Pacers Mailbag: Taking a turn at lineup and rotation decisions

An in-depth look at past precedents for the "center by committee" approach, how the Pacers can play big even when they go small, and what the response should be from the Pacers if more teams start playing like the Pacers

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

Somehow, there is less than five weeks until the start of training camp. With the season right around the corner, there was a lot of interest in picturing what a team that might take on a different look will look like, as I was asked to turn my attention to the past for insights on the future. From scouring game logs for prior examples of how the "center by committee" approach has functioned in action to projecting various lineup combinations and predicting how the Pacers will respond if more teams start playing like the Pacers, this was a month -- as is the tendency this time of the year -- for searching for certainty amongst a lot of uncertainty.

Without further ado, let's mailbag.

Mitchell Harris: So folks keep talking about "center by committee" and that Rick Carlisle has done this before. It’d be interesting to see exactly how he did it before. I’m a little confused how this works as different players have different skills so how do you effectively bring them in and out on any given night. Some sort of breakdown/understanding on how Rick has done this before and how this may look would help me envision next year. Secondly, congrats on having Rick on the podcast. That was really awesome. Well deserved. We are all proud of you!

Thanks for the kinds words, Mitchell. Rick was very generous with his time and thoughtful with his answers for that interview, and my suspicion is the same will be the case with how he finesses the center position next season. To answer, he's done the "center by committee" approach a few times throughout his coaching career, including most recently over the back half of the 2022-23 season when, for a time, Jalen Smith, Isaiah Jackson, Goga Bitadze, and Daniel Theis were effectively timesharing the back-up five spot. Eventually, by the final eight games of that campaign, when Myles Turner was no longer playing and after Bitadze had been traded with Theis also on the shelf, Smith and Jackson were trading off as starters every other game. Of course, the organizational goals for that season, which finished with the Pacers drafting Jarace Walker in the lottery, probably don't align with expectations for this upcoming year, when the intention will likely be to remain as competitive as possible, at least in the early going, while still mining for development.

In that sense, the better comparison might be to look back at Game 5 of the Mavericks-Clippers first-round playoff series in 2021, as the decision for who was manning the middle was far less predetermined than Smith and Jackson merely taking turns. For background, Ty Lue had switched his starting lineup before Game 4, going small with 6-foot-8 Nicolas Batum at center in place of 7-foot Ivica Zubac. Throughout the series, when the Clippers weren't in drop coverage with Zubac, Kristaps Porzingis was underwhelming in the post, as it was too often a (ahem) tall order for him to knock anyone off balance with his high center of gravity.

Just to emphasize, Porzingis is being guarded by 6-foot-5 Terance Mann there and not only is his pick-up point outside the paint, his finishing move is also outside the paint. As a counter, rather than downsizing, with Maxi Kleber as a switchy, small-ball five option, the Mavericks went jumbo, starting 7-foot-4 Boban Marjonovic next to 7-foot-3 Kristaps Porzingis.

The move had a couple of effects. For one, in order to scheme around the slow-footedness of Marjonovic, the Mavericks played 23 possessions of zone, marking the fourth-most of any playoff game that season. Out of those possessions, Reggie Jackson (6) and Marcus Morris (5) led the team in field-goal attempts, which meant players other than Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, both of whom were averaging over 25 points per game, had to shoulder more offensive load. Additionally, with Porzingis being neutralized by switches, the Mavs went to more screening and hand-offs with Marjonovic, allowing Porzingis to float around the perimeter, and later, crash from the corners.

In that way, the Clippers weren't as willing to give up switches against Marjonovic, which meant more opportunities for odd-man advantages (with a massive size advantage at the rim) against blitzes and traps. That said, the Mavs still ultimately lost the minutes with Marjonovic on the floor in that game, getting outscored 49-40 in 20 minutes played, largely because Dallas was too large to contain the 3-point line, as the Clippers went 9-of-20 on threes with a 12-point advantage from long-range. Turns out, the "bigger" difference-maker arguably came at the 6:04 mark of the third quarter, when Dwight Powell entered in place of Marjonovic with the Clippers up, 70-67. Less than a minute earlier, George had picked up his fourth foul for the Clippers, leading Ty Lue to turn to Zubac with Marjonovic still on the court. Only, Marjonovic wasn't still on the court for long, as Carlisle instead pivoted to Powell. To close the quarter, the Mavs went on a 22-5 run, with Luka Doncic and Powell combining for 15 of the 22 points.

