Milwaukee Bucks guard Patrick Beverley apparently isn’t afraid of any challenge. In many cases, Beverley isn’t too afraid to let her opponents know.
But as the Bucks prepare to try to slow down Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers’ 24-year-old All-Star point guard, Beverley had little interest in giving Haliburton any extra motivation.
“Obviously you can’t take anything away from him,” Beverley said. “Especially me, I don’t give anyone any type of press release, but his pace is elite, up there with the best of them. So you’re not going to make it perfect all the time, but your job is just to make it as difficult for him as possible.
This season, Haliburton has been one of the toughest players to defend in the NBA. In his fourth NBA season, serving as the engine of the Pacers’ offensive attack under head coach Rick Carlisle, Haliburton averaged 20.1 points per game, along with a game-high 10.9 assists decisive points per match. In five games against the Bucks this season, Haliburton has been even better than that, putting up 27 points, 5.8 rebounds and 11 assists per game.
Throughout the season, the Bucks have struggled against elite guards. And that didn’t change against Haliburton, who took advantage of the Bucks’ struggles at the point of attack, then picked apart the various coverages the Bucks threw at him once he had already kept them off balance with his mix of scoring and game.
If the Bucks want to have a chance against the Pacers, they will need to come up with a cohesive plan to slow down Haliburton.
And that plan could start with something Beverley did before joining the Bucks.
On November 14, the 76ers lost 132–126 to the Pacers in an in-season tournament group game and Haliburton had 33 points and 15 assists in the victory, but Beverley was given the responsibility of guarding Haliburton to end the third quarter. and start the fourth quarter. And while Haliburton still managed to make a play and help the Pacers get the win, Beverley managed to keep the ball out of Haliburton’s hands to start a number of possessions.
And while denying Haliburton early in possessions may put the rest of the team in awkward positions early in possessions, it may be worth it to disrupt the normal cadence, timing and rhythm of Pacers possessions.
“Indiana wants to move the ball up between 20 and 24, four seconds,” Rivers said Wednesday. “If it lasts more than four seconds, then I guess it’s a bad possession for them. They want it to go across half the field – I know they practice in two (seconds) – but they know four is realistic. And so when you’re doing stunts, maybe it’s six or eight years, it changes what they’re doing. So that’s some of the things we’ll do.
Trying to pressure Haliburton can be a dangerous game, however. For this to be effective, it must be done aggressively and it must be done before Haliburton gets the ball in his hands. If not done early and aggressively, it can give Haliburton easy driving lanes, as the Bucks can attest during their time in Las Vegas.
“Bad pressure is when you speed up a guy and he beats you on the dribble and he creates more assists and you get him to do what he wants to do anyway – and it “That’s drawing and kicking,” Rivers said. “Good pressure is being able to turn it over, but keeping it in front of you. And now, all of a sudden, instead of doing the play here, they’re going over there. If you can prolong their attack with your pressure, that’s great pressure.
Denying Haliburton the ball early in the possession may force the Bucks into 4-on-4 situations early in the possession, but if the Bucks can hold up in those situations, they’ve taken the Pacers deeper into the shot clock and managed to make them. start their possession later than they would like. This would be a good start to the possession.
Although Giannis Antetokounmpo’s injury has garnered much of the pre-series attention, Haliburton’s lingering left hamstring issues could also play a significant role in this series. While it’s impossible to say the injury is entirely responsible for the changes in his team’s play, given that the Pacers made a significant roster change by adding Pascal Siakam, the numbers suggest the hamstring problem -Haliburton’s pads slowed down the Pacers considerably.
According to Cleaning the Glass, Indiana was third in the NBA in transition points plus and sixth in transition percentage before Haliburton’s injury on January 8. After his return on January 30, the Pacers fell to 13th in transition points plus and 12th. transition percentage. On top of that, the Pacers played at a rate of 104.6 possessions per 48 minutes on the floor before the injury, then 102.3 possessions per 48 minutes after his return.
For the Bucks though, limiting transition opportunities is only the first step. Once they find themselves in half-court situations, they will need to be much better defensively against Haliburton than they were in the regular season. Possessions like this should be an exception rather than a regular occurrence:
Haliburton is a spectacular offensive talent, but this wasn’t a spectacular offensive play. It was easy. Beasley took a defensive stance, then simply whiffed on slowing Haliburton down in any way, which left Lopez alone to try to cover both Haliburton and Turner. All season, Beasley and Lillard have struggled hitting the ball, so Beverley could end up being helpful in that regard, but Rivers was quick to note that Beverley wouldn’t shut down Haliburton.
“Well, look, Haliburton is a great player, so (Beverley) is going to help, but it’s not going to be one guy,” Rivers said. “Haliburton is too good for that. So (Beverley) helps us because in the past, maybe in the five games, there was someone that coach said we had to keep (Haliburton). At least in our case we have a guy who wants to (keep) him. Who helps.”
Beverley will be a defensive upgrade for the Bucks over Beasley and Lillard, but it remains to be seen how well Rivers will play against Beverley on a nightly basis. The defensive point guard has shown he can handle heavy minutes — 36 minutes in the Bucks’ 122-113 win over the Atlanta Hawks is his record with the Bucks — but Rivers will have to find the balance between offense and Defensive talent needed on the field in the series. He will also pay attention to Beverley’s foul issues.
Beverley isn’t as young as he used to be, so the Bucks will likely have to stop simply putting Beverley over Haliburton with base coverage against Lopez’s drops in pick-and-rolls and live with the results, as they could have do it with Jrue. Holidays last season. They will have to prepare different coverages for Haliburton and that will also pose problems, given that the Bucks staff with Antetokounmpo is likely out for the start of the series.
The Bucks showed some possession shifts against the Pacers, but those possessions didn’t go well.
Lopez isn’t an ideal defender, especially when Haliburton is shooting the ball well, but his ability to hold up in those situations could end up being one of the things most affected by Haliburton’s hamstring injury.
Outside of the Pacers’ pace, Haliburton’s sense of scoring has been the thing most affected by his ongoing hamstring issue. According to tracking statistics compiled by AthleticismSeth Partnow’s Seth Partnow, despite having similar shooting difficulty before and after the injury, Haliburton shot 7.3 percentage points above expectations in the first 33 games of the season and only 2.2 percentage points above expectations. above expectations after returning for the final 35 games of the season.
And the biggest drop came from behind the 3-point line. While Haliburton finished contests at a similar level inside the arc, even shooting slightly better from 2 after the hamstring issue appeared, according to Partnow’s stats, his 3-point shooting has experienced a significant decline in the second half of the season. Haliburton’s percentage dropped from 43.8 percent to 35 percent on team-created 3-point attempts after returning from injury and from 39.2 percent to 32.3 percent on attempts at 3 points created by the team.
These stats don’t suggest the Bucks will suddenly shut down Haliburton. That’s not how it works in the playoffs against the opposing team’s best player who runs a heliocentric offense and posts All-NBA numbers.
Haliburton is still a special playmaker who mixes up different types of shots and tortures defenses every night, but if the Bucks stay vigilant by checking the pace of the Pacers and then try to keep defenders in front of him to try to force him to shoot over 3, they might have a better chance of slowing him down than one might initially believe after watching their games during the regular season.