope if you’re the Pacers he can be forever right like that kind of guy who when he is in charge of running the show is just this Unstoppable force that can run an offense effectively against the best defense second best defense whatever in the league well also happening to be a fantastic on ball Defender himself like he did everything in those games and it was such a coming out party that he he’s so earned and I I think that is these clips show it too what struck me so much is his just no matter what the situation was even if he got cut off once every possession he was trying to get to the rim or get to the basket and do what halberton and and McConnell can do so well force a defense to rotate react to you play Pacers random basketball and he did such a good job of that in a way that don’t think I’d ever seen before he did it against the Celtics in the playoffs like that that was very remarkable to me and you know that’s a really big difference because him asserting himself as a scorer he’s always been a wonderful passer but him asserting himself as a scorer made the rest of that show up even more and like I wrote about several things that he did during that series because he’s also very good at coming off of handoffs and using his inside hand to use a push dribble that makes his his movement even more efficient he did that a few times and then like when I was mentioning him play with TJ at the end of game three like Drew H was roaming all the way off of TJ and Andrew still split between that help and ended up drawing a foul at The Rim so it is a lot of the things that you’re mentioning there and he ended up averaging 15 and a half potential assists 9.1 for the entirety of the playoffs but 15 and a half and those two games against Boston and like you said this is a team with a very sound defensive foundation and obviously there were some hiccups at the end of pretty much all of the games against Boston that I’m sure that if they could take back they likely would some of you know explaining the inexplicable type of things but overall for this being a seconde player and somebody who was filling in for the team’s undeniably best player in that role doing that as a primary in the Eastern Conference Finals I don’t know how you can’t come away um being encouraged despite the fact that they ended up losing those two games which is to say nothing of what you said too of everything that he does defensively right how many players like have a career high scoring game in the Conference Finals like stop we can we could break down the many reasons to happen like that alone I’m like whoa you know that says a lot about who he is and and his mentality even for lack of a better term just to be able to do that in that moment and step up in that way who saw that coming you know didn’t the Celtics did not see it coming uh before we pivot to the stat which could be one which is number of players on the team of their career high in the playoffs Kaylin we’re currently podcasting as JJ reic is named the coach of the Lakers I find that very fitting have have we triggered this again did we get someone else paid Tony this is our bid this is better than the German bid I think we’re getting people paid but my I will I’ll throw the one stat out there there so the one stat is 4.4 and that is the swing net rating for how much the defense for the Pacers improved with nart on the floor last season that makes him the highest impact of any player on the roster according to cleaning the glass so this is another aspect that I kind of wanted to talk about just a little bit in that he’s the best point of attack defender on the roster Ben Shepard is very close in that regard too he had his struggles with Jaylen Brunson to be sure and there was a reason they flip-flopped that matchup nard doesn’t have you really need to have a wing Defender to guard Jaylen Brunson because of the amount of Separation he’s able to create his entire game like we talk about the stutter rip as a move but it’s like Jaylen brunson’s entire game is the stutter rip um I think Samson compared him to like a buffer machine and trying to guard a buffer machine and that’s very true but I think that an underrated aspect of how the Pacers managed to guard Jaylen Brunson which some of that was because he was dealing with the injured foot but is they put Aaron neith onto him but in the first game when they made that adjustment they put Andrew onto Josh Hart and Andrew has tremendous defensive feel in addition to being a pretty sound on ball Defender and that he was peel switching if Aaron got beat by Jaylen Brunson he would jump and peel and then Aaron would you know peel off to his Defender lots of help there was like they were defending Jaylen Brunson with a village and Andrew was a big piece of that and in part then they ended up you know Dante D venzo went off because Tyrese was guarding Dante so that they could use Andrew as that help Defender then they ultimately ended up making the decision of like let’s use Pascal as the RoR so that we can have Andrew guard Dante D venzo but as you’re listening to those progressions you can hear a common theme that like yes Andrew’s best matchup was not Jaylen Brunson but Andrew was very much a part of how they were guarding Jaylen Brunson and then when needed to put a fire hose on Dante D venzo he was also a very big part of them using him to chase him in offall situations as well so I’ve said it for a long time I do think that he’s their best impact Defender I think he’s their highest field Defender and the reason why this number matters even more to me is like I’ve already seen a lot of people discussing like you know if if Andrew is closer to being this version of himself that we saw in the playoffs how are you optimizing that next to Tyrese halber