The Indiana Pacers, in both the second and third quarters of their eventual Game 2 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, found themselves down by 20 points, and Rick Carlisle had seen enough.
His starting unit simply couldn’t keep up with Donovan Mitchell, couldn’t get quality looks, and were gassed despite not keeping the game close.
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In the third quarter, Obi Toppin, Bennedict Mathurin, TJ McConnell, Ben Sheppard, and even Jarace Walker and Thomas Bryant all received significant minutes.
They all managed to outplay the starters, kickstarting the comeback that would take all of the fourth quarter and end with a 120-119 win for the Pacers in shocking fashion.
“It’s just a framework, it’s not anything etched in stone, and I told Walker before the game tonight, I said, ‘You gotta be ready for anything,'” Carslise recounted.
In the fourth quarter, Carlisle tightened up his rotation, playing Myles Turner, Andrew Nembahrd, and Tyrese Haliburton for all 12 minutes. Only Mathurin came off the bench in that frame.
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“There are a lot of things that can determine a lot of situational things,” he continued. “And he ended up in there in the first half and in the second half in short minutes. And that’s a real dose of reality for a young player in this environment, when they’re going as hard as they were. We were, swimming upstream isn’t even the word, we were trying to go into a hurricane that was coming at us.”
While Haliburton gets credit for hitting a last-second shot, Nembhard gets credit for his inbound pass steal, and Aaron Nesmith had a putback dunk that helped complete the comeback, the bench unit set the tone in the second half for Indiana when the starters simply couldn’t be counted on.
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