Rather than challenging Zubac at the rim, Luka was methodical with his hostage dribble, jailing his defender while moseying to the soft spots of the defense with Powell's vertical pop and ability to run the floor operating as the optimum pick-and-roll partner to prevent the dropped defender from committing to floater range. Unsurprisingly, the Clippers got outscored by a team-worst 19 points with Zubac on the floor. Meanwhile, after playing a total of 18 minutes in Games 1 through 4, Powell saw 21:30 of action in Game 5 alone.

Every game for the Pacers next season won't be the equivalent of Game 5 of a playoff series, but those types of situational adjustments, based mainly on coverages and the ebbs and flow of the game, could perhaps provide a roadmap for how to, as you say, play different players with different skillsets. I've written at length about what the addition of Jay Huff could mean for the defense, as well as what changes might be necessary in order to play five-out with Isaiah Jackson. In order to maintain alignment continuity with the starters, especially as it pertains to keeping Pascal Siakam posted and/or opening wider gaps for him as a driver on the perimeter, it makes sense to start Huff as a floor spacer with Obi Toppin occupying a similar role next to Jackson off the bench. After all, Jackson hasn't played basketball for nearly a year. He may need some time to get back up to speed, even as a back-up.

All of which is to say that, while it would come as a surprise for Huff and Jackson to split the difference at the five with a preplanned work schedule, a la Smith and Jackson, determined merely by divvying up equal time, what Game 5 of the Mavs-Clippers series goes to show is that the "center by committee" approach will likely be approached with a central focus on match-ups. For example, maybe when the Pacers play the Raptors in the NBA Cup, as a team that could play a lot of 4-5 pick-and-roll with either Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl or Brandon Ingram and Jakob Poeltl, Jackson gets the nod to switch on more of those actions, while also playing a similar role to Powell in the Mavs-Clippers series, outrunning Poeltl for transition opportunities and opening up the mid-range for Andrew Nembhard by slipping into the lane past defenders and providing vertical spacing.

Put simply, the Pacers probably won't go so far as to recreate their own version of Porzingis-Morjanovic anytime soon; however, just because Huff or Jackson is the regular starter, doesn't mean it will be irregular for the other to start or play more/less against certain opponents.

PreviouslyDarthMyles: With 2/3 centers on our "center by committee" coming back from injury, will Rick experiment with Johnny Furphy as a small-ball five early in the season to help manage minutes?

The Pacers played 46 minutes last season with Johnny Furphy, Jarace Walker, Pascal Siakam, and Obi Toppin on the floor together in the absence of a traditional center. The rationale for playing four fours, as the team was still searching for a full-time back-up center to make up for the loss of Isaiah Jackson and James Wiseman, was sound enough: If there wasn't going to be a surefire rim protector around the basket, at least there would be as much length as possible in the gaps as a form of rim deterrence. Ultimately, those makeshift lineups didn't last long once the roster was healthy, as the ball too often stuck with T.J. McConnell as the lone orchestrator, but if anything stood out (aside from the fact that a few teams actually gummed up the offense by playing hide-a-big against McConnell) it was some of the defensive assignments that were shifted to Furphy.

Remember the ugly home loss against the Hornets just before the four-day layover during the NBA Cup? Granted, most of that game is better off being forgotten, but this aspect was at least memorable. As was laid out in my Summer Leugue primer, at the start of the second quarter, Jarace Walker lost connection with Brandon Miller on an off-ball screening action, resulting in a corner three. On the next possession, T.J. McConnell was guarding Miller, despite the fact that he's six inches shorter. Meanwhile, Walker took on the assignment against Vasilije Micić at the point of attack. Eventually, after Walker gave up dribble penetration attempting to navigate over the top of consecutive ball-screens, he then got shifted onto Cody Martin. The new player guarding the ball was Johnny Furphy, and the same thing had already happened a few games earlier in Brooklyn, when he also found himself opposite from Dennis Schroeder. And, when he did this against old friend Malcolm Brogdon.

That isn't going to work against every match-up (i.e. his footwork still needs, well, work at both ends of the floor), but if Furphy is going to slide up or down defensively for the Pacers, his ability to play in contain arguably makes him more viable on the perimeter at the point of attack than rotating to the rim as a secondary rim protector or patrolling the paint as a ball-side anchor. He's bigger in terms of muscle mass and (hopefully) better, but he's generally more comfortable defending on-ball than as the screener defender. Here, for example, he loses his place in transition following the brush screen. Then, after defending the secondary screen in drop, he's way too high on the reckless closeout, nearly committing a three-shot foul, as can be his tendency.