and and I’m not super concerned by that I think everything that I saw in the playoff only makes me more bullish about it because Tyrese showed progress as a screener and as a movement shooter Andrew was shooting close I think almost 50% on catch and shoot threes in the playoffs shooting a very high clip on pullup twos in the playoffs and just to provide you know a background history story The reason why Daren Fox and tyes halberton didn’t work in Sacramento had very little to do with the offense the reason why that didn’t work is because that roster was incredibly awkward and unwieldy and because the defense was very very bad with dearon and TJ or Tyrese on the floor at the same time they were giving up like 118 points per 100 which That season would have been the worst defense in the NBA when those two were on the floor Andrew nart helps Tyrese in that regard it’s not a hindrance and there are times even where sometimes like they played OKC I wrote an article about it there were certain spots where Tyrese also helped Andrew with what he does and passing Lanes away from the ball in certain circumstances as well so Andrew helps them defensively because Tyrese needs somebody at the point of attack and that’s his best role and as we saw in the playoffs with the amount of time that Tyrese got faceu guarded it was very valuable to the Pacers to have a two guard who could also run offense for them not my one number but for people who might be interested and want to know the points per chance on the pick and roll for these three point guards in the playoffs 1.47 points per chance for nard 0.988 for Tyrese and 0.983 for TJ so when everything shook out they actually had the most efficient offense with nard running the pick and roll for them in the playoffs and of course I will couch that and say nard was drawing the weaker assignment like he was not being guarded in the ways that Tyrese was earlier prior to games three and four where you know he’s being guarded by Damen Lillard maybe he’s being guarded by Jaylen Brunson that’s going to make the pick and roll a little bit easier to run when that’s the on ball Defender but that’s very much to Tyrese and the Pacers benefit that they have somebody who can run that of efficient offense when Tyrese is seeing the more exaggerated coverages because he is still the best player on the team where do I start in response to all that um okay so the so looking at defense specifically the thing that’s always struck me with nard and how he specifically boosts this team defensively he’s very malleable and you kind of ran through that when you run when you could described all the many roles he was required to take on to help slow Brunson or the Knicks in very many various ways but like I know this example is used in a way to clown the Pacers and it to be clear it should be in a way but it says a lot to that they determined he was their best matchup for Lowry Markin in in that one game you know like he can do that kind of stuff it’s not something you want to do for 48 minutes but it’s fine like he can guard pressure the ball he can chase Shooters you know all that stuff matters a lot and when it helps Halbert it’s even better but that means a lot to their versatility when they can especially when he’s paired with n Smith put him in many different assignments or many different roles that boost the team defensively that’s always been that’s always struck me and felt to me and why he’s such a high impact Defender my joke response would have been Caitlin the Pacers defensive rating with Quinton Jackson on the floor was stunningly low this season I believe his onoff was better than Andrew NIMH hards in his 11 minutes po cleaning the glass has other they have garbage time filtered out yes I because all the two-way guys had like comically low uh defensive ratings believe it or not when you’re defending against the other team’s awful players uh it is in fact pretty easy to have a good defensive rating uh so I agree that he is the most impactful defender on the team I think he pairs very well with Halbert in a large part because of that but the fact also that he can run a pick and roll and maybe next year he aners the season as a guy who’s trying to put pressure on the rim more often like we saw in the last two playoff games that becomes like closer to a dream fit next to halberton and we did we talk about it on there or off but we we’ve talked about what that player would be and he gets closer to that every season maybe a couple more ticks of three-point percentage would help quite a bit but you know you need someone who can put pressure on the rim besides your star guard at times and defense is a very important part of that role as well he’s getting very close to being exactly what I would think they would need at that spot despite some people wondering what his long-term rle on this team is I don’t the fact of the matter is from the Pacers perspective this is easy because neard may not be a star yet but he is easy and fitting him into spots and what he does isn’t a hard thing to figure out and he addresses the needs of the team’s best player and like you said we’ll see how the shot continues to handle but the catch and shoot three really came around for him in the playoffs obviously when he made the gamewinner but overall it did and the pullup two certainly did as well from a shooting and shot making standpoint so the only question you would have is from his perspective and how much of the ball he’s ultimately going to want but if you’re able to sign him to an extension that much of a concern isn’t really there for you anymore because I I they’ve won these minutes with the two of them on the floor for two seasons running like they’ve shown they can play together you’re question is you know can you