{"id":667888,"date":"2026-03-20T01:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/667888\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T01:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:16:16","slug":"pacers-notes-slawson-zubac-haliburton-bell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/667888\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers Notes: Slawson, Zubac, Haliburton, Bell"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pacers have been impressed by Jalen Slawson<\/a> since he signed a two-way contract at the end of last month, according to Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star<\/a> (subscriber link). The former second-round pick had a big game on Wednesday, recording 17 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks in 37 minutes, and helped spark a fourth-quarter comeback that came up short.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis energy and effort is really, really amazing,\u201d center Ivica Zubac<\/a> said. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the starting thing you have to have when you\u2019re getting your chance just to get on the floor. You have to show energy, make effort plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s blocking shots. He\u2019s rebounding. He\u2019s making the right reads, cutting to the right spots, taking open shots, taking good shots. He doesn\u2019t really force it. He\u2019s been great, defending his tail off. He\u2019s been doing everything we want him to do and playing with a lot of energy and force. We all gotta play like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head coach Rick Carlisle also praised Slawson\u2019s defensive activity, and noted that the 26-year-old forward has grown increasingly comfortable on the other end as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s making better reads the more he plays,\u201d Carlisle said. \u201cYou can see he has good feel. He can drive it. He\u2019s got ball skills. He can throw late lobs and see things. Guys that can do a lot of different things like that sometimes are challenged with decisiveness, but he\u2019s becoming more decisive the more he plays. \u2026 We all like what we see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more on the Pacers:<\/p>\n

Zubac was forced out of Wednesday\u2019s loss in the fourth quarter after being elbowed in the head by Donovan Clingan<\/a> when the Blazers big man was trying to dunk a lob (Twitter video link<\/a>). As Dopirak writes in another subscriber-only story<\/a>, Zubac had a sizeable lump on the right side of his head in the locker room, but he said he wasn\u2019t experiencing headaches and didn\u2019t have to enter the concussion protocol. \u201cIt\u2019s not like that,\u201d Zubac said. \u201cI just got popped in the head and it swelled up, but no headaches or anything. I feel good.\u201c
\nIn an interview with DJ Siddiqi of Casino.org<\/a>, star point guard Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> discussed his rehab from a torn Achilles tendon, his confidence in the team\u2019s ability to bounce back next season, and more. Haliburton said he doesn\u2019t have any specific goals for 2026\/27. \u201cNone that I\u2019ve thought through yet,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s just about coming back and being the best version of myself. As far as giving myself an objective or anything, I haven\u2019t really thought about it. Obviously I want to get exactly back to where I was and beyond. And win a championship of course. I just really want to get back to full health and get back to attacking every day as hard as I can being away from the court.\u201d
\nIndiana\u2019s G League affiliate, the Noblesville Boom, has officially reacquired<\/a> ex-NBA big man Jordan Bell<\/a>, tweets<\/a> Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files. As Agness notes, the Boom already held Bell\u2019s returning player rights \u2014 he was on the roster in \u201924\/25 prior to suffering a season-ending<\/a> left knee injury that required surgery. nba g league<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pacers have been impressed by Jalen Slawson since he signed a two-way contract at the end of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,113,126,3866,532,29326,42491,6,114,278],"class_list":["post-667888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-basketball","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indianapacers","tag-ivica-zubac","tag-jalen-slawson","tag-jordan-bell","tag-nba","tag-pacers","tag-tyrese-haliburton"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116258864530343662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}