There's a lot to like about Furphy defensively, at positions 2-4 and, maybe, against certain point guards, but expecting him to wrestle with opposing fives, as Obi Toppin occasionally has been asked to do in small-ball lineups against the likes of Domantas Sabonis and Ivica Zubac would probably be a bit much for the strength of Furphy's 20-year-old frame, while also diminishing his figurative strengths in buffering the ball against smaller guards and wings.

If the Pacers need to manage minutes early in the season with two of the centers returning from major injury, it seems more likely that they would continue to lean on Toppin at that position, where he played a career-high 36 percent of his minutes last season, while perhaps increasing the playing time of Walker and/or Furphy at the wings.

Ben McNiff: With Myles gone, it seems like the next step is to recreate him in the aggregate with IJax, Huff, and Wiseman. It also seems like we’re gonna see a lot more of Jarace this season. Obviously small ball lineups are highly situational and matchup-dependent, but do you feel like we’re going to see a significant increase in running Siakam at the five with Jarace/Obi at four? Do you think Jarace is going to surpass Obi in minutes?

Fun fact: The Pacers nearly played as many clutch minutes in the Eastern Conference Finals and NBA Finals with Pascal Siakam and Obi Toppin on the floor without a traditional center (+4 in 32 minutes played) as they did with Siakam and Myles Turner (-6 in 33 MP). Thinking back to Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Toppin finished with the most points of any reserve (17) and ended up closing the game at center, with the Pacers winning the late-game, small-ball versus small-ball battle by a margin of seven after Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein both went to the bench. Of course, OKC did the Pacers a few favors, not only misfiring away from the rim but also purposefully placing Pascal Siakam in proximity of the rim.

Siakam is a lot more likely to make that play than Toppin. If the Thunder were going to flatten out the defense by putting someone in the dunker spot, it would've behooved them to do so with Lu Dort rather than Alex Caruso so as to put Toppin in the line of fire with regard to absorbing straight-line drives.

At any rate, when Siakam and Toppin are on the floor without a center, Toppin more so acts as the nominal center - hence why he can be seen wrestling with Domantas Sabonis in the prior response. For the most part, that's because Siakam is also much more rapid at changing his top foot and harassing the ball on the perimeter. The Pacers were switching everything at this juncture of the game, which is why Nesmith is cross-matched onto Sabonis, but Siakam's ability to stay down on a pump-fake against DeMar DeRozan before hanging with Malik Monk in isolation is demonstrative of why the match-ups generally trend toward insulating Toppin around the basket rather than exposing Toppin away from the basket.

Per Cleaning the Glass, the Pacers were 11 points per 100 possessions better on defense with Siakam on the floor as opposed to off, which ranked in the 99th percentile. Needless to say, in addition to providing lateral size in the gaps and a shadow presence behind the pick-and-roll as the low-man, Siakam offers an upgrade in most, if not all, defensive roles over Toppin. Still, stamina can be a concern when he plays too many consecutive minutes, and after recording his lowest usage rate last season (24.2 percent) since playing third fiddle to Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry in the run-up to Toronto's Championship (20.8 percent) as well as his fewest touches per 100 possessions (83.1) since his rookie year (70.3) and fewest drives per 100 possessions (9.2) since his sophomore season (7.8), he's likely going to get more of the ball, both as a closer and potential secondary ball-handler, without Tyrese Haliburton. As such, with the exception of games that perhaps call for late-game, full-court pressure, when lateral and backward mobility are needed to slide and trap the ball, it doesn't seem prudent for the Pacers to overextend Siakam with added minutes at the five, given that he already projects to have added responsibility at the other end of the floor.

During my discussion with Rick Carlisle about the pros/cons of playing 5-out versus 4-out and whether he felt the team's collection of centers would be capable of replicating either alignment as seamlessly next season without Myles Turner, he was sure to remind me of how often the team has played 5-out with Toppin.

"We're going to have to be ready to play out of both modes with the way our team is setting up," he explained. "And don't forget, Obi Toppin played a lot of five for us last season, particularly during the playoffs. That's going to be an alignment that's there for us as well."

To that point, the Pacers were a team-best +13 when Toppin was on the floor in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, and for as much as he had to wrestle with Sabonis in the post and push-up on him as screener while mostly relying on Nembhard and Nesmith to fight through contact, he also returned the favor in forcing Sabonis to wrestle with guarding him in space on the perimeter.

