Pacers need to find their outside shooting again if they want to stop the lessons, and losses like vs Cavaliers
INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Pacers fell to the Cleveland Cavaliers by five points last night, which marked the third time in the last 12 days that the Pacers have been defeated by five or fewer points on their home court. The margins between winning and losing for the blue and gold have been thin recently.
The biggest skill holding the Pacers back from turning recent defeats into victories? Three-point shooting. Indiana has been awful from beyond the arc recently, and it is preventing their offense from being what it once was.
"They are just really not falling right now. No real explanation for it," Pacers guard T.J. McConnell said Monday night. Against the Cavaliers, Indiana shot 9/38 from deep, good for 23.7%. Cleveland took six fewer triples in the game yet made three more.
Outlier shooting games happen in the NBA, but the blue and gold are going through a string of dismal long-range accuracy. Indiana ranks 29th in three-point percentage — second to last in the league — since the All-Star break. Only the lowly Charlotte Hornets have been worse.
In that span, the blue and gold have made just over one-third of their outside shots. League average this season is 36.6%. Indiana has reached that number five times in 13 games since the mid-season stoppage. They have been off from long range.
It's costing them games. Four of the Pacers six losses in that stretch were in games in which they were within four points in the final minutes. They were putrid from deep in three of those outings. Had then been even average from deep, they would have multiple more victories since All-Star weekend descended upon Indianapolis.
"I didn't know we were bottom five. Definitely something we've got to work on. I feel like we're getting good looks," guard Ben Sheppard said of the Pacers fortunes from deep of late. "Coach talked to us before the game about being confident, stepping into our shots. They're going to fall."
The rookie wing believes that the current state of the Pacers is just part of the natural ups and downs of an NBA season. That is reasonable, and Indiana is still getting up a significant volume of attempts. Their attempts per game number is similar to their first 55 outings, especially noteworthy when considering they traded away shooter Buddy Hield.
But almost every Pacers player is shooting worse from deep after the All-Star break than they were before. Tyrese Haliburton and his dramatic slump is the most notable of the group. Aaron Nesmith, Pascal Siakam, Obi Toppin, and Jalen Smith are all struggling from beyond the arc, too, and Doug McDermott has been both inaccurate and injured.
It's all biting the Pacers. They need to win as they chase playoff positioning, but it's hard to win consistently when shots aren't falling. Indiana has to start being a better team from three-point range.
"Just got to stay with the process," head coach Rick Carlisle said. McConnell agreed. "We continue to play the way we do and continue to take the shots, they'll fall. It's an up-and-down thing from three. The numbers will even themselves out."
To the Pacers credit, they aren't changing their style. Their offense is generating good looks from deep. They like what they are doing from a process perspective, and if anything, they want to take more threes.
They just aren't making them. Prior to the All-Star break, they were fourth in the association in three-point percentage at 38.1%. That five percent drop is killing them.
"To me there were just segments of the second quarter where we just did uncharacteristic individual things. We'll look at some of that stuff tomorrow... it's hard to watch," Carlisle said. He thought that his team generated strong threes and played a good game outside of that span.
"Certainly, we're trying to generate a lot of threes. When they're not falling, it hurts our game a little but... just got to keep generating those kind of threes and keep generating good offense," McConnell said.
There is hardly anything groundbreaking to this for the Pacers. Making shots is better than missing them. There isn't much that can be changed when a team is slumping like this — Indiana just has to get through it.
But it's costing them close games, like it did versus Cleveland last night, and those defeats becoming frequent is taxing. There has been a clear tonal and mentality shift for the Pacers recently. They are tired of their losses becoming lessons.
They want to win, and they want to make the playoffs. To get back on track, they need to start making some threes.
- Tyrese Haliburton on his recent three-point shooting for Indiana Pacers: 'It's just a little slump right now'. CLICK HERE.
- Kendall Brown was thinking about an NBA contract all year before earning one with the Indiana Pacers. CLICK HERE.
- Doug McDermott practiced on Friday, he's getting close to a return from a calf injury for the Indiana Pacers. CLICK HERE.
- Indiana Pacers poor shooting and late game flubs lead to loss vs Cleveland Cavaliers. CLICK HERE.
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