The play drawn up by the coaching staff was similar to the now famous football play but not quite the same—both in design and execution
The Indiana Pacers are down three with the shot clock turned off late in the fourth quarter. Andrew Nembhard, the quarterback, lines up on the sideline ready to take the “snap,” all four Pacers receivers ready at the line of scrimmage, a.k.a. the half-court line, at the whistle a player runs a route across the floor while defenders are forced the navigate through the sea of bodies crossing each other, and it all culminates in the player receiving a short dump off pass where in one motion they catch, gather themselves as they turnaround, and launch a 3-pointer to attempt to tie the game.
For Pacers fans, this Bennedict Mathurin attempt at the end of last night’s game against the Pistons probably felt fairly familiar. You may have even been Leo pointing at the TV thinking it was the now famous football play designed by assistant coach Jenny Boucek that nearly worked in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2024 against the Celtics when Aaron Nesmith got an open look and then ultimately did work when Tyrese Haliburton hit his miraculous 4-point play that was a precursor to the greatest clutch run that a player has had in NBA history. I certainly recognized some similar elements with my near identical angle from press row.
But you can quickly see the differences in these plays that do have plenty of similarities and are both designed to get nearly identical shots as their first options.
For this new play (that I feel like we have seen glimpses of before but just not in this high leverage of a situation), all the players start at the half-court line rather than in a diamond formation around the opponent’s 3-point line in the flag football play that Caitlin Cooper and Boucek discussed in exquisite detail here.
Once the play starts everyone runs at similar pace in a straight line for about five yards as Mathurin tries to set up his defender for what’s about to come. As Jarace Walker and Pascal Siakam get a yard away from the top of the key they turn and set up for a double screen (more traditional basketball picks rather than the football style rub routes from the Haliburton shot) for Mathurin to come racing across and give the defense their first set of picks to navigate.
This served the purpose of first getting Pistons defensive menace Ausar Thompson off of Mathurin as the Pistons were wise to switch the initial set of screens well set by Walker, and Tobias Harris then becomes the defender chasing Mathurin. Jay Huff is also lying in wait at the wing after his own straight line route to start the play stops at the 3-point line in order to set a third screen staggered below the first two to free up the Pacers hottest scorer to start the season. Surprisingly, Stewart stays attached to Huff rather than switching on this final screen and Mathurin gets as good of a look as you could possibly ask for when down 3 late in the game when teams are typically looking to foul to prevent a shot to tie.
If Mathurin is covered, you can see where the second option comes into play as Jarace Walker comes back towards Huff’s defender to set another screen to try and get Huff open at the top of the key just as Mathurin is receiving the ball. Just watch Jarace Walker throughout the play and you can see how the play would continue if the first option in Mathurin isn’t open.
The ultimate result was yet another reminder of the special player that the Pacers are missing as Tyrese Haliburton was able to hit a more difficult version of that same shot—albeit from a different play—with Giannis Antetokounmpo standing in front of him and then proceeded to just never miss a clutch shot with the game on the line in the playoffs either.
You can see the unorthodox design of the football play led to confusion of when to switch for the defense here as Taurean Prince got stuck on the “rub routes” rather than a typical screen that players are used to seeing in a basketball game. Not realizing that something that functions as screen was happening, both Gary Trent Jr. and Kyle Kuzma both attempted to keep tracking their own men as neither Nesmith or Siakam ever stop their “route” rather than switch with Prince. Giannis, unlike Isaiah Stewart in the other play, does leave the Pacers big man in order to make the shot more difficult but it only resulted in it being 4 points instead of 3 as he left no room for Haliburton to land. A special moment out of a special play.
Another benefit that both of these play designs have in common is the placement of the in-bounds pass defender that it seems to encourage. Caris LeVert for the Pistons is standing between Nembhard and where all the players are starting at the half-court line, giving him an easy direct line to where he ultimately wants to dump the ball off to Mathurin.
LeVert is doing very little here just standing with his arms up. Compare that to Brook Lopez for the Bucks who is at least actively trying to make it difficult but Nembhard is able to bait him into going away from Haliburton’s path. You can see Al Horford played it exactly like LeVert and Lopez did on their different plays as well, ultimately gifting Nembhard the clear pass.
You wonder if teams will change their tactics with this defender when the Pacers start with these kind of alignments where all four players start in the backcourt. Giving that defender an angle where they can see the play coming toward them like a free safety and still keep an eye on the in-bounder if needed seems more beneficial than what we’ve seen in these plays where they could just read where a player is about to come open rather than trying to make the in-bounds pass more difficult. Perhaps then the second option of Huff becomes more likely to be used from the Pacers if that in-bounding defender changes.
In the football play, the second option is the other receiver running to the opposite wing for what would be a much more difficult pass (though once again if the defense changes how they defend the in-bounder this could change the difficulty) but a cleaner catch and shoot chance with the shooter’s body already facing the basket. When the Pacers ran the four verticals play again in the Eastern Conference Finals Game 1 against the Knicks during this last run, Haliburton’s sole focus was getting the typical second option the shot. Nesmith was a human flamethrower during that magical comeback and you can see Haliburton focused on trying to get in OG Anunoby’s way rather than running his usual route for his own shot.
Here’s to the next time we get to see the coaching staff have some fun late in the game to give the Pacers their best chance to win and the subtle changes they may come into play depending on the new situation.
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