MEMPHIS — Guard Cedric Coward scored 27 points, hitting all six of his 3-point shots to help the Grizzlies blow out the Pacers 128-103 at FedEx Forum on Saturday night
The Pacers fell to 0-2 and play the Timberwolves on Sunday in Minnesota. The Grizzlies improved to 2-1.
Ja Morant scored 19 points and Jaren Jackson Jr. added 17 for the Grizzlies. Guard Javon Small added 16 points off the bench. Pacers guard Bennedict Mathurin scored 26 points but left early with a foot injury. Forward Aaron Nesmith scored 15 points. Pascal Siakam and Obi Toppin scored 13 points each.
Here are three observations.
Bennedict Mathurin stars but goes down with foot injury
The Pacers were in no need of more injuries with guards Tyrese Haliburton (Achilles tendon), Andrew Nembhard (shoulder), T.J. McConnell (hamstring), Kam Jones (back) and Quenton Jackson (hamstring) all out, but they got more anyway including one to their most productive player so far this season.
Bennedict Mathurin followed a 36-point effort in the Pacers’ season opener with another prolific and efficient scoring performance. When he checked out with 3:30 to go in the third quarter, he had 26 points on 8 of 12 shooting, making both of his 3-pointers and 8 of 9 free throws. He also had three rebounds and four assists against one turnover and was helping keep the Pacers from getting blown out in an otherwise sketchy performance.
Mathurin had gone down earlier in the quarter and was grabbing at his right leg, but he still shot free throws and stayed in the game. He actually got going after the injury and scored 12 points in the period on 3 of 5 shooting. However, he was taken to the locker room after his shift and shortly after was ruled out for the rest of the game with a sore right foot.
Rookie guard Taelon Peter also went down with a sore right groin in the first quarter digging even further into the Pacers’ backcourt depth. They had to rely on wing Ben Sheppard and two-way contract guard RayJ Dennis to take on point guard duties for extended minutes and simply passed around the duties of bringing the ball up to basically everyone at positions 1-4. With Haliburton out for the season, the Pacers needed good injury luck to survive this season and they are not off to a good start.
Grizzlies outrun the Pacers in transition, dominate in paint
The Pacers’ hope with Haliburton out for the the year was that they could make up for what they lost in offensive production with tougher defense. Haliburton is excellent at reading passing lanes, getting steals and even chasing down rebounds, but he’s not a great man-to-man defender and everyone expected to get more minutes in his absence is tougher off the ball.
But with Nembhard, McConnell, even Jackson and — during the course of Saturday’s game — Mathurin and Peter on the shelf, the Pacers were missing a lot of their best defensive options. (Plus, of course, they lost their all-time leading shot blocker in Myles Turner to free agency.) With some of those key pieces gone, the Pacers seemed disorganized on defense, especially in transition, and the Grizzlies were able to both beat them to the rim and get wide open 3s.
The Grizzlies finished with 19 fast-break points and 56 points in the paint, shooting 44 of 97 from the floor (45.4%) and 15 of 39 from 3-point range (38.5%), finishing with 1.20 points per possession. They scored 70 points in the middle two quarters to get out to a double-digit lead and were able to cruise to victory in the fourth quarter with the Pacers putting three centers in a lineup seemingly to make a point about toughness.
Absence of point guards takes a toll
Perhaps the greatest strength the Pacers had over their previous three seasons is that they almost always seemed well connected. The five players on the floor moved in harmony and the ball seemed magnetically attracted to energy and to the open man. Even though they were playing “random” as they said, everyone seemed to have an idea where everyone else was going and where they might want the ball.
But a big part of the reason why it felt that way is they always had two and even three ball-handlers on the floor to facilitate. They started Haliburton and Nembhard together and would play shifts with Haliburton and McConnell together and Nembhard and McConnell together. And Pascal Siakam has a point guard’s mind and handles at 6-8 with a 7-3 wingspan, so even if he didn’t have the ball in his hand as much as the other three he carried with him the same IQ and ability to facilitate for himself and others.
But Haliburton, Nembhard and McConnell were all out Saturday and it showed. Ben Sheppard, the starting point guard, hadn’t played the point since college. Their second option, RayJ Dennis, acquitted himself reasonably well, but he’s an undrafted second-year player on a two-way contract with only so much time with the Pacers’ key players. There’s only so much that could reasonably be asked from him.
So the Pacers so far are operating too much in isolation and too little in unison and that’s evident in the numbers. On Saturday they shot 36 of 89 from the floor (40.4%) and 14 of 40 from 3-point range. They finished with 1.02 points per possession and 13 turnovers.
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