The most important things the Indiana Pacers need to do to beat the Boston Celtics in Game 3

The most important things the Indiana Pacers need to do to beat the Boston Celtics in Game 3

Pacers Celtics game three tonight what has to be better for the Pacers among many things tyres halbert’s injury latest what does it mean how the Pacers can balance their lineups a little better some match up data we’re getting into the Weeds 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 Saturday hope you’re having a great weekend and welcome into another edition of the lockon Pacers podcast where we of course talk about the Indiana Pacers as always my name’s Tony East I cover the team for Forbes and Si and today hope everybody’s enjoying race weekend we’ve got to talk about game three biggest game of the Pacers season to date trumping game three of last round and game seven of last round uh as big as it gets for the Pacers down 20 no one’s ever come back from three 0 lots of teams have come back from 3-1 not a lot but enough they got to win this one it’s as big as it gets and they’ve had some epic game threes in the postseason so far they’ll need another one tonight we’re going to break down a lot about the game stuff that I think should change the latest on Hal Burton’s injury some matchup stuff some lineup stuff the weeds of this series you know it’s coming as we do here on lockdown Pacers and we have to start with the biggest news which is tyres halber but I might remind you that tonight the stakes are high because pay Pacers last home loss March 18th two months and a week ago from today the Celtics in the playoffs undefeated on the road what’s gonna give that’s going to define the series if the Pacers lose at home they’re in a lot of trouble they’re already in a lot of trouble if the Celtics can keep their things up on the road the Pacers can clean up at home go back to Boston and they’ll feel a lot better big news for the Pacers from Friday Tyrese hurn on the injury report as expected on the injury report if official designation left hamstring soreness and he is questionable that is about the best case scenario I think for the Pacers uh that he’s not listed as out I think with something like this they’ll no more even tomorrow and ricardel kind of alluded to that after game two but how he feels tomorrow how he responds to whatever he’s able to do Friday how he responds to his pregame warm-up we’ll be telling you’ve already seen how muscle injuries can be problematic to return from for halberton already and it’s you know if it’s just sore it’s different than a strain or anything like that but it’s tricky right uh but The Season’s on the line and that does change the calculus of returns and what it means and of course the long term is the most important part here so we’ll see but questionable is is as good of news as could have been expected to me from the Pacers I think there was 100% chance he’s going to be on the in report in some capacity so we won’t know until the day of the game obviously which is today we won’t know until closer to the game’s start time if he’s able to go or not and what that means for the rest of the series uh but good start I would say uh and I opined yesterday about who would start in halton’s place if he’s unable to go and I said I think McConnell is the most natural answer that did happen at times this season when halberton was out with his previous uh hamstring injury and you know late January early February T.J McConnell started four games in total this season and all of them were in that span and it came after the Pacers kind of realized oh our offense is really stuck in the mud right now we need ball handling on the floor and they got him in there to start the games he started in Sacramento Pacers won that game if you remember he started in Phoenix he started against Sacramento in that weird game where halberton wasn’t playing in the first quarter you know those were his starts this season uh and you know he had 20 and 10 that first start when they won he was seven for 11 at his second start like thing it works but that was a different Pacers team back then they still had buddy healed you know it was just not the same reality they’re in now and we’ve heard rck Carlile and I think rightly say before he likes to keep his bench unit together I talked about this stuff yesterday but even pulling stuff out from that bench unit like what makes that unit so good and was has made it good all year is that specifically top and McConnell Shephard Jackson and mine he was in there fit really well together like that’s a good lineup so yes they’re all good players and that their depth has been a success but their depth is extra successful because those players pair so well McConnell Topp and come in at the same time lot for that reason if you take that away are you losing a superpower of the team and if so how do you get around that do you start Ben Shepard for example and have n hard be the one and then have your first Subs be to bring in McConnell top in with Shepard and then try but you could do that if McConnell started too but it’s just it’s just tricky to imagine what it could