GT: Indiana Pacers (24-17) @ Portland Trail Blazers (11-29), Fri 19th, 10PM Pascal Debuts with Haliburton

[raps14]

The Pacers are big time 3 point chuckers. I don't know how well it will mesh with siakam' s game. A lot of times Pascal ran down the court and the players didn't get him the ball. Trent would fit in well with this Pacers team

[Scase]

I remember Celtics were going after Poeltl......probably made Masai overpay because the team was desperate for a center.

I believe they were rumoured to only be offering a first and filler. So basically a 25th+ pick. Naturally we had to beat that with a top 6 protected and 2 seconds.

2 seconds only convey if the Spurs don't get the 1st pick by 2026....that would actually be the ideal situation but would require top level tanking for 3 straight seasons.

The 2 seconds convey no matter what, they were technically part of us dumping Birchs contract. It'll be 4 seconds if the 1st doesnt convey, and thats 2027.

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

The Pacers are big time 3 point chuckers. I don't know how well it will mesh with siakam' s game. A lot of times Pascal ran down the court and the players didn't get him the ball. Trent would fit in well with this Pacers team

The Pacers lead the NBA in points in the paint.

Reading through this thread feels like a lot of y’all had some wild expectations as to what would happen last night.

Siakam JUST joined the Pacers. They’ve had no time to build any level of chemistry with him at all. It was their first time playing a game with him. Of course things were missed as they need to learn how to play together. Stuff like this just takes time.

Even then, the starters crushed it last night. The Pacers bench, who is usually one of the best bench units in the NBA, was near non existent, which led to the loss.

[djsunyc]

my only takeaway from last night is that siakam had issues slowing down jerami grant. a few ATO's had the ball go directly to grant to iso on siakam and he scored or drew the foul. i think that's the more concerning thing. pacers announcers were talking about his defense...during one of those dialogues, grant scored on him 1 on 1 and the announcer said "well it was good defense, grant just was able to score". unfortunately that happened quite a few times.

the pacers defense will not improve with pascal but what he does provide is a different type of scoring threat for them in the half court - which will help in the playoffs.

[VanWest82]

my only takeaway from last night is that siakam had issues slowing down jerami grant. a few ATO's had the ball go directly to grant to iso on siakam and he scored or drew the foul. i think that's the more concerning thing. pacers announcers were talking about his defense...during one of those dialogues, grant scored on him 1 on 1 and the announcer said "well it was good defense, grant just was able to score". unfortunately that happened quite a few times.

the pacers defense will not improve with pascal but what he does provide is a different type of scoring threat for them in the half court - which will help in the playoffs.

My limited post-trade interactions with Pacers fans would suggest they have unrealistic expectations re Pascal's defense. Their mantra seemed to be "anyone is better than what we had" but that ignores that Pascal has been hidden from the big wing match up his entire time with Raptors as a starter. Kawhi then OG then Scottie. We've had a string of back up PF types to protect him. Pascal can be a demon rotating to contest on the perimeter, but Pacers still need a big wing defender if they're serious about contending. Getting targeted night after night is going to eventually take away from things he's good at.

[vobot]

my only takeaway from last night is that siakam had issues slowing down jerami grant. a few ATO's had the ball go directly to grant to iso on siakam and he scored or drew the foul. i think that's the more concerning thing. pacers announcers were talking about his defense...during one of those dialogues, grant scored on him 1 on 1 and the announcer said "well it was good defense, grant just was able to score". unfortunately that happened quite a few times.

the pacers defense will not improve with pascal but what he does provide is a different type of scoring threat for them in the half court - which will help in the playoffs.

Yeah I noticed the same thing (also Jerami Grant is lowkey a pretty nice player). His interior defence isn't good, but I think Pascal's 1:1 defence vs iso guys who typically elect to take a jumpshot after a series of moves is good. However in the post, any bump will push him away or he won't really go for a block.

[pingpongrac]

The Pacers are big time 3 point chuckers. I don't know how well it will mesh with siakam' s game. A lot of times Pascal ran down the court and the players didn't get him the ball. Trent would fit in well with this Pacers team

I don't know why people keep saying this. Indiana leads the league in points in the paint and, even though they play at the 2nd fastest pace in the league, they're 9th in 3FGA per game. They're as close to the bottom 5 in 3PAr (Orlando and New Orleans are at 36%) as they are top 5 (Golden State, Memphis and Sacramento are at 44%). They aren't a team of chuckers just because they have a few high-volume three-point shooters.

It was literally their first game with Siakam, Haliburton was just coming back after missing 5 games and they were on a B2B while missing a few rotation players. It's going to take some time for the team (and Siakam) to get used to things, but their offence is going to be even more deadly after they get some more reps and practices in. Siakam hasn't played with this much spacing or pace since his 2nd or 3rd year in the league when he was half of the player he is today while Indiana needed someone else to be able to get them a bucket and run the offence aside from Haliburton.

[Ell Curry]

My limited post-trade interactions with Pacers fans would suggest they have unrealistic expectations re Pascal's defense.

I think it's a pretty common thing across the NBA. A guy like Pascal, who really was a quality, maybe 3rd or 4th team all-defence kind of guy for his first couple seasons as a starter then regresses when he becomes a high usage offensive guy/gets paid, but if the eye test seems right (like he's not short for his position, or white or a meme like Harden) then people just assume he's still a solid defender.

You can't really trust most fans' comment on other team's players on defence. Like non-Raptors fans don't know that Barnes is better defending near the rim than he is out on the perimeter, or that Trent was pretty good in an aggressive system but in a more normal NBA defence he's just another guard, or that OG struggled sometimes to bother physical 4s but was fantastic against 2-guards this season.

I'm sure a lot of my assumptions about say Indiana's defenders are flawed too. Like if we'd gotten Jalen Smith in the deal, I wouldn't know if he's better defensively at the 4 (too slow?) or the 5 (too small and not a communicator?).

[bballsparkin]

I feel like they shouldve pushed to include one of the lesser prospects instead of Nwora, like a Jalen Smith, isiah jackson, and ben sheppard. Smith I believe will be a FA since they didnt pickup his option. Dont think the Pacers wouldve walked away from the Pascal talks just to keep those guys.

On another note, its crazy how the Pacers were able to stockpile all those prospects. Theyve pretty much hit on all their picks in the last 3-4 yrs .

Exactly. Which has me thinking perhaps the Raptors weren't interested. I suspect that Jackson was off the table though. and likely sheppard from what i've seen people say about him.

edit. so meaning Smith and Toppin.

[Mr Funk]

thats why i didn't want Poeltl. the writing was on wall for that type of move. getting a 3+D center.

I always wondered why we never made a push for Turner. Would seem to fit our team and at one point was on the trade block and didn't cost that much.

yup. its pretty rediculous that Siakam gets to play with the guy that WE should have traded for.

pretty frustrating at Masai right now. maybe i didn't react strongly before but watching Siakam on ateam with a center that we should have had 2 years ago PISSES me off.

Absolutely nailed it, Masai and Bobby screwed up big time: instead of trading for Poeltl, Turner would've been a much better fit with his ability to stretch the floor and we could've had a line-up of:

Turner
Siakam
Barrett
Barnes
Quickley