Pacers have major flaws in loss to Celtics

BOSTON – Rick Carlisle has a lot of respect for Payton Pritchard and the player he is becoming.

The Celtics’ 27-year-old backup point guard is having by far the best year of his career, averaging 15.3 points per game on a career-high 41.4% of his 3-pointers and 65.8% of his 2-pointers corresponds.

“Pritchard is right up there for sixth man (of the year),” Carlisle said. “…He’s an underrated player, not for them and not for this fan base, I don’t think, but he’s a real key player.”

Still, he’s 6-1, 195 pounds, and his career has been based on shooting threes. There are some things he shouldn’t accomplish in an NBA game – and when he does, it’s a clear message to the team he’s playing against. For example, he shouldn’t be able to score consecutive offensive rebounds by effectively passing the ball off the backboard to himself before finally completing a layup on the third attempt. He shouldn’t be able to catch an airball under the bucket and execute a putback right in front of the opponent’s 6-11 starting center and the franchise’s all-time best shot blocker. Honestly, if he has five offensive rebounds in a game, that’s a problem regardless of how he gets them.

But Pritchard did it all on Friday against the Pacers, scoring 18 points, dishing out 10 assists and grabbing eight total rebounds off the bench as defending NBA champion Boston obliterated Indiana 142-105 at TD Garden. It was the Pacers’ worst loss of the season by margin of defeat, and on a night full of embarrassing moments for the Pacers where they had to hide their faces in shame, Pritchard’s five offensive boards were also among the best of her career that stood out .

“If Payton Pritchard goes in there and gets three (actually two) offensive rebounds in a row and screws it up between two of our guys,” Carlisle said, “that’s not good.”

There was so much that wasn’t good about the Pacers’ performance Friday night that it’s difficult to list it all. The 142 total points they allowed were by far the most they gave up in a game this season and were more than they gave up in all but four games last year when they had one of the worst defenses in the NBA decreed.

Boston shot 47 of 92 from the floor (51.1%), 23 of 57 from the 3-point line (40.4%) and 25 of 29 from the free throw line (86.2%), which is a gigantic efficiency number for what it is Game represents 1.47 points per possession. Their shooting profile was 3-point-heavy as always, but they made 21 of their 30 field goal attempts in the paint and scored 42 points there. All-Star forward and reigning NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown scored 44 points on 16 of 24 shooting, including 6 of 11 from 3-point range, and All-NBA forward Jayson Tatum scored 22 points on 7 of 15 shots and grabbed 13 rebounds.

Meanwhile, the Pacers made just 41.8% of their field goal attempts and 11 of 39 three-pointers (28.2%). They only scored more than 27 points in a period once.

“We didn’t get any stops all night,” Pacers All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “Then we just didn’t shoot the ball well offensively. If you give up – what was it, 20 offensive rebounds (it was 18) – then you don’t make shots against Boston, that’s what it’s going to look like.”

It was perhaps no surprise that things looked that way for the Pacers on Friday night considering the situation they found themselves in. They were in the middle of almost the most difficult home game the NBA could imagine after losing to the Pacers The night before, the Western Conference led the Oklahoma City Thunder (24-5) at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The East-leading Cavaliers (27-4) are the only other team in the NBA with a better record than the Celtics at 23-8, so it’s entirely possible that the Pacers played the two teams back-to-back in this year’s NBA Finals clash nights.

And in the midst of this dark encounter, they saw their cards being reshuffled. Forward Obi Toppin twisted his ankle in Thursday night’s loss and did not play Friday because of a sprain. stalwart defenseman Andrew Nembhard was a late starter when the Pacers decided to release him on the second night of the Pacers’ second meeting of the week to treat knee tendonitis that cost him 12 games in November. The fact that the Pacers couldn’t overcome this reshuffle and embarrassed themselves so badly perhaps speaks to the team’s deepest problem and best explains their problems and contradictions this year.

Carlisle likes to use the term “ecosystem” when describing his team’s roster because it describes the way in which players in a squad influence the rest in the same way that all animals, plants, and other organisms within a given one influence each other environment influence each other. He initially used it publicly to describe how moving Nembhard from the backup point guard spot last year to the shooting guard position helped the roster pieces fit together by giving Haliburton a secondary ballhandler and the veteran TJ McConnell provided consistent work at the helm of the second unit.

Friday’s result was further evidence that the Pacers’ ecosystem is fragile this season. It was weakened, of course, by a series of unfortunate events and injuries — including likely season-ending Achilles tendon tears suffered by backup centers James Wiseman and Isaiah Jackson, and a Nov. 1 ankle sprain that forward Aaron Nesmith is still out of has returned.

A big part of the reason the Pacers had won five straight games through Monday was the practice time following their NBA Cup exit, which gave them a chance to reset and remember how they did in the first and second games on either side of the ball can connect second units and all the gradual subdivision that occurs in between. The game without Nembhard and Toppin completely disrupted those connections, as guard Ben Sheppard moved into the starting lineup alongside Haliburton. Jarace Walker took on more power forward work after spending much of this season at small forward, and rookie winger Johnny Furphy returned to the rotation for the first time in four games. They essentially had to build a new ecosystem on the fly, and that didn’t go particularly well as they seemed disjointed on offense and defense.

Carlisle tried not to delve too deeply into the subject for fear he might be caught apologizing.

“See, it’s been like this all year,” Carlisle said. “If we are without a few guys, we are without Obi and Nembhard, I mean, those are two of our key figures. Other guys get the opportunity to step up. … It’s a difficult situation to come back here, but it’s the NBA schedule, it’s on the schedule. That’s what we have to do.

And the Celtics didn’t have the same problems with the challenge of missing their key pieces. Boston guard Jrue Holiday — a two-time All-Star with six All-Defensive team selections, two NBA championship rings and two Olympic gold medals — was sidelined with a shoulder injury. All-Star center Kristaps Porzingis was sidelined with a sprained ankle. The Celtics suffered a disappointing loss to the 76ers on Christmas Day but still managed to record their most dominant win of the year. The Pacers faced the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals last year and presented them with their biggest challenge, according to Boston coach Joe Mazzulla, but injuries to players who didn’t have nearly the profile of Holiday and Porzingis were too much for them to handle to overcome.

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Pacers have major flaws in loss to Celtics

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