The Indiana Pacers looked lost on both ends of the floor in the second half of Game 3 against the Milwaukee Bucks as they were beat 70-44 in the final 24 minutes. The Pacers lead the series 2-1 heading into Game 4 on Sunday night after blowing a 10-point halftime advantage.
The Bucks were playing with their season on the line not wanting to go down 3-0 and the Pacers never matched their sense of urgency. Gary Trent Jr. ended the game with 9 made 3-pointers and 37 points as he stepped up as Damian Lillard struggled to find any rhythm in his second game back from a blood clot while being hounded by Andrew Nembhard.
Outside of Pascal Siakam, who finished with 28 points on 12 of 19 shooting, the entire Pacers roster struggled in the second half. Here’s a few things that must change if Indiana wants to get back to Gainbridge Fieldhouse with a chance to close out the series in five games.
“We were bad on both sides of the ball,” Rick Carlisle said. “They were great and we were bad … Too much holding the ball, not enough moving it.”
Tyrese Haliburton has to look at the rim when he drives
This was an issue even in the first half as Haliburton got in the paint often but passed it out on nearly every paint touch despite layups or floaters being options. While that is Haliburton’s game to an extent, the Pacers were 3 for their first 18 from behind the arc and needed some easy baskets.
“I got to be more aggressive,” Haliburton said after the game. “I feel like I passed out of too many tonight—floaters and stuff like that.”
While he finished with 12 assists, he only took 11 shots with nine of those coming from deep. His one turnover came on the worst example of him passing near the rim as he got in the air and turned his body completely away from the rim before throwing a bad pass.
The Pacers were still holding onto their halftime lead at the time of this play but this only continued the avalanche in the third quarter as the Bucks went from down 10 to up 11 as they won the quarter 39-18.
The Milwaukee crowd reveled in the poor performance from Haliburton, a Wisconsin native, as he airballed a pair of 3-pointers and the Pacers star heard loud chants of “overrated” a few times tonight. Haliburton has responded well in the past to poor postseason performances and they’ll need him to do so again in Game 4.
Myles Turner turnovers
This was a really poor offensive game for Myles Turner. His jump shot was off all night as he badly missed the majority of his 3-pointers (0 for 6) but even worse were some awful turnovers, 4 total on the night, as Bucks defenders poked away the ball from behind or Turner made ill-advised passes. He finished with only 6 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block.
Simply put, the Pacers longest-tenured player has to be better. He had some decent moments defensively with deflections and a block on Kuzma but they need him to make the Bucks pay for leaving him open and he has to take much better care of the ball. Turner had 0 turnovers in the first two games but didn’t deal with increased ball pressure well and make poor decisions with the pass tonight.
Turner wasn’t alone with the turnover problem as the Pacers committed 14 and gave up 22 points on those miscues. They only averaged 8 turnovers in the first two games.
The bench lineups need more shooting
The Pacers featured multiple lineups with Pascal and four guys that don’t shoot all that well (four of TJ, Mathurin, Bryant, Sheppard, and Nembhard). While Sheppard hit his first corner 3 and played solid defensive at the point of attack in the first half with the Bucks playing KPJ and Dame at the same time, he missed all of his looks from outside in the second half, continuing his shooting struggles to end the regular season. Jarace Walker, who has been a reliable shooter this year and hit a 3 in each of the first two games, was out of the rotation in this one until garbage time. While Thomas Bryant has been okay, I still would like to see the Pacers go small against that Bucks group with Jericho Sims out there and get more shooting on the floor.
McConnell really struggled and was unable to make any of his four looks. Toppin didn’t really get going at all until the game was already over in the fourth. Mathurin had some fantastic finishes in transition in the first half but missed all of his 3-pointers. He lost his composure some in the third quarter as he got called for a technical after talking to Antetokounmpo after he took a shot to the hip. He didn’t play much after that. While Siakam did everything he could to boost those lineups, the Bucks could focus all their attention on him in the future if the Pacers continue to be without any other reliable shooters on the floor.
The defense has to be much better
Giannis is going to get his 35/15/7 every night. But they can’t let guys like Gary Trent Jr. get so incredibly comfortable that he goes 9 for 12 from 3. A lot of these were with Haliburton chasing him and Rivers said that was part of their intention with putting him into the starting lineup and making the Pacers point guard work on defense more than Taurean Prince was. But even when Haliburton wasn’t on him, there were multiple possessions where the hottest shooter on the floor was being checked by Obi Toppin of all people. There just seemed like a lack of awareness for much of the night in getting to the Bucks shooters as they survived them going 4 for 23 in the first half but then the my went nuts in the second half. AJ Green also found multiple open looks in the fourth quarter thanks to poor Pacers defense.
In the third quarter, Rick Carlisle brought up unnecessary double teams and doing things they shouldn’t do as issues that allowed the Bucks to get open looks from deep that ignited their run postgame. Caitlin Cooper echoed those sentiments.
They did a good job on Lillard but you have to think he’s going to get better as the series progresses as he attempts to play his way into shape and find a rhythm. The Pacers wasted an opportunity tonight as he looked like he was running on fumes as he went 2 for 12 with only 8 points. Credit to Andrew Nembhard for making his life difficult. The Bucks probably benefited from both Lopez and Lillard picking up multiple fouls in the third quarter and getting pulled early as Milwaukee went on their big run.
Need Playoff Drew on the road
Nembhard, defensively, was his All-Defense level self but he was nonexistent on offense with just 6 points on 2 of 8 shooting. He hasn’t been able to get out and use that shoulder bump since that first quarter of game one and missed a couple deceleration looks in this game. After a pair of 17-point games at home, he struggled to make his looks in this one.
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