optimize him and how much of the ball and where should it get split and if that’s a question you legitimately have to ask like if you’re to the point where you’re like hey should more of the ball go to nard than Tyrese hurn I think you’re feeling really good that that’s a question that you have to ask like that’s that’s not a problem that’s a good thing should we give less of the ball to one of the best five offensive players in the NBA seems like a good thing to wonder yeah I did the splits at some point during the season and I think he he might have closed poorly from three I’m trying to check off the top of my head he did um he only made five in the last seven games but post inseason tournament like after he was done with the hyperian back stuff he was a 38% three-point shooter like clearly the starts of the season and Rhythm he had held that down and then before that last stretch that I just referenced where he was just terrible from three like until April he was over 40% from that stretch so the three is there like it’s getting very close he hit a skid at around the same time that’s why their shooting was brutal as a team cuz like Ty was in a slump and Andrew was in a slump at the same time like I think there was a point in time where Andrew like five of his last like 27 threes or something like that but my one over under for nard which goes to this entirety of this conversation is 20.9 and that was his usage rate last year when Tyrese was off the floor who would you take the over or the under and just for frame of reference with Tyrese yes his usage with Tyrese was 13.6% it was 20.9 without tyres and if you want the numbers with TJ his usage with TJ on the floor was 12.7% and with out TJ it was 16.6 his finished the season at basketball references number which every site has like slightly different usage calculations whatever at 16 on the dot I mean it’s going to be higher than last year right it’s almost it almost has to be I think but if this is why all this is very complicated because if it’s higher without Tyrese does that mean Ben and TJ’s is lower some someone’s has to be yes yes someone’s someone’s has to be man I I can’t imagine man I can’t imagine his isn’t a little higher with Tyrese next year but also there’s minutes in there where it’s those two together without Pascal on the team yet or you know for example so maybe it does settle in about that number and we talked about the two-man game between those two already but if he is truly a guy that’s hard to keep from the rim and understands how to add pressure as like a third ball handler you you have to run through that guy sometimes and at least more than what was it 12% of the time so but then how do you feel about off ball TJ yeah this episode has turned into quite a difficult conversation about the facers Kaylin I know and then it’s like you look back at it and like I said I’m like well they win the minutes win at least two these guards are out there but then when you start thinking about like how do you optimize nard to be what he just was I don’t the questions aren’t hard when it’s nart and Tyrese it becomes harder when you’re debating what is the best usage of nart and TJ when tyres isn’t on the floor that’s when it becomes a little bit trickier yeah that 16 felt that one hit me the hardest when you were like reading through the numbers individually the one that I was like oh that feels too low but we just ran through numbers of ytj was good good with the ball and what it meant for those bench groups too and is that going to happen as often because it seems like if if it’s you know what we’ve seen of car through three years is part of what he likes about a second unit is keeping it together like even if there’s an injury sometimes someone Leap Frog somebody else so that that bench group can stay so if the bench group starts the season is TJ plus Ben and it’s working like how much TJ and drewy are gonna actually see it’s it’s quite the conundrum you putot me head yeah and and their goals now are not as much about the development they still are but not as much I don’t know uh to officially answer the question I think I’ll take slightly slightly slightly over but not by a whole lot I think I would take slightly over and I just wonder what the implications of that mean this is this was a good one this got me thinking about the team more than any discussion we’ve had on any of these because this is what’s interesting like all three of these players like I want to make clear they’re all very good like I strongly do believe that the Pacers have more depth at point guard than any other team in the NBA will fur always was the king of saying this to me but he would always say a good problem to have is still a problem like it’s still it still requires addressing in some way even if all the solutions are good let me frame it this way though because this is something that I said on my mailbag podcast last month I feel as though like this is very very different than talking about Turner and sabonis no doubt like yes it’s a good thing to have two centers who are talented but I think we could all immediately look into the crystal ball and be like it’s not going to work to play two centers together eventually you’re going to have to make a choice it’s much easier to play two point guards at the same time especially when one of them is a very malleable talented Defender than it is to play two bigs trying to find Elbow Room when neither of them are rangy Defenders so that conversation felt very purgatorial this one is more so like I said that felt very purgatorial this one from the Pacers perspective from their side of things it’s not hard it only becomes hard once you’re trying to balance who’s staying on the team signing people to extensions what motivations and like