Indiana Pacers Postgame Media Availability (at Phoenix Suns) | January 21, 2024

Indiana Pacers Postgame Media Availability (at Phoenix Suns) | January 21, 2024

Yeah he’s he’s a very unusual problem and he’s I don’t know where he’ll be in alltime scoring when he’s done but it’ll be way up there you know he continues to be healthy which it appears no reason why he wouldn’t you know he’ll be up in

The top five for sure I would think um and I thought you know I thought we fought him hard and had some really good possessions on him um but his ability to just you know off the dribble rise up and get complete clearance is you know special

So um you know we had chances down the stretch um defensively it’s just awfully hard to stop their death lineup they have with him at five and you know um two other Allstars and um two other guys that can really shoot the ball and make plays you know so um I

Was I was disappointed with the result but not the effort thought the effort was very good and once again um our guys off the bench did a nice job you know um Walker was ready didn’t play in Portland you know uh was ready tonight um Shephard did a good

Job um those guys you know have been um toiling in the background and uh this was another opportunity for them and they were both um pluses in the game so that’s that’s good to see just to stick on them for a moment I think Walker one

Of the things you guys talked about him was want to make him better on the glass that he had nine boards tonight it’s not eight I mean like where you know how has he gotten better there what did you like from what you saw from him in particular

On the glass yeah he’s you know rebounding is something that we have asked him to con concentrate and focus on um tonight he got nine rebounds from the three position he he didn’t play any four at all tonight so what I’m seeing is that he’s he’s a guy capable of

Playing at three he has good size at three he’s moving his feet and standing in front of people at three um and playing with with more more and more presence so um those things are those things are great to see how’s that come about as far as playing himem War 3 I

Guess how far in the distance were you thinking about that how you know frequently he has he actually been playing the three if if I’m not sure if I’ve noticed it or not but he’s he’s had some reps in practice but once we acquired um

Pascal um you’ve got to take a hard look at how this thing is shaping up and with the realities about uh the importance of of playing with size to being a good defensive team um you know it it makes sense to put him in that equation somewhere doesn’t mean he would always

Play three but he certainly can play Four he’s been playing it in g- League games um but you know the more the more I’m going through this um you I like I like playing with size um size that can move and make plays and stay in front of

People is even is even better and you know tonight you know with Pascal with Obie with uh Walker you know we have some guys that are are bigger guys that we doing a pretty good job of staying in front of people so um we’re still early in the process here

You know we’re year two of a rebuild and uh you know Tyrese has has accelerated it some which is great um the SE yakum trade accelerates it but um you know got to look very closely at our roster and and you know everything that’s that makes the most sense what did just like

About Pasco on both sides again obviously seemed like kind of another step for him he’s had that moment where he bottled Kevin at the uh at half court right before the half what would you like from him on both ends and I guess was there kind you know another sign

What he can do with his length and defensive side of the ball yeah he he’s he’s a very resourceful um adaptable player and uh I can just I can see that we’ll be able to put him on a lot of different guys a lot of different positions um you know he started on

Booker in this game uh ended up moving to Durant and to other guys um you know offensively we we’ve got to get him more acquainted with some of the stuff we’re doing and we’re going to have to add some new stuff that’s you know uh makes sense for his special abilities and so

Um studying that stuff now but um but there’s you know there’s everything to like about him really you guys obviously had a stretch where you didn’t have Andrew or TJ in the game what was all kind of play a point guard was any of that physical with Andrew

Just getting back uh into action did you have it kind of flare up or anything no not that I’m aware of um it just felt like we needed some size um the bigger lineup had been effective in the Sacramento game you know Shephard and and buddy but can both handle the ball

And we had sakam out there as well I believe um and Obie’s Obi can handle the ball too so you know we we’ve got uh a lot of guys that play on the perimeter um in the wing wing positions that that can uh handle the ball and

That have good feel for the game so you know we got to take advantage of that um but interestingly you know it’s you know there’s 11 guys that play tonight and um it’s very difficult to play 11 guys every game unless you’re just you know in a rebuild and you’re just you

