A look at the Indiana Pacers’ future | The Athletic NBA Show

A look at the Indiana Pacers’ future | The Athletic NBA Show

So your most recent post on on basketball she wrote was about the go-ahead shot Benedict mathine took at the end of the second Celtics game which led to free throws and the win a shot that no Pacer had taken out of that action before that moment now mathine he

Exploded onto the scene as a rookie he posted some huge lines but he struggled with efficiency as the season went on especially from three this season he’s playing slightly less minutes but has improved his efficiency across the board though he’s not getting to the line nearly at the rate he was last season

Where have you seen the biggest improvements in his game and what do you see as the most important next step for him going forward yeah I mean I’ve said early on from the beginning of the year that I don’t think it’s completely been reflected in the numbers but I compare

Him to like if you imagine a trap ease artist letting go of the swing that they’re currently on but yet they haven’t quite reached for the second one I think overall he is a better player than last year but he’s kind of in Lial space and I don’t know when exactly it’s

Going to be that he’s gonna fully latch on to the next step of where he needs to go he’s kind of in that in between but like when they were at Summer League it was very much like his processing of the game and ability to find kickout Avenues

Was limiting him because he really wants to play out a triple threat and that’s something that like it’s a good thing he’s very good at it he’s very good at making reads and using like a shimmy jab and knowing how much he needs to do to

Create separation and get to the rim and that’s why Rick carile kind of mentioned like that shot that he got against Boston he’s the only guy in our roster who could have even gotten that shot off but there’s times where he’ll be open and he doesn’t realize like it’s a short

Close out and he doesn’t just naturally shoot the inflow shots that are coming to him so the threes are following a better clip but I think he could even be taking a few more attempts in some of those situations just so that he’s drawing longer Closeouts because he is

So good at driving downhill and drawing contact and the free throw attempts have gone up for him I think a big part of it for him in terms of inflection points is that they just need him to be able to compete on defense more consistently and there have been some solid performances

For him like what he’s he’s played terrifically against Milwaukee in pretty much most of those matchups and had some really big plays against Giannis down the stretch in the first win they got over him but then there will also be moments where like yeah they scored 150

Points on the Hawks but there’s three possessions in a row where he’s given up a screen rejecting to dejonte Murray and then Deonte Murray’s getting to the rim where they they need more from him there and I think that he is capable of doing it he has the tools physically to do it

It’s just that everything with Ben typically is about feel and processing and that’s where like you can see that his visual awareness is starting to get broader that he’s seeing more passing angles especially on drives than what he would have seen last year and they need

That same thing to start opening up for him on defense as well um because if he’s going to play out there with tyres Albert and the numbers with Tyrese and Ben are not good I think that’s in part why they went ahead and moved him back

To the bench I think some of that was you know second year slump and having to figure out the different ways that teams were guarding him but also like the numbers between Tyrese and Buddy are better the numbers between Tyrese and Andrew are better because Andrew is probably the most complete defender on

The team and buddy just has a degree of gravity that no one else on the roster has so um it’s gonna have to be Ben knocking down inflow shots that come to him and continue to be making strides as a Defender Kaylin that was a big joke JIS

Walker guy going into this past draft I know he did a lot of pre-draft work on Walker and the Pacers drafted him eighth overall but the 37 games he’s only played 100 minutes total across 12 games how did you envision Walker fit on the Pacers going into the draft and with

Reports that the Pacers are quote very determined not to trade Walker how important do you think it is that he could potentially be how important could he be in this next era of the Pacers I mean in theory his skill set represents pretty much everything that they’re missing like if Tyrese is getting

Trapped they could definitely use a big that can make plays out of the middle of the floor be a canny short roll passer that that would be a boon for them having somebody at with that much size for a position at the four spot very helpful going into the pre-draft process

I was most impressed by him guarding the corners and what his off ball defensive instincts were and I think in part I might have missed the mark slightly there just because of what Houston’s defensive scheme was they were a very aggressive trapping scheme that called

For him to have to be more proactive so while he does make good reads that’s very different than what the Pacers do when I was talking about them staying home on three-point Shooters what they do with the low man is a lot more restraint so um I think that that’s had

To be an adjustment and I I know the fan base gets very frustrated with the fact that jarus isn’t playing but a lot of what he does defensively is about his hands for reasons both good and bad he has very deaf quick hands he he catlike reflect his good hand ey coordination

But it’s more so that than it is about necessarily his Mobility on switches on the perimeter as well so when you watch him in the G League I know Rick was asked like why isn’t he playing and he was basically like I need him to cut out

The Willie and Illy gambles so even in in the fourth quarter when he was playing against Minnesota like he’ll shoot a passing lane or sometimes somebody might be bringing the ball up the floor and instead of getting back he like wants to Hound the ball and he

Might lunge for it and then it compromises the defense so he breaks from scheme on that end of the floor quite a bit and there’s just you know he’s he’s a rookie he’s 20 years old the Pacers want to win games Tyrese has been very vocal about you know what did you

Learn from from Team USA and he was like my big takeaway is I’m tired of losing so it’s just a little bit you know of a a difference in timeline in terms of where they are and what they’re waiting to see but I I do think that when you

Watch his g-league minutes that you can see improvements from him like going into summer league in the beginning of the Season he was definitely drifting like he was getting hit by a gust of wind to his left when he’s shooting and now he’s shooting the heck out of the

Ball in the G League which the close outs will be different at the NBA level but you can see he’s he’s a lot more straight up and down so I think that he can be a big part of it his archetype represents you see at the fourth spot

Being necessary in the playoffs I think a lot of the time but how long that’s going to take before he gets there because he’s not there yet so um very interesting that they got reported this week that they’re you know very very determined not to trade him in deals for

SE yakum who if you did trade for SE yakum would be you know starting in front of jarus for four years so that’s a little bit curious for me

The Athletic NBA Show discuss the Indiana Pacers’ young players.