I said I don’t like using the word politicking but how you balance the needs and wants of the players on the team purgatorial man I gotta up my vocab when we do these well yeah and and the last thing I would say is like the there’s the difference between tonus is they’re not none of them are subtractive from each other and We’ve ran through the reasons why throughout this episode in many ways and tur bonus got better throughout the years but it was very obvious that like they had to sacrifice and change their game slightly to to make that as good as possible so I think they are subtractive from each other if TJ’s having to play off ball next to either one of them yeah in in yes that’s true but but he’s not such a Negative spacer as the way he used to be with what he is now I would say he can make open threes but people do not guard him I have theall yes I don’t even mean that I I still kind of what do they call it the no no no yes shots like all his threes I still even even if you’re shooting 40% I’m like I don’t know but they go in so what do I know should we pivot to uh the the the the guy the all NBA man can I make a joke you know when you’ve emerged when I have people in my mentions and on YouTube videos being like should the Pacers consider trading Tyrese I want to put it out there people no no they they have not emerged even close to that type of a conversation Tyrese is the I don’t think people real like Tyrese is the team in a lot of ways like identity of the team like they’re not even close to needing to have that conversation they never will be close to needing to have that conversation yes one more break here guys we can talk about LinkedIn jobs when you’re hiring for your small business you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role and that is why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs LinkedIn jobs has the tools to help you find the right Professionals for your team faster and for free LinkedIn is not just another job board it’s a vast network with more than a billion professionals which makes it the best place to hire it gives you access to professionals you can’t find anywhere else and Linkedin does all of that making that process easy and intuitive hiring is so easy when you have that many quality candidates in fact 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours LinkedIn knows small businesses are wearing a ton of hats they might not have the time and resources to hire so they are constantly finding ways to make the processes easier on LinkedIn they just laed a new feature for example it helps you write job descriptions making that process even simpler and quicker two and a half small businesses are using LinkedIn for hiring yours could be next post your job for free at linkedin.com lockdown MBA that’s linkedin.com lockdown MBA to post your job for free terms and conditions apply uh I’ll spoil this now I’ve been think I always think about what August project I want to do on this podcast couple years last year I was a book club couple years ago I went back and watch a 2000 finals went game by game this year I want to do the best seasons in Pacers history mostly because I want to see where halbert’s year just stacked up because I think it’s pretty dang close to the to the top I don’t know if people realize that that’s a good segue go ahead there’s not a lot there’s not a lot of people who’ve ever shot 40% from three last year in average 10 assists that’s fairly rare but yeah he didn’t shot 40% from three last year Caitlin come on that’s a he’s a terrible shooter now remember oh yeah I forgot hamstrings man that could have been my over under 1.5 healthy hamstrings to start the season it will not be all right tyes Halburn extremely good player wonderful season and yet his season when I look back on it I will always think of this as like really two or three seasons for him right season one pre whatever you want to call it pre-injury pre- inseason tournament through the inseason tournament when he was people were like legitimately saying this guy in the MVP conversation and then see season two was that Portland game and then the ensuing 15 or so games where he’s playing 20 to 30 minutes at very random times and not all four quarters and stuff like that and then season three is post injury still limited but slowly getting better from late February to the end of the year and then in the playoffs he was the week off before the playoffs was really helpful for him but still like he’s finally come around to admitting it a little bit right you know he said I’ll let you guys decide but I was on the injury report every game or you know you guys could watch me play and see like he he won’t say it stars never say it but like you could tell the injury was a thing for the rest of the season and finally he’s like letting it squeak out a little bit I only bring that up to say I think it’s important sometimes to cut through those numbers statistically when talking about some of the stuff we’re talking about even though we won’t do a ton of that today we’re going to start with Clips today because this is something that I really enjoyed about the development of Tyrese Halbert in this season and last year we did season previews together and we we not necessarily debated but talked about the value of hey I’m an awesome brilliant passer most assists in the league maybe the best passing guard in the NBA and yet me looking for my shot maybe is the most efficient offense we have as a team how do those skills marry up and he had to fight himself and find the balance of that for forever and so something that would all often happen to him is when he would get into the lane or get past the defender in the lane if he couldn’t get all the way to the rim he would look to pass because I’m teres