In a game with otherworldly shotmaking from the Indiana Pacers, it was the defense of Tyrese Haliburton that helped seal the game late as they put some distance between them and the Cleveland Cavaliers down the stretch to steal homecourt in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals with a 121-112 win.
Cleveland had the best offense in the NBA this season and they are relentless at finding the opponent’s weakest link and going after them, even openly stating they were going to pick on Tyler Herro in the first round. The Pacers offensive engine is the obvious target for the Cavaliers in this series.
“We knew what they were going to go to at end of the game, as a lot of teams do,” Haliburton said of the Cavaliers targeting him defensively. “Just trying to be solid and help the team win. Obviously Coach Carlisle and the staff have really been on me to take a step on that end of the floor … They’ve got a lot of great players, great one-on-one guys, I’m just trying to make it tough and just be solid and not gamble.”
Before Game 1, one of my biggest questions of the series was whether or not Haliburton could hold up on the defensive end. While he has vastly improved from previous seasons, he still admits openly that he isn’t the strongest defender. The answer to open this series is that not only did Haliburton hold up, he probably had the most success on the team in getting stops against Ty Jerome, who finished second sixth man of the year voting and is line for a big payday this summer after a career year.
On four possessions with Jerome attacking Haliburton at the point of attack in the second half, Jerome went just 1 for 4. Haliburton blocked his floater twice and forced a miss with a solid contest without fouling on another stop. A few of these possessions came with Haliburton matched up with Jerome to start the possession as Nesmith was dealing with foul trouble much of the game and matched up instead with Deandre Hunter at times and Nembhard was following Mitchell wherever he went. No one else was having much success in attempting to stop Jerome’s array of runners inside with Ben Sheppard and TJ McConnell often struggling to contain him in their opportunities.
“Nice,” Andrew Nembhard, who led the team in scoring with 23 points and went 5 for 6 from 3 while tasked with being Donovan Mitchell’s primary defender, said of Haliburton getting stops late. “It was good. He made it tough on them, he really sat down and guarded. I’m happy for him. It was big for us. Ty’s a smart player so he has good ability to read the game regardless of what you think his capabilities are. I think he’s putting a little more effort on that side of the floor, flying around. He’s doing a great job.”
The first block came just as the Pacers were starting to recover from the inevitable Cavalanche in the third quarter with the crowd at max volume and Mitchell on a roll. Bennedict Mathurin hit maybe the biggest shot of the game with a corner 3 off of a jump pass from Tyrese that cut the Cavaliers lead to one and then Haliburton got a block on Jerome before scoring on the other end in the following possession to get the Pacers the lead back.
“I thought we did a good job of weathering the storm once that Cavalanche was on the way,” Haliburton said of the third quarter. “I thought we did a great job of weathering that. Benn (Mathurin) hit a shot that won’t be talked about enough. Once that happened, I had a lot of confidence in our group.”
The Pacers point guard being able to not only survive in those possessions on Jerome but really make his life difficult was critical and allowed the offense to do what it does best. He even switched onto Mitchell on a few possessions late in the shot clock as well and kept the explosive guard in front and forced a tough left-handed layup miss. He then quickly found Pascal Siakam for a bucket with the deep outlet pass that hit him in stride.
It was the first of three straight defensive stops by Haliburton with less than three minutes left in the game on three different Cavaliers. He got his second block on Jerome on the next possession and then after the Pacers were unsuccessful in attempting to overturn a charge on Myles Turner, he blocked a Max Strus 3-pointer out of the timeout.
And while he stepped up on defense he was his usual self on offense, scoring 22 points (9 of 15) with 13 assists and just one turnover to go with his 3 blocks and a steal. He hit a stepback 3-pointer while attacking Jarrett Allen on a switch, assisted on two deep 3-pointers by Nembhard, and got by Allen on a step-through after blocking Strus to put the Pacers up 10 with 1:53 to go.
“He makes all of us better. He’s kind of old school in the way he plays pure point guard,” Nembhard said of Haliburton. “He can really carve up defenses. Everyone likes playing with him, you get the ball where you like.”
“It all starts with Ty,” Obi Toppin added in an interview with NBA TV. “He does a great job controlling the train and we’re just riding with him.”
The Pacers continued their balanced efforts in the playoffs so far as every starter averaged at least 14.8 points in the first round and the team has no 30-point scorers in any of the team’s six playoff games. Every starter scored between 13 and 23 points in this one with no one taking more than 15 shots. A far cry from the Cavaliers, whose coach thought their offense wasn’t moving the ball nearly enough, as Mitchell took 30 shots (33 points) and Jerome took 20 (21 points).
“Being the point guard is like being the mom, your job is take care of everybody …The most important thing is winning the game at the end of the day, and just trying to put guys in the right position to succeed … I guess if we won the game that means I was a good mom today,” Haliburton said with a laugh.
While the Pacers can’t count on making 52.8% of their 3-pointers and the Cavaliers making just 23.7% of theirs, they also have things that they need to clean up like the offensive glass and a lot of bad turnovers that allowed Cleveland to take 15 more shots than Indiana did in this one. 1 down, 3 to go against the 1-seed in the conference. This series is just getting started.
“It gives us a lot of momentum for sure,” Haliburton said. “You can definitely feel good about it for the night. But this is the best team in our conference, they play very hard, they don’t lose a ton. So they’re going to respond. We’ve got to be prepared for that in Game 2.”
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