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Ryan Clark Thoroughly Breaks Down Football Play Pacers Used to Beat Bucks

Two sports become one.

Kyle Koster

Indiana Pacers broke out a football play to beat the Bucks.
Indiana Pacers broke out a football play to beat the Bucks. / Get Up/ESPN
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The Indiana Pacers found themselves trailing the Milwaukee Bucks by three in the final seconds on Tuesday night in a game that could ultimately determine which team hosts an Eastern Conference playoff series. But the home team had just the play for this particular situation—one that provided a good look at a potential game-tying shot against the Boston Celtics in last year's conference finals but was ultimately unsuccessful.

And this time it worked as well it possibly could with Tyrese Haliburton knocking down a triple and converting a four-point play from the free throw line to give the Pacers a 114–113 victory.

Ryan Clark was tasked with diagramming and explaining the clever strategy on Wednesday's Get Up and pointed out several interesting things.

Indiana was in a bunch formation and ran something akin to a mesh route in football. Mike Greenberg wondered whether the Pacers should have been called for offensive pass interference but Clark argued that it was a standard rub route. Dan Graziano joked that the New England Patriots had signed Haliburton amid their free agency push. For a few minutes, two sports became one.

This league—sorry—these leagues.

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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