Halburn I’m a great passer there’s got to be loud there’s got to be an open shooter this year his floater was awesome it was such a cool development in his game that changed the level of him as a scorer in the third level drop coverage was way harder you couldn’t come in off of shooters from the weak side he upped his volume and percentage on what Synergy calls Runners what the common P person call floaters now in this clip specifically what I find interesting is the manner he takes them right he still knows when the big is there he can get it up from the free throw line or wherever he made a lot of them last year but I still feel like sometimes when there’s a defender on his hip he rushes to get him up which is not a very Tyrese Halbert thing to me to rush a shot so the first one Drew holidays behind him and he T takes a floater over to minus Kad misses it but all the rest most of the rest of these when he kind of gets below his man and sees a big low and he realizes he has space to the floater he puts it up and in and I found that to be the first kind of sign in my head that he has realized to some extent him finding that shot is just as valuable if not more so every time than him being this insane distributor and that was a big part of his scoring growth to me especially during the part of the Season where he was making every three he took was that he could score from the rim and from deep and in this range of the middle of the floor so you always had to have all your Defenders eyes on him because a good shots going up at some point and it creates indecision with the rest of his game that’s why the floater is important to him because he can throw the late lob he has the finger roll he has the floater and he has the skip pass when a Big’s rolling to the rim that creates a lot of indecision and why he’s so good at toying with the low man in the way that he is and I will say I actually disagree slightly just a little bit because he is very floater dependent and because of that that’s in part why Milwaukee and the Knicks were shading him so aggressively to his left because if you’re sitting on his right hip and he gets into the paint you have an automatic strong hand contest on his floater in ways that if you’re somebody who more often gets the rim or you lean more heavily on the pullup two it’s not as much of an impact so with how efficient he was with the pull up two and especially in the playoffs because right now he’s not really somebody who can withstand a shoulder bump and still get to the rim I actually would have liked to see him access the pullup to a little bit more because his efficiency on the floater dropped down to 46% in the playoffs he still was shooting above 55% on the pull-up TW and I felt like those were there for him a lot in the middle portion of the buck series and some against the Knicks and he didn’t always go to it maybe quite as much as he could have especially at the point of the season when he wasn’t getting his pullup three to fall at the same clip as he was earlier so that would perhaps be my only counter that being said when he pulled out the left-handed floater and the game against Detroit I was like you know what more than about anything if he could literally practice that and feel comfortable with it doing an offhand floater in the the way that Mike Conley does that could be really valuable to him so it felt like to me in that stretch where he just couldn’t buy a three at all whatever it was March February whatever that component compartment of the season to go back to being cut up that two you’re describing was like his ticket out of it sometimes like he was still hitting those at a good level in a way that was meaningful and that shot was new is to him I think or at least in my head he took a lot more of them in this year and if that’s another counterbalance to getting cut off from deband the that’s valuable so your point about sitting on his right like you can see in one of these clips he’s being guarded by konay George he’s on his right side and Halbert keeps his dribble to snake in front of him so he’s off his right him he can get it up and I I’m sure you remember because you you have the Rick Carl memory of every shot do you remember the one he tried to hit the gamewinner against the Raptors and he took the floater from the left wing with a Defender right next to him on his right side and he had to rush it because it was going to get blocked and he claimed he got fouled and he didn’t and he tried to bank and he missed the lung right like if that is is part of it and the Lefty floaters is there andy Legend Mike Conley get in the gym with him man we need some teachings here exactly that shot I still remember it to this day because I remember him thinking he got fouled and I watched it back and I was like I don’t know about that but it was a very unique floater that he went to and he had space for like just a second because the defender was on his right side and he shot it with his right hand I mean and another aspect of this when we’re talking about these two guards is that he had a game winner that was a floater where he basically made through a pinhole thought you know thought Chris Middleton was pressing up on pascas yakum so that Patrick Beverly could go under he recognized that rejected the pick and then split with Patrick Beverly forcing him left got into that tiny space and made that shot and like just for people’s reference when we’re talking about like in game execution and sometimes nitpicking what gets run or doesn’t get run and I’m as guilty as that of anyone but like the Pacers tried to run that exact same play with Andrew neard in games three and four as a sideline out of bounds play and they did not get that shot which granted that’s the difference some what of Boston’s