Pascal Siakam performed with his typical understated dominance and Tyrese Haliburton stayed aggressive despite a poor shooting performance.
While the Pacers aren’t the one-man show that the Milwaukee Bucks appeared to be in game one, the performance of Indiana’s stars in Pascal Siakam and Tyrese Haliburton, even on an inefficient shooting night, shouldn’t be overlooked.
Siakam seems to be perpetually underrated despite a steady consistency that the Pacers have been able to count on since acquiring him in a trade last January.
“I think the average person watching the game wouldn’t presume that he was 10 for 15 with 25 points,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said of why Siakam’s underappreciated by the masses. “I think that’s it. A lot of his baskets come in timely parts of the game. And for some reason, they kind of get overlooked a little bit. But that’s part of his grace as a competitor. He’s obviously very important to us.”
Siakam is a timely bucket machine for Indiana. One of the biggest things he’s added to the team is being a switch-punisher, tough bucket getter that can create his own look when possessions get stuck in the mud in the halfcourt or just simply diversifying the offense by being one of the best mid-post threats in the league.
“We know who he is,” Tyrese Haliburton said of Siakam in early April. “We know as we get into playoff time that when it’s time to get bucket we can always rely on [Pascal].”
In this first game alone, Siakam scored against the following defenders in the post or in isolation: Giannis Antetokounmpo, AJ Green, Jericho Sims, and Kyle Kuzma. He can beat just about anyone when he gets to his spots. He’ll beat you with physicality, with precise footwork, with his patented spin, or just stopping on a dime with a pull-up off the glass.
“He’s very consistent. Pascal’s somebody who knows his spots on the floor and we know where to get him the ball on the floor,” Myles Turner, whose shotmaking and rim protection were also crucial to the victory, said of his frontcourt partner. “A lot of the time, it’s just him being patient, making reads. I think he’s done a phenomenal job since he’s been here, honestly since last playoffs, of just dissecting the defense and even just making tough shots. I’ve got to give a lot of credit to him tonight. He carried both sides of the ball.”
But Siakam isn’t just a midrange maestro anymore, he’s also shooting a career high 38.9% from 3. His ability to space the floor when a center like Brook Lopez gets switched onto him has been equally as important.
Oh and he might just bail out an offensive possession where it took too long to get into the action as options are well covered by drilling a 3-pointer at the top of the key with Bobby Portis in his face.
“Just trying to get to my spots, playing the game the way you’re supposed to,” the 3-time All Star said of his performance in Game 1. “Just simple, not a lot of thinking … I just tried to stay aggressive on both sides of the floor and have an impact on the game, not just scoring but everything else.”
The everything else in addition to his massive responsibilities is just casually being one of the primary assignments on an MVP candidate in Antetokounmpo. Siakam has been critical to the Pacers defensive turnaround as evidenced by the team being giving up 11 points per 100 possessions less when he’s on the court compared to when he’s off per Cleaning the Glass which ranks in the 99th percentile.
“He’s a tough cover,” Siakam said of the challenge of guarding the Bucks star. “He’s coming downhill. You’ve got to do the best you can. He’s really good at getting to the paint, getting to the rim. He’s strong. He’s physical. It’s going to take a lot. I thought we did a decent job, but he got a lot of easy buckets there, too. We’ve got to just continue to make it as tough as we can out there.”
Obviously with the Greek Freak, there’s not going to be anything close to shutting him down and the Pacers used multiple defenders and lots of fouls to limit him as much as possible. With that much of a burden for Siakam on, they did not use him as a full-court pest with Giannis bringing the ball up as much as in the past and spread out his minutes so he would have the necessary amount of energy throughout the game to make plays like he did in the second half where he turned the ball over on a rare miscue after slipping and then hustled back to poke the ball away from Antetokounmpo from behind and quickly turned that into a transition 3-pointer from the wing.
Haliburton’s stat line at first glance isn’t anything impressive. He shot it poorly going 0 for 7 from deep and making just 3 of his 13 shots on his way to 10 points but he was typical self as an offensive engine with 12 assists and just a single turnover. He’s the reason the Pacers had a league high 317 passes among all of the series openers this weekend. His unselfishness and willingness to get off the ball early helps everyone else get going, hit ahead passes helped Nembhard get his semi-transition deceleration, shoulder-bump buckets early, he swings it to the next man with no hesitation, and those kinds of passes are contagious when your best player is always doing it. And then he’ll just casually kill reads like this skip pass to the corner to find a wide open Nembhard by anticipating the early rotation to Turner at the top of the key.
And while Haliburton didn’t have the best shooting night, he never stopped being aggressive. You know he’ll shoot better on the looks he was able to create in future games in this series. With the Bucks likely to try more switching, less drop coverage, it will be imperative for him to find ways to punish those coverages.
“I don’t worry about his shooting. It took awhile for him to get on the board,” Carlisle said of his point guard, “but every team is going to be trying to make life miserable for him. He understands it and he’s developed a really good discipline and patience when teams try to take him out of it early … I thought he balanced things very well. I thought defensively his attention to detail was very good for this game.”
An underrated portion of this game and Haliburton’s performance returned to the game with 8:30 left in the second quarter with the Pacers up 7. Tyrese had not yet scored but took shots on four of the next five possessions. Even after he missed the first two attempts with a stepback 3 and a pull-up two both going in and out, he stayed aggressive with each shot getting closer and closer to the basket until the third when he got by Green for a layup. Usually when you see him take that many shots in a row, he’s a heat check situation where he’s trying to feel out how hot he is. In this game, it was more of a defiant attitude that the results were not matching the way his shot felt.
After getting the layup to go, he hit his next midrange shot from the free throw line and the Pacers were off and running to their 24-point halftime lead. His aggression as a scorer makes it that much easier for him to do the thing he likes the most: make sure everyone else eats.
“He’s an interesting kid, because he’s more than just a scorer,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said after the game. “On the nights that he sees that they’re taking stuff away, he’s smart enough to feel that and just make plays for his teammates. I thought he was very happy doing that.
“But he’s a point guard. And I thought he had a hell of a game personally, even though he didn’t score. He still got everybody involved, and that’s just as dangerous.”
He was also a contributor on the glass with 7 rebounds and part of why they won the battle there 43-41. He’s improved on the defensive end this season primarily with his compete level and it showed in Game 1 though Green was able to shake free for some difficult movement triples in the second half. Carlisle credited Haliburton with his attention to detail on defense.
“Just trying to play the right way, impact the game the right ways,” Haliburton said of his night. “It’s the playoffs. I couldn’t care less about my individual statistics. I just want to help the team win. I feel like I really played a big part in us winning the game, which is ultimately what’s important.”
With Lillard questionable for Game 2 and already trying to talk to Haliburton before Game 1 was over, it should be fun to see how both players perform for the remainder of the series.
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