look like and especially tricky to imagine how it could look if they don’t add another player into the mix right if they just go eight deep and run with the units they’ve been going with so here It’s Tricky and if halberton plays obviously this isn’t as important but if he’s Limited in any way they’ll have to think about their rotation a little differently so lots to consider for the Pacers with this I still think my answer would be start McConnell but I think there’s good Arguments for lots of stuff because nard can move down a position uh and I don’t think they should add another player to the mix we’ve seen that throughout the postseason we saw that in the whatever the heck that fourth quarter was of game two that you know there’s not a lot of other good options for this series and I think that that might the be the best thing to do could be unless they want to go huge and start topping and then do what I said earlier where they just bring the bench guys in earlier and try to have that but then you’re running whoever you st to the ground here’s what’s key to me digging through the postseason numbers for the Pacers let’s start with just Halbert and SE yakum right when they’re both on the floor Pacers offensive rating is Sensational when Jam’s on the floor the Pacers offensive rating is very good when just halbert’s on the floor no seum their offensive rating is pretty good and when they’re both off which shouldn’t happen in the playoffs and it’s only happened for 64 minutes in the postseason through 15 games we’re talking like four minutes a game on average and that’s skewed by some garbage Time moments but there’s been a few times it’s happen either way the Pacers offensive rating is 109.5 that’s awful that’s terrible and so without halt there’s going to be minutes that happens they’ve got to maximize those they if they have a stretch with their offense is that bad against the Celtics they just lose the game so they have to find a way to one if hurn doesn’t play makes yak’s minutes Sensational and two when t comes off the four they have to be good enough and they haven’t been throughout the playoffs and the reason I start with that layer is if you add in the third player who matters a lot in this which to me is TJ McConnell because he’s a very good ball handler these are the table Setters that get your offens in motions the identity Setters of the units they play with you know we’ve seen McConnell plus other star you know McConnell halton’s a decent enough offensive rating McConnell siakam’s 122.75 minutes so very small sample the Pacers offensive rating sucks it’s below 90 but also the minutes the Pacers have played without any of those three 27 minutes in total in the playoffs so we’re not talking about a big sample at all but still their offensive rating is also below 90 so the key thing to get out of that exercise is if halberton can’t play or if he’s Limited in some way in terms of what his max minutes look like where he can be as effective as possible McConnell and SE yakum one of them has to be on the floor at all times if if if needs a rest Nim hard seak both have to be in there so you have a point guard and seak and the inverse also has to be true and McConnell’s in uh when t comes out McConnell has to be in and they need to overlap as much as possible if if halberton can’t play to keep the Pacers offense at an actually credible enough level to keep up with Boston because in the alternative minutes and I think that those numbers are so low that they would naturally go up somewhat I mean below 90s is absurdly bad but we we I mean we’ve seen the results not be good and we’ve seen them go with all three of those guys out for random stretches that didn’t make sense but that can’t happen and if halber again I don’t know he might be able to play as full minutes load and look totally fine and then it’s about the normal rotation and balancing that but if he’s Limited in any way or he can’t do the same things those are the key things to watch for in game three let’s talk about some other adjustments going through some stuff that happened in game two and then looking at some matchup Data before we do that though got to very quickly talk to you guys about prize picks America’s number one fantasy sports app with more than three million members all you do is pick more than or less than on two or more player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in biggest moments in the NBA rolling right now as the playoffs go for the NBA and the NHL as well you can get in on the playoff action went up to 100 times your money on prize picks as the world’s best players take the game to a new level and you put up to 100 times your money with as little as four correct picks you can turn 10 into a thousand with basketball hockey entries today on prize picks how do you play it’s very simple you can 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Kaitlin Clark to dagger fu3 late lockedown women’s basketball covers the whole world of women’s basketball including caylin Clark check it out today I am sometimes on there as a part of the staff of the crew that runs that show let’s talk some Pacers here uh