defense as well Boston wasn’t trying to duck under they were just like hey we’ll just switch Jaylen Brown onto Andrew neard and then Andrew had to self-create in that situation whereas Tyrese had a lot more momentum getting downhill but when we’re talking about a slauer game that is going to be etched in my memory that Tyrese does have a gamewinner that was a dominant right-hand floater with Patrick Beverly on that side of his body a signature shot if you will and it’s not I don’t know if you would call it that but I would um because I just I mean this year it went down I think cuz his burst was not as there with the H all time like he’s been a 70ish plus percent Rim guy his whole career he can shoot 40 plus percent from Deep every season of his career and in Iowa State except this year like I buy that the injury held those percentages down so if he can score from literally everywhere what do you do like what what is what is the what is the move to defend this guy and and I think teams figured out that there isn’t really one last year and that’s why that shot was like I always go back to Caris LT with the floater because it felt like he was too floatery but it was it made him harder to defend when when teams were so like afraid of that shot popping up let’s move to the downside of the floer if you don’t mind uh my stat for you and my next kind of thing I want to know how tyres Halburn can get better at this my stat is zero that is number of Allstars tyres halber had a better free throw rate than last season at 21.7 in fact his free throw ranked this could have been the stat 131st in the NBA among the worst if not the worst Stars at drawing fouls people will cry foul uh talking about refs in their car in their cubicle right now whatever it’s not a ref thing he does not draw fouls very well and that is typically a starish thing is getting better that like even Steph Curry whose average shot distance is insanely far had a higher free throw rate to tyres hurn last season he’s got to find a way to me to to take a small next step forward as a score type to get a little bit more contact drawn because he’s an amazing free throw shooter and that’s big for every Star and that is kind of the next evolution me because he doesn’t do that at all hardly right now if you’ll allow me a mini rant that applies to this while we are talking about the injuries to an extent I wrote a piece after game one of that Nick series after he had only taken what was it I think six shots in that game and got a lot of criticism in that one and then also in game five when he didn’t take many shots and part I felt because you know he got hunted on 22 screens he only used 15 screens himself I felt there was an ex exertion element there and game one as you say and he says like for people who watch me I think you could probably tell like it was not normal for a person and that the Pacers consistently use him to show on picks that he was playing in drop coverage and didn’t look like you could barely move like there was one attempt of a floater where he looked like he had no lift getting off of that left leg at all like he was listed on there with back spasms consistently in that series I didn’t feel that he looked like him post injury on January 19th when he came back against the Blazers and then missed time I didn’t feel like he started to look like himself again until game seven against the New York Knicks so it’s very hard to parse a lot of what he did on the back end of the season because yes knowing enough of the quirks and nuances of his game and when you’re talking about the foul rate this is one important thing that I will bring up is that in the playoffs more so than in the regular season teams were willing to show help to him at the nail and it became a for the Pacers and for him where it was like we’re looking for frictionless scoring we need to have guys who can punch the gaps behind that and they to me weren’t always being active enough with that because he wasn’t as active going to his low gather where he could split between that help and potentially draw a foul there where we would have seen him doing that somewhat at the beginning of the season and last season he wasn’t willing to move in the same ways that he was prior to when that hamstring happen and prior to Wi the back issue is happening so I do agree with you I think that that’s something that you can probably talk about for the entirety of his career in addition to sometimes being too differential is that he chooses um frictionless aspects sometimes and he also chooses areas where you know perfect being the enemy of good like he would rather not take a shot and not miss it than potentially draw contact at The Rim at times or Draw yeah draw contact at The Rim at times so I do agree with you I think that he needs to the free throw attempt rate but I also think that there was clear limitations and I didn’t think that there was probably enough said when he was getting some of the criticisms for the low shot attempt games of like hey this is actually a person who’s continuing to play and clearly isn’t playing to their full athletic capabilities yeah the low shot attempt games were a product of like a thousand things to me and to his credit like probably his biggest superpowers is his ability to adjust like very quickly to what the problems Wen identify them that’s why it never happened twice in a row like only I think the worst game for it was game one of the knck Series game one of the buck series I get it game five of the Knick series I got it game one of the Nick series I was a little more confused but there’s just so much that went into those from the way they recovered and even then though like I said he was playing in drop coverage it’s a 6 foot five guard if he’s having to do that