SI.com: Nate McMillan and the Pacers' Ever-Surprising Out-of-Timeout Offense

[boomershadow]

Our out-of-timeout offense was a big gripe of mine during the last few years of Frank Vogel. I think McMillan has done a pretty solid job this year of getting the team to play a more modern brand of offense. I have a few nit-picks about him for sure, but I don't know if he gets enough credit for getting the team doing exactly what the organization said it wanted to do post-Vogel, have a more efficient offense.

The NBA’s top offense coming out of timeouts this season isn’t coached by Gregg Popovich, Rick Carlisle, or Brad Stevens. It isn’t Steve Kerr’s otherwise unstoppable Warriors or Mike D’Antoni’s prolific Rockets. Credit goes, instead, to Nate McMillan and the ever-surprising Indiana Pacers—still firmly in the playoff picture at the season’s halfway point, and leading the pack in an area of the game reserved for the game’s foremost tacticians.

It’s in these situations that McMillan and his staff can build and subvert expectations. Most of what the Pacers run isn’t revolutionary, though it comes with one or two wrinkles that consistently throw the defense out of sorts. If planned and executed correctly, even the smallest action can complicate the in-the-moment calculus of several defenders. Indiana thrives on that. What looks to be a stale, predictable action ends with Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis veering downhill suddenly for a promising two-on-one.

Rob Mahoney

https://www.si.com/nba/2018/01/18/pacers-nate-mcmillan-victor-oladipo-timeout-offense-plays?utm_campaign=sinow&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=socialflow_twitter_si

[Pacersike]

I'm a big believer of players playing the biggest role in taking such decisions or making such actions with coaches trying to help them as much as they can, but either way, it's something we can be proud of, because Pacers coaches and players together accomplish it.