In fact, it wasn't long that Sabonis stopped guarding Toppin altogether and instead took his chances helping off from Jarace Walker. For those reasons, along with the fact that they can still have plenty of shooting on the floor while mixing in different pick-and-roll coverages in a way that may not be as viable with Huff, it seems probable that there will still be plenty of small-ball sightings, especially in the early going of the season when Jackson and Wiseman are still getting up to speed. If Toppin is at the five and Siakam is at the four, as was the case last season, then that doesn't necessarily provide a pathway for Walker to get more minutes at the four necessarily, but the back-up three spot should be his for the taking, whether the Pacers play big or small. He may not play more minutes than Toppin; however, similar to that late season win over Sacramento, when he and Toppin both played 21 minutes a piece with Toppin closing at the five in the absence of Turner, it's possible that, unless Walker faces increased competition from Johnny Furphy (it could happen!), the split in minutes shouldn't be as pronounced as last season.

Michael Dye: So this might be crazy. I know Rick likes to get creative with his lineups, and I've had this in my head for a little while. Would it be at all effective to go an almost full "big" lineup by having Benn on the bench and sliding Nesmith down to the 2, Pascal to the 3, and insert Obi in at the 4? Nembhard at 1 and pick a center at the 5. If Pascal is more in his playmaker bag, then there's a main and secondary ball handler, with Nesmith, Pascal, and Obi all being threats beyond the arc. Defensively, the match ups look favorable but only you can tell me if I'm a bozo missing something obvious, or if the pick and roll combos don't work, or any other number of things that you're a wizard at.

First of all, per Rick Carlisle, Bennedict Mathurin is going to be the Day 1 starter at the two-guard spot. As was laid out in last month's mailbag, even if only for organizational reasons, the job needs to be his to lose. To this point, Haliburton and Mathurin haven't exactly been perfect complements for one another. Without Haliburton, if Mathurin continues to come off the bench in a contract year, that could signal to the rest of the league that the Pacers view him as topping out as a bench scorer -- which might weaken their negotiating position in trades if he doesn't reach agreement on an extension, although he would still be a restricted free agent. As such, the answer at the two-guard spot to start the season needs to be Mathurin, even if he doesn't ultimately end up being the answer at the end of the season.

That said, Aaron Nesmith starting at the two wouldn't be entirely unprecedented. Before the Pacers traded for Pascal Siakam in January of 2024, there was a brief window after Christmas when they revisited playing Jalen Smith as a makeshift four, with Nesmith and Bruce Brown playing in between Haliburton and Turner. If they wanted to recreate a version of that bigger lineup, even if only as a wrinkle, it seems more likely they would do so by including Walker rather than Toppin. As discussed in the prior responses, when they play small-ball, they normally do so with Toppin at the five. If he and Siakam are both starting, they would have to play major minutes to also moonlight at the back-up four and five, even if only situationally.

Two season ago, when Haliburton was out against the Phoenix Suns, Indiana started Nembhard, Nesmith, Siakam, Toppin, and Turner after halftime. In that case, the defensive assignments were favorable because Nembhard and Nesmith were available to take on Devin Booker and Bradley Beal with Siakam opposite from Kevin Durant. That meant, with Turner assigned to Jusuf Nurkic, Toppin could match-up with Grayson Allen. Not every opponent will allow Toppin to take on the weakest assignment at the wing, nor arguably should it. There's a reason why the Pacers waited until Game 6 for Siakam to predominantly guard Karl-Anthony Towns in the Eastern Conference Finals and also waited until Game 6 for him to take on more than 10 half-court match-ups against Jalen Williams in the NBA Finals. He adds value as an off-ball roamer, and they also were already asking a ton of him at the other end of the floor -- where they needed him to attack Karl-Anthony Towns and play bash-ball against OKC's swarming defense.

As was mentioned in a prior response, that will likely only be exaggerated next season without Haliburton, when he's likely to get more of the ball. Walker hasn't exactly shown himself to be a wing stopper. He thrives more so as an event creator with his cat-like reflexes and superb hand-eye coordination; however, if the Pacers wanted to play bigger with Nesmith at the two, Walker possesses more of the physical tools to (ahem) try his hand(s) against some of those types of assignments than what reasonably can be expected of Toppin in lieu of overburdening Siakam. After all, when Walker plays consistently with force, he's demonstrated the ability to do stuff like this in spurts, at least when screens aren't involved.

In short (haha), the Pacers don't have to play short. They can go bigger with Aaron Nesmith at the two (they've done it before!), it just might depend upon who the other "bigger" players are in the lineup. Lastly, there will be no calling anyone a "bozo" in this mailbag, Michael. Part of the reason why I value this exercise every month isn't just to show my appreciation for the way all of you value my publication, it's also to explore ideas and topics that I might not have considered, especially during an offseason when nearly everything is a consideration or should be under consideration for a team that, as Rick Carlisle indicated, may play a game that looks different.