he’s not moving to his full capability yeah and yeah they had a chance to win that game it was stolen from them by the NBA Kaylin uh clearly as I forgotten had nothing to do with giving up a missed free throw offensive rebound to Josh hardt or gambling on a Isaiah hardenstein drive ivery and in the playoffs his free throw rate was 9.3% I mean again we just ran through some of it like that’s very low his Drive rate also decreased his Drive rate was like 17.7 during the regular season 14.2 per 100 in the playoffs so yeah I get that the type of player he is he will never be a very high free throw attempt rate guy but it’s it’s going to have to be 25 26 I mean he’s he’s a great free throw shooter he’s a great finisher like it’s got to up a little bit uh okay this question is a bit about Tyrese halberton for my over under and a bit about the Pacers being a very good offensive team again next year and if they’re a very good offensive team again next year I think they’re going to win a lot of games again next year last year he was not first among players with 15 plus minutes uh and I let me be very clear about the stat I’m using team’s offensive rating with player on the court not his offensive rating the team’s offensive rating with him on the court he was second over under two and a half players who finish ahead of him next year in that stat because if he’s in the top two or three again the paces are going to be very good and just fine despite many the other things we talked about during these episodes I mean to a certain extent you’re saying that’s the swing rating or that’s the rating when he’s just on the court on the court ranking of every player there was one player who their their team’s offensive rating with them on the floor was better this is nba.com offensive rating was it yic or was it Luca yic was third Luca was fifth this the the player is a bench player you’re gonna be like oh that’s stupid so actually this player is is very popular right now for his uh for his playoff performance it was pton Pritchard who finished first during the regular season last year duh but regardless of the answer I I I’ll let you pick it a second if if he’s top three there’s a lot of stuff to quibble with about the Pacers where they’re headed what direction they’re in can they be better next year if they’re run it back they will be very good if he is if they are still one of the best offensive teams ever with him on the floor like we can go through all this stuff but like that’s everything of their team to me he is their team their identity why they play the way they do why every other player is better playing with him if he’s still that guy which I have no reason to think he won’t be if he’s even better than that and they’re the it’s the best with him on the floor they’ll be fine they’ll be great what was the number do you know once they started the new starting lineup that is a great question I can do some date searching really quick uh but not off top of my head no I’d be interested to know the ranking number yeah I’m on the team page that won’t work he is not the Indiana Pacer way I mean the fact of the matter is is I mean it probably doesn’t matter that much because I mean they still had a top two offense in the playoffs and that’s what lineup they were starting so I can’t think of a lot of good reasons why the offense would have a significant drop off I can’t either and my number would be under I think it’ll be top two next year and I only and I think that is why no matter they have sakam again like there are so many things we’ve talked about if none of their young players get any better which is the theory of running it back they’ll still be very good next year and I think that is a very formative part of the Pacers new reality of expectations are not about development at all which is why I said that with n hard in the lineup in it’s about winning because this is their reality they can be at any given night any given month the best offensive team in the NBA like the whole time because they have tyres hurn on their team and can I just add an addendum to this because I think we’re on the same page yes in that if you just looked at the overall Talent of the Pacers would you say they have top 10 offensive Talent no and yet they had one of the greatest off offenses of all time and like I said in a playoff setting with many of these people playing in their first playoffs they were still a top two offense like some of some of that is coaching it’s terese’s Brilliance but some of some of that is coaching as well like when we’re talking about we didn’t decide to do a coaching and a front office episode of this because we are getting very close to the draft but in the reverse if you were to look at the defensive personel I think they’re probably getting about what should be expected if you properly wred The Defenders on the team if you were like do you think they have bottom 10 defensive Talent no close but no yeah so they’re probably getting about what should be expected there or at least they did once they started starting n har and N Smith so uh this this was quite a funny query you’ve put me through so when they changed their starting lineup on February 4th four of the top six individuals are Pacers players so how halberton is technically fourth but two of the guys ahead of him are also Pacer starters so third though maybe under the two ahead of him one Joel embiid okay that makes sense he’s very good the other one is B Bobby poris for some reason was apparently very important to the Milwaukee Bucks for the last two months of the season um Ben Shepard is seventh Aaron neith is ninth I’m quite enjoying this exercise now anyway the the whole the whole thesis of why that was my number was as I’ve already said if they are still the