The Indiana Pacers have gotten consistent contributions from their star guard.
The Eastern Conference is top-heavy, allowing for teams to climb the standings and earn solid seeding in the standings. The Indiana Pacers, after a subpar start to the season, have benefitted from that as they are the No. 4 seed in the East with a 29-21 record — recently jumping the Milwaukee Bucks.
Having won five of their last six games, the Pacers are finding form just ahead of the All-Star break. Recently, the team defeated the LA Clippers in a close game in which they once trailed by 22 points.
Pascal Siakam and Bennedict Mathurin led the team in scoring, though it was Tyrese Haliburton who gave the team a boost late with a couple of massive buckets and a pair of made free throws to help seal the game.
Upon his arrival to the Pacers after being traded from the Sacramento Kings, Haliburton has grown into a star player. There are times where he isn’t contributing throughout a game, though he always seems to come through late in the game — regardless of how he performed in the game.
For the Pacers, they know that Hailburton has the clutch ability to help them when the game is winding down and the lights are the brightest. Fortunately, Mathurin and Siakam helped Indiana to a close game against the Clippers, though Haliburton wants to and knows it is his job to come through late in the game.
After the win against the Clippers, the Pacers star guard addressed such when he was asked about stepping up late in the game, forgetting how the rest of the game has gone.
“Yes, my responsibility, I feel like I’ve created a reputation of of being able to close games and helping be our closer so, yeah, whatever it takes to win games is what I’m what I’m trying to do,” Haliburton said.
The Pacers have a high-powered offense with Haliburton as the engine and other highly talented players on the squad. How they perform on the defensive side of the ball determines how they will fare come playoff-time, though.
Defense is half of an NBA game, at the end of the day, so how have the Pacers fared on that side of the ball? They rank No. 19 in defensive rating — the bottom half of the league — through 50 games played. While that isn’t great, the squad is doing good at a couple of things, according to Haliburton.
“Yeah, we’re doing a good job of just locking in, staying in there and figuring it out. You know, we’re mixing in some zone, mixing some different coverages, doing trying to do our best to, you know, defend one on one. I think we’re just really just really digging in,” Haliburton said.
Mixing up their looks defensively is huge for a team like the Pacers, who haven’t fared the best on that side of the ball. They rank No. 9 in offensive rating, which means they just need to be average defensively throughout the regular season.
By mixing in zones and giving high-level effort, Indiana should get enough from its defense to win ball games consistently.
