The Indiana Pacers entered the fourth quarter down 13 points. They had just learned their point guard and offensive engine Tyrese Haliburton would be unable to return due to left hamstring soreness and they had struggled greatly to get stops in the previous two quarters.
So Rick Carlisle turned to a rarely used player in the postseason. No, not the one that could maybe provide a boost on defense and could use this invaluable playoff experience.
Instead of rookie Jarace Walker getting an opportunity to see if the Pacers have perhaps another option to guard Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for a few minutes, Carlisle went with veteran sharpshooter Doug McDermott. After only two minutes with Pascal Siakam in with a bench group, Siakam was subbed out with the team down 17 and 9:25 remaining. He would not return to the game for the rest of the night and Aaron Nesmith and Myles Turner never saw the floor in the fourth quarter.
“We weren’t giving up but it was an opportunity to get some energetic fresh guys in there to fight,” said Carlisle. “They did some good things. The guys that had played to that point, Pascal was very tired, Aaron had four fouls and was tired so that was it.”
Carlisle isn’t going to say the words in the press conference but this was a massive waving of the white flag with a whole lot of time left. ESPN put the Celtics chances of winning at 98.8% when they took the 17-point lead but in today’s NBA a big lead can evaporate quickly and we’ve seen lower odds overcome already in this series after game one’s debacle that was partially due to poor decisions from him late in addition to blunders by the players on the floor. It would be one thing to do this on the second night of a back to back in February but it’s another to do this in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Maybe it gives the team a boost in energy after a tough road stretch that saw them go from winning a Game 7 in New York straight to Boston to get ready for the next round.
“I wanted to look at some guys that I thought needed a look,” Carlisle said of his reasoning regarding the rotation in the fourth quarter. “McDermott went in there and played well. Isaiah Jackson brought a lot of fight to the game. Jalen Smith hasn’t played much in the playoffs; I wanted to see where he was at.”
Jarace Walker did eventually get into the game with about six minutes left and immediately showed some needed energy on the glass and scored an and-one on a floater but he’s not even one of the names that Carlisle brought up in his answer about guys he wanted to get a look at, didn’t come in until it was much closer to actual garbage time as the Pacers removed all their point guards.
While Walker is a rookie and expectations shouldn’t be that he’s going to be a major difference maker against the best team in the league, he was drafted as an enticing defensive prospect and playoff experience could be invaluable for him like it was for Paul George guarding Derrick Rose in the first round of his rookie season. And if the Pacers want to get themselves back in this series, finding anybody that can play well on the defensive end is going to be more valuable than what McDermott can offer offensively. Doug didn’t play poorly in this game, he had a nice block on Brown, but he’s going to be picked on even more than Tyrese on that end of the floor.
Brown’s last 3-pointer came on the easiest stepback he had all game with McDermott on him. You already know he’s going to give up more than he gets you on the other end. He is who he is at this point in his career. Playing Walker might pay dividends now and will definitely benefit him heading into the off-season and further into his career.
We don’t know how Walker has looked in practices and shootarounds but as recently as the first round of the playoffs, Carlisle was telling him “You better stay ready” after he had a fantastic practice while making every shot he took with the scout team.
It’s been a bizarre rookie season for the Pacers lottery pick who has been buried on the depth chart. Early in the season it was understandable with so much depth on the team, it was hard for a lot of guys to find time on the floor and Walker did get a lot of experience in the G-League with the Mad Ants throughout the year. He’s had sporadic chances in the Pacers rotation but every time it’s felt like he had what could be a breakout game, he ended up sitting the bench for the next of couple weeks that followed.
He played 24 minutes against the Wolves in December in his first chance at decent playing time and found ways to contribute with 5 points, 3 assists, and 2 steals. But then in the following month, he had just one game with more than two minutes of playing time with the Pacers in a 34-point blowout win against the Hawks in which he played 10 minutes.
In the middle of January, Walker was excellent over a west coast road trip, playing in three of four games, being one of the reasons they were able to beat the Sacramento Kings with 15 points including some tough off the dribble 3-pointers. But then he doesn’t play at all in the next game before having another strong performance against the Phoenix Suns with 10 points and 9 rebounds. And yet once they were back home, it was a nearly a month and half later before he got another chance in the actual rotation yet again. He had another pair of good games against the Bulls (10 points and 4 rebounds) and Clippers (8 points on 3 shots and 7 assists) at different points in March but was still behind McDermott generally in the pecking order for minutes. If Walker had gotten more time at the end of the season, the coaching staff could be more confident in possibly putting him in these postseason games. Instead he’s been limited to garbage time point guard, even coming into the game after Kendall Brown at times.
In five games where Walker played 20 or more minutes, he averaged 7 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 4 assists with a minuscule 11.2% usage rate. Modest numbers but he found his spots to fit on the floor without taking up many possessions at all. With Haliburton questionable for Game 3, he should be the first person they turn to that they haven’t tried in this series or the playoffs. While it has the chance to fail spectacularly, it also feels like the best chance to swing for the fences. It’s the Eastern Conference Finals. Give me the biggest ceiling play that has a chance—however small—of making an impact on the defensive end of this series.
Walker has shown plenty of flashes this year to make Pacers fans excited about his potential for the future but it’s too bad that even when Carlisle wants to get a look at guys to see if there’s someone he can turn to later in the series Walker seems like an afterthought more than a real option.
iPacers 
[…] About those two minutes, Carlisle seemed to wave the white flag quite soon in this game as he put Doug McDermott into the game to start the fourth quarter and never played multiple starters in the final frame. More on a disappointing first two games from Carlisle and choosing McDermott over Walker here. […]
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Carlisle is trash, indeed
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