Know you know marking off minutes on a minute sheet um and we’re not we’re not doing that we’re we’re trying to do both we’re we’re we’re we want to develop our young guys and we want to win games um generally that’s those those two things fly in the face of each other but

Um if our young guys can help us win games that’s another story to go back to kind of topic how do you view kind of this road trip as a whole it’s obviously weird when you have that much of a sort of changing it’s over you know it’s over

And I’m not big on you know mid-season wrap-ups and you know analyze the last six games last six games are over with we got to um get back on Eastern time tomorrow and uh we got to get ready for is it Denver we play on Tuesday yeah I

Mean you know there you go um no good deed goes unpunished you know you get done with these guys and make a make a decent effort and then you got to play the world champions again so um it’s uh it’s good though I mean these are these

Are challenges you got to love and you know we’ll look forward to getting back to our fans and our building Rick you fought back since the first quarter but you mentioned it before you were really interrupted um what didn’t you like about that quarter what wasn’t working I

Didn’t like I didn’t like the score I haven’t looked at it yet to give you a full breakdown but um you know lose you lose about a quarter by eight uh if you did that every quarter you lose by 32 that wouldn’t be very good so um keep looking at it you know

Uh the things that that we covet the most are hard unselfish play and that pretty much sums it up so that’s what that’s what this coaching staff is looking for that’s what our ownership is looking for and that’s what Management’s looking for so um there you go uh you know I think

Aaron even you know did did a good job on him solid job he made some tough shots and um sometimes you know he goes like that U for those type of players so um just got to continue to try to make it tough on him I think with everything

That he did was still in the game you know we have an opportunity to win so that that says a lot about our team I mean uh I thought we did play a pretty good defense today it’s just like those guys were phenomenal players um they took the shots we wanted

Them to take you know they took a lot of long twos um at the end of the day they made they made tough shots and they made shot they made timely shots right um and so you know you hold a team like that to what under what they have like 110 yeah

Uh like 11 15 116 little more than I thought but I think those three had like 91 of them I think somewhere along those so what uh I guess how many times did you find yourself being like I did everything I was supposed to do here and

He just hit us s a lot pretty much every shot he made right it was only a couple times where you know maybe they drove me to the rim and beat me to the rack but every time I every time I take a jumper

It was like I’m here I did my job mhm had the hand in the face they made it typy kept don’t run down the other end right what uh you obviously got to spend some more time defending with Pas and the opportunities that you guys have as

Far as switching stuff and be able to make matchups work how much more of a sense that you get of of how that can work defending next to him today I mean it’s great cuz uh you know running back on defense sometimes we’re pressed to

Get to your own matchup but with a guy like Pascal if he’s on one side of the court I could just say hey go get such and such and I’ll take here um and it’s it’s it’s great for us to make life easy and you know it’ll help us in the long

Run what um just the simple fact that you guys you know fought back like you did after like kind of a bit of a rough start there just what you like about just the overall you know Collective fight after it was looking ugly early you guys got back in it’s just like a

Team it’s a team like that you got to keep fighting you know uh keep fighting keep fighting keep going keep scratching away um and play it for 48 minutes and we did that today gave ourselves a chance to win um we just came up short

As far as just you know getting him into things I mean how much is there a bit of a reset in terms of figuring out what everybody’s or I mean there’s a couple guys that are doing some different things you’re obvious going play more 3 jarus was playing three Off the Bench I

Mean just what’s it like to got everybody kind of reset and bring him in but also everybody else figure out I mean it’ll be a little bit different but I think everybody knows where they stand on this team um and as long as people will just be themselves and continue to

You know play Team Basketball everything will work itself out

Rick Carlisle, Pascal Siakam and Aaron Nesmith speak with the media following the Pacers loss to the Suns on Sunday night.

0:00 – Rick Carlisle
7:53 – Pascal Siakam
8:10 – Aaron Nesmith