as we continue on looking at this series talked about adjustments after game one with Dave S we saw a lot of those come to fruition but not all of them uh we didn’t see the Pacers go big as much and of course the way they closed the game and Hal bur’s injury really jammed up their rotation and made things tricky but let’s talk about some stuff that I’m highlighting from game two to start the game they stuck with what they did in the first game which was n Smith on Jason Tatum and Pascal seak on Jaylen Brown um Brown was crazy good and Tatum was not as good clearly some more success with those matchups than they had in game one when I suggested flipping them however to start the second half n Smith was on Derek white and nard was on Jaylen Brown and sakam was on Tatum and that was only for like a possession or two maybe they were just trying to confuse them they changed it up and stuff got back to normal but they’ve got to iron that stuff out and it’s hard to defend these guys Jason Tatum in this game was um I am blind I have it right in front of me it was one for two defended by sakam and where is n Smith there he is one for four defended by n Smith so that did go much better in this game than it did in game one and then Jaylen Brown who was just cooking everybody was six for seven being guarded by Pascal sakam in this game and one for four being guarded by n Smith n Smith can’t guard both so maybe what the Pacers are doing is actually fine but mixing it up seems to be somewhat successful um figuring out those matchups to the best of their abilities is important uh it’s hard to guard everybody on the Celtics of course and I suggested flipping it uh I don’t think they should do that as much anymore I think they need to stick with what they have been doing and just hope that they can do a better job in particular Derek white only got hot when he was guarded by halberton uh which to be clear he still drilled the threes but they they they found more success Andrew holiday for example in the last game they just have to find a way to iron out those Wing guys and I think mixing it up like they did to start the second half could be the way to do that but uh n Smith was more successful in a way that means my first adjustment I will now say was wrong and they shouldn’t do it and they didn’t do it so smart on the Pacers there um Horford was on cakam uh in this game some people were tweeting that that that was new I think they did that in the second half and overtime a lot of game one of the series either way it was for a full game new is uh and that didn’t work very well Al Horford guarded sakam seak took eight shots in those minutes and he made five of them he was great the Pacers scored 37 points on 27.7 so really 28 possessions in those instances that’s tough seaka alsoo cooked Jaylen Brown he was four for four against Tim and three for three against Tatum so maybe he’s just impossible to match up with but the Horford thing isn’t working particularly well if that starts as a thing again um sakam needs to just go at it and go go crazy again I suspect it might not be the case but the real key to that is is Miles Turner you know this is similar to The Buck series and then how the the front Court cross matching dictates what big can go well Miles Turner one for two guarded by O’Shea brassette one for one on pton Pritchard 0 for two on Tatum and one for two on Derrick White that’s all his shots from game three if if this is the matchups again and he and he is not guarded by Horford hardly at all 46 seconds according to the NBA’s match data he has got to punish Smalls he’s got to put Tatum in positions under the rim in some like without ging up spacing if possible if he’s getting in the way that’s obviously a problem um but O’Shea brassette like he should be able to post him up and get good shots there Turner is really the key to that obviously seaka absolutely crushing Al Horford is valuable and if they can keep going to that they should but I think a key part of that more specifically is what does it mean for Turner who had a great first half of game one and has not been so awesome since I think he can be better than certainly he was uh in game two and I think if they do similar matchups uh the Pacers have to look Turner’s way more and find a way to get him involved specifically inside the ark because that did not work particularly well all right this was the thing that I meant to bring up in the first segment uh when talking about Halbert being out that hasn’t been the case see aam’s got to get the ball which sounds crazy to say because he was unbelievable in the last game and took 17 shots in in his minutes out there which is a lot uh and he should get it that much here’s the thing he he was cooking in the second or third quarter which is why he had it many of you remember this from the first half let’s put some specifics on it SE yakum scored the facers P first four points the second one of those shots went in with 1102 to go in the first quarter game progresses and then at 657 to go in the first quarter he comes out that always happens he comes out for toping and then he comes back in later with the second