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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“It’s just a framework, it’s not anything etched in stone, and I told Walker before the game tonight, I said,\u00a0‘You gotta be ready for anything,'” Carslise recounted.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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“There are a lot of things that can determine a lot of situational things,” he continued.\u00a0“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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Check out the All Pacers homepage<\/a> for more news, analysis, and must-read articles.<\/p>\n