best or second best offense in the league they’ll be just fine even even if lot goes wrong and yeah they’ll have to make decisions about that next year if things go wrong and that’s just the only thing they’re good at but I don’t necessarily uh I don’t know what direction is the best for them right now in terms of like going gunning for upgrades versus running it back and developing but they’ll be good either way and I think that is why what a happy place for us to in this Ty on tyres halberton is good and the Pacers will likely be good too well I can’t believe that somehow I got higher on Tyrese halberton than everyone else this season like somehow the graph of like fan perception of him went down at some point and I’m like he’s very limited and they’re still like very good like isn’t this a good thing they just made the Conference Finals I mean and that’s really the thing of it too because I mean I pointed out on the pcal podcast that we did earlier this week that they had they outscored opponents by 9.7 points per 100 when when Pascal and Tyrese were on the floor they won the minutes in every series of the playoffs including against Boston which yes that’s like 53 total minutes but still won them with Tyrese and Pascal on the floor and like I said I don’t really think that Tyrese started looking closer to the full version of himself until game seven against the Knicks they have not played an entire season together they did not have a training camp together so are you suggesting they should they should keep Pascal seak I’m I’m saying they probably should whoa that’s a good way to end Santa is probably a good offseason move I think you know after we’ve got now that we’ve gone through the selection as Caitlin I think I’d be W to give yakum about $190 million I think that sounds about like what I’d be want would you do it for four years I think that sounds about exactly what I would do despite me not predicting that that would be the case that is what I would do we did it we didn’t talk about Kendall Brown we didn’t talk about James Johnson Daniel Ty Jordan War Bruce Brown buddy heeld lots of guys who had little impact some of them much larger than others does it just feel like you went on an archaeological dig did I miss anybody besides two pass time just cracked open a time capsule doesn’t it it feels like a long time ago that Jordan Warren and Bruce Brown are on the Pacers and that was what five months ago they played a game little over that Bruce Brown played some of his best games I think he played better games against the Pacers maybe than for the Pacers uh that that is very possible he had a lot of stuff to say to the bench at times when they were playing uh in Toronto I don’t think I miss so did TJ when Bruce tried to go under that is uh that is also true okay I didn’t miss anybody who didn’t have a 2-a contract this season uh they all had fun moments for this team uh Kaylin this was very fun I don’t know if we’ll have time to do the last one we did last year which was the Rick Carlile Kevin Pritchard episode because the draft is in five days from this coming out but and we’re going to switch YouTube channels into a mailbag so maybe we could talk about them on that so yes that would be the first thing to say one we do have another thing coming on Caitlyn’s side of things two speaking of Kaylin’s side of things my bad clips and her amazing Clips with much more commentary can be found where as you are also doing more detail on every player Twitter handle C2 Cooper link to patreon is there patreon.com basketball she wrote where I embed these videos and then with the embedded video I’m doing extended blurbs and adding in more commentary on each player so yes one more of those coming out whenever this gets released remarkable June 21st is when we got this done and we did them fast that is how long the Pacers season went uh highly recommend subscribing to Kaylin’s patreon oh I have the shirt on I didn’t even notice I have the shirt today I forgot to do that at the beginning I will do it in the intro I record after we do this you can also buy a gear there like the shirt I’m wearing right now I’ll be back sometime over the week oh my goodness I knocked my camera I’ll be back sometime this weekend to talk about the last free agency position preview episode I have to do and then next week’s draft week so lots of draft talk coming with people who actually cover the draft because I have done about zero seconds of legitimately in-depth draft work this year which is a big change from past Seasons kayin I hope you had fun with these I did hopefully people enjoyed listening to them didn’t get too tired of me occupying spaces on the locked on Pacers YouTube channel hopefully the comments aren’t like thank goodness she’s finally done with this stint most of them are like this should be the permanent host you’re G to get me fired Kaylin you’re that good no smaller I’m better in smaller doses what does that mean get get a few special episodes once in a while I record one with Jenny buk and then you don’t hear from me for a while I’m looking forward to Kaylin’s analysis of whoever the Pacers happen to draft uh next week depending on what picks they make so that will also be on her patreon uh thank you all for listening to us go through this whole series have a wonderful day see you very soon

Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, and T.J. McConnell all reached new peaks for the Indiana Pacers during the 2023-24 season.How did they do it? What does that mean for the Pacers long term? Host Tony East is joined by Caitlin Cooper from Basketball, She Wrote (https://www.patreon.com/basketballshewrote) to finish their season review series and look at three point guards.

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