unit nothing abnormal so far he comes back in late in the first that bench group doesn’t get it he didn’t get it for the late part of the or the early part of the first and in total he didn’t shoot again till 11:28 to go in the second quarter so he almost went an entire quarter of time without shooting the ball get yakum the ball I ran through the matchup data he is a really unique mismatch in this series with size skill speed everything he does so well you’ve been watching him you know how good he’s played and maybe he’s been a little unsustainably hot but if they don’t have a good answer for him he’s got to get it he’s got to be involved especially if Hal bur’s not playing and yeah he’ll get more attention in that way but he’s got to be great and he knows it so to me that cannot happen again they have to get him the ball they have to look his way and make him valuable because that that’s too few touches uh in this game uh I still maintain some stuff from game one by the way those are all my notes about stuff that I think the Pacers really specifically need to change uh in this game there are some other things that I think were noteworthy they aren’t really adjustment proof and just stuff Pac need to do better but um Pacers were willing to switch a lot that something we talked about from game one their defense needs to just be better uh they did not go to Sticks until garbage time like they did in game one they did not switch up the bench matchups with Isaiah Jackson which was fine actually and the thing that I suggested the strongest that they didn’t do and I and I would like to see them try this at some point again in this series is the top and Turner seaka front cour it’s skill and size against the Celtics defense and they need to find ways to score they scored 110 despite not having their full breadth of power for the last 15 minutes of the game for you know reasons um that they tried to explain and I think that they need to try that bigger group again I know it’s going to give them some defensive struggles especially depending on who’s actually out there for Boston if they’re going with a smaller group and they might have to Luke cornette looks like he’s not going to play in game three but that just gives them some size combos that make sense in this series to me and yakum has pound success guarding Tatum like we already ran through and uh maybe their best option on Brown as well so I would try to go to that as the Pacers uh in game three at least more than they have throughout this year so far a couple other stuff to get to involving this game let’s hop right into that back here once again unlocked on Pacers thanks for making us your first listen on this lovely weekend check out Lockton Celtics John caral will have the latest from the other side Jaylen Brown going bananas in game two with 40 points how he’s looking why he’s doing it all that stuff um defensive matchups going to be tricky having the right combos on the floor going to be tricky if halbert’s Limited in any way and the Celtics prevent a lot of their own present excuse me a lot of their own challenges something that I think has been interesting is the Pacers bench has been so wonderful offensively their defensive level in game two was awful right that’s why their plus minuses were so bad like toen was four for six McConnell had some nice passes although it wasn’t a great game for him Shepard was 50% from the field Jackson was fine in this game and yet all of them or at least all of them but topen have a plus minus uh below minus 10 and that is because they were terrible terrible defensively uh in game two like toppen was in there and this was in the first quarter and this was in the stretch when he came in for yakum the Celtics were just going Payton Pritcher Jason Tatum pick and pop with Halburn and toppen as the Defenders bucket every time or good shot every time and those are two of the Pacers worst Defenders they have to find a way to cover for that better or just do a better job executing that defensive coverage because T I mean Tatum didn’t have a great game but he can’t get wide open shots like that and pritchard’s been making his threes this series like you gotta guard him he’s a good shooter he always has been but now he’s like very threatening from Deep they have got to be better defending that matchup because they’re gon to have to play the rotation they have been to get the enough offensive Firepower out there you’ve all been hearing me say it this whole series most adjustments the Pacers have to consider are make cannot sacrifice offense it’s gonna it’s too hard to keep up with this team again the Celtics had the best offensive rating ever this season seon Pacers had the second best of course but the Celtics can just score on the Pacers defense all the time the Pacers have to keep up if they’re sacrificing offense the adjustment is not worth it so they have to play their rotation in a way that gets in the best offensive Firepower they can uh and that means those guys Halbert and the top and have to defend better those two main actions if they can’t the Pacers are gonna have a lot of trouble winning and they had