The Pacers can't just hope to outscore teams and win — their defense must get better
The Indiana Pacers are on a four-game losing streak, their longest of the season. Monday night, they were clobbered by the Los Angeles Clippers on their home floor. They have conceded 555 points across their last four games, nearly 140 per game.
It's the worst stretch of the team's season, and it comes after an emotional high during the In-Season Tournament. The Pacers are slumping, and they need to get out of it.
"Tonight was ugly. It's just something that's not acceptable," head coach Rick Carlisle said Monday night. He and the rest of the team adopted a new tone after this loss. It was more urgent. They're aware of how poorly they are playing. "We allowed them to really do whatever they wanted to."
Carlisle said some of the Pacers struggles are on him for not having the team ready to compete every night. But he isn't on the court floating around with no energy, and he isn't making mistakes. Nobody, including the coaching staff, is blame free during this stretch for Indiana. Everybody needs to be better.
It has been a wakeup call for the Pacers, who sat at 13-8 six days ago. They were beating all challengers and won four regular season games in a row. But they stopped easily outscoring their opponents, and now the losses just keep coming.
To get out of this funk, the team needs a mentality shift. It will help them play better. Entering Tuesday, they had the NBA's top offense and 29th rated defense. That balance isn't working right now.
"Our mindset, if it's shifted to simply trying to outscore teams and away from any kind of emphasis defensively, that's got to stop," Carlisle said. He added that if it took a tweak in the team's lineups or play style to make it happen, then he would do that.
Whatever changes it takes to send a message and get the Pacers to play better, they are needed. Indiana has a brutal schedule in January, and they need to bank wins before the month comes. Shaking their current mentality is needed.
"It's on us as a group to figure it out," star guard Tyrese Haliburton said on Monday night. He had his worst game of the season. Los Angeles was the first team to hold him under 10 points in the 2023-24 campaign, and his defense hasn't been at the level it needs to be.
He said after the game that he has to be better. Haliburton also said that the Pacers, who reached the In-Season Tournament Finals just 10 days ago, aren't sneaking up on people any more. As Carlisle noted, they have targets on their backs now. They need to raise their level, and energy, to keep up with increased intensity and stakes.
The head coach pointed out that Aaron Nesmith, who had a +/- of 0 against the Clippers, and T.J. McConnell, who had a +/- of +16, consistently bring energy and defense. That hasn't been the case for others. Their level and competitive spirit needs to spread to other Pacers players. It hasn't during their four-game skid.
"We're making a lot of mistakes. We just need to do it better and need to do it harder. And we need to make up for a lack of size when there's a lack of size," Carlisle said. His team's defense must improve.
The blue and gold have been able to get by with an atrocious defense thanks to their top-tier offense all season. Their net rating is still above zero despite the many losses they have suffered recently, and the Pacers are still over .500. But their style is inconsistent. They are prone to bad stretches because they are too reliant on simply outscoring teams that they can't stop.
"Just presence. Presence, whether it's on defense or offense. Just got to come out and play with more energy," guard Bennedict Mathurin said Monday night of what Indiana needs. He had a career outing with 34 points and has improved as the season has progressed. He sees a mental shift that could improve his team's fortunes on defense.
"I would say just take matchups personal," he said. Despite his best-ever scoring night, Mathurin was disappointed in his team's play. "I don't think we take matchups personal and I think it's been one of our biggest problems. Just got to pay attention to details."
The Pacers held a hard practice on Tuesday with a defensive focus. They needed to hammer home some of things that have been going wrong recently, and they mixed and matched lineups during the session. They are looking for energy and answers.
Maybe they need to make some lineup or system changes. Maybe they just need to play better. Either way, what they are doing is obviously not working right now. They must find a way to shift their mentality.
"Defense is the easy answer," Haliburton said of the concerning themes during the ongoing losing streak. "We're struggling to defend people right now."
Haliburton added that his team isn't playing harder than anyone, which isn't acceptable for a young team that hasn't proven themselves. They need consistent effort and to raise their level.
"I think the winning that we have done, I think we've figured out how to get stops at the right time... today, it really didn't feel like we ever really had a run," Haliburton said. "It's felt like that the last couple of games."
The Pacers have an offense that is capable of going on a run with just a few defensive stops mixed in. Those haven't come during their ongoing losing streak. Even with a world-class offense, the Pacers have to shift some emphasis to defense if they want to get back on track. Given their upcoming schedule, those fixes need to come as soon as possible.
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