a lot of trouble winning in game two and that action one just very simple stuff but they got a lot of really easy shots out of it the other thing that happened in game two that I don’t think can happen for the Pacers they and and and I will say first hand up I don’t know this was dealing something with his chest get his hamst looked at at half time I understand all that um they went with no Halbert no se yakum no and no McConnell again they can’t do that I mean they can’t even go no halberton plus yakum at all and that was when Halbert was still at least playing in the game they just can’t do it and I know I talked about that in the first segment but that was a note that I wanted to get to from the game that that surprised me they just can’t if they’re both playing playing one of them has to be out there at all times for the Pacers because just it just has to be um so adjustment wise the Pacers are it’s tough to push buttons in this series to me the Celtics have so much skilled size right even their guards are larger everybody can shoot they get up a bunch of Threes there’s a reason their net rating was so crazy good there’s a reason they’re now 10 and two in the postseason because they’re an incredible team right I I I haven’t said this yet but I thought this and said it to a couple people like in media spaces like the talent Gap is is so I I don’t think people realize how big of a difference this is from the first two Series right Pacers bucks that won the Bucks like ignoring injuries even the Pacers and Bucks were two wins apart in the regular season the Pacers and Knicks were three wins apart in the regular season the Pacers and Celtics were 17 wins apart in the regular season the talent Gap is so big that the execution has to be Sublime for the Pacers they did a much they did a terrific job in game one of running their offense of playing at their Pace most of the time getting good looks and executing them and being just disruptive enough defensively to keep up and survive Celtics crazy stretches and they had a great chance to win that game and they didn’t but they had a chance in game two they had fewer stretches of successful defense their offensive potency wasn’t as high it was fine but it wasn’t as high their execution wasn’t as good and they had a key injury obviously like they have to be so precise and perfect in this series and they turnovers were the reason they weren’t that in game one and in game two they just did not execute simple defensive stuff some of the times they were not able to be disruptive enough on Jaylen Brown they’ve got to be locked in the whole time they’ve got to be at the right level of focus and calmness some cases where they’re going too hard and just got to execute a lot of stuff better figure out the rotation correctly and really hope Halton is is able to go they were win again Halbert played 28 minutes and he came out with 344 to go in the third quarter of game two which is nine minutes into that quarter of the first 33 minutes of that game that means he played 28 minutes of them and he was plus one and they were losing by about 10ish when he came out I can check that right now like even when he only has only has 10 and eight in that amount of time he is massively impactful in this series just stunning how important he is they were down 11 when he came out so minus 12 without him plus one with him if he’s able to go the Pacers have a chance he is that good what are they are they guaranteed to win is it over a good chance I don’t know but they have a chance if he’s able to go if not even if he does play they have to be so precise and so perfect and these little errors they’ve had in the first two games are just killing them we’ll see what they can do adjustments will be key Focus will be key having the right guys on the floor at all times will be key and we’ll be there for it in gamebridge tomorrow night and then after the game it’s a late one uh Derek Kramer and I will do our one to series postgame breakdown if the Pacers win we’ll probably be talking about stuff they did well and stuff they need to continue to do going forward if they lose we talking about what it could take to be the first team to come back from three 0 or um getting ahead of ourselves potentially about this series and then of course R bow will be on at some point this series I like to do something else with John carrales or another Celtics person so lots of fun stuff coming here and if you are a race fan and you’re listening from Indiana hope you enjoyed carb day I hope you enjoy the race I hope that the weather is fantastic and it’s a very fun sportsy week for Indiana and I hope you can enjoy all of it I already have and the race hasn’t even gotten here yet should be awesome Pacers and Racers are back everybody have a very fun weekend I’ll see you after game three with the Pacers and Celtics

The Indiana Pacers and Boston Celtics will battle for Game 3 tonight. What are the keys for the Pacers to get their first win in the series? Host Tony East breaks it all down and explains what will be important with or without Tyrese Haliburton.

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