Kevin Kroeger: Hi Caitlin - love your work and been a subscriber for a couple years. My question is about how you think the Pacers may (or may not) adjust their style of play both offensively and defensively moving forward if the league largely catches up to what has worked for them (pace, ball pressure, depth, playing random, etc.). My concern as a fan is that some of the advantages the team has had the last two years is equal part strategy and personnel to execute that strategy. If the league largely adopts similar principles as Rick Carlisle and his staff, will the Pacers need to find new wrinkles to sustain an advantage? If so, what might those be (both for next season and more generally for the future with a [hopefully] healthy Ty back)?

Some of this has already happened. During the 2023-24 playoffs, the Pacers posted the highest average pick-up distance, at 52.4 feet, of any team in the tracking-era, beginning with the 2013-14 season. Last season, the league as a whole took notice, likewise posting its highest average pick-up distance, at 41.9 feet, in the last 13 seasons. There are two obvious counters for this: multiple ball-handlers and increased cutting. For the Pacers, if the ball gets moved to the wing, someone else will just (literally) pick-up where Andrew Nembhard left off. That's why roster depth matters. It's what allows them to, for lack of better words, play as hard as they do on both ends of the floor.

If the rest of the league starts to enter its weak-link-era, with winning being dictated more by which team doesn't have the weakest link rather than which team has the best player, then clever cutting, both to score and reshape the defense should be on the rise. Samson and I talked about this on our offseason and Summer League recap podcast. Watch Taelon Peter on this possession. When the defense overcommits on the switch, he slips the pindown for the easy dunk.

Now, watch Kam Jones. In the exact same scenario, he stays glued to the corner, despite the fact that the defense is affording him every opportunity to back cut to the rim.

A few years ago, I once heard a coach (no, this coach doesn't work for the Indiana Pacers) say that they were willing to give up a few back cuts per game in exchange for playing higher in the gaps because what they've found is that players don't really like to back cut that much and prefer to catch-and-shoot or drive with the ball in their hands. Moreover, even if players do want to cut, it’s almost always a high-risk pass. In that regard, intense ball pressure that forces the ball wide can make the angle on those passes nearly impossible. Still, even if the value of backdoors doesn't necessarily outweigh maintaining collective pressure, there's still an opportunity for free points similar to what can be the case with "stretch" bigs. Bigs who can shoot don't always bend the defense with the threat of their three-point shot, especially out of the pick-and-pop as opposed to being purposefully stationed in the corners, but the fact that they can shoot means that they have the opportunity to capitalize on open shots.

The same may also turn out to apply to cutting in response to ball pressure or defenses that play higher in the gaps. If all things are equal, role players who have a feel for where to cut and when without spoiling spacing could prove to be of higher value, which should be of interest to the Pacers both without but especially with Tyrese Haliburton as a special passer who is capable of throwing off the timing of weak-side rotations.

James: Was there anything from your conversation with Rick Carlisle that stood out as especially notable to you, as the interviewer?

Everything, really. He's a Hall of Fame coach who has coached two teams to the NBA Finals. As a coach's kid, I grew up around those types of conversations and always wanted to soak up as much knowledge as I could, but I never was part of any at that level (sorry, Dad!). From his thoughts on the NBA becoming a play hard league with it being more important to have more good players than to be top-heavy with two or three great players who get all of the touches to his breaking news on naming Bennedict Mathurin as the Day 1 starter, a lot of things got aggregated from that interview at a lot of different outlets. That was cool in the sense that it generated a lot of traffic back to the full interview that was chock-full of insights not only about random offense and playing out of triggers but also various league-wide trends from an Xs and Os perspective, which is obviously my jam.

That said, I was surprised that one particularly newsy quote didn't make more news. When we were discussing that the starting two-guard spot would be Mathurin's to lose, he said that it's "important" to Mathurin to be a starter. Mathurin played well as a starter at times last season (that group had the second-best net rating in the league among the 14 lineups that played at least 300 minutes last season), but it also became clear that a change needed to be made and that Mathurin was a better sixth man than Nesmith and that Nesmith was a better fifth starter than Mathurin. When Haliburton returns, a lot would have to change to think that will (well) change. It makes sense that Mathurin wants to start, but if he wants to start, that could potentially cast some uncertainty about his long-term future with the team if he doesn't reach an agreement on an extension or find the happy middle between playing his game while also growing to play to the style of the team. There's some comparisons to be drawn to Jonathan Kuminga's current situation with the Warriors, which hopefully won't also be the case if/when he's in the same position as Kuminga as a restricted free agent next summer.

Phil: Is it feasible in a world of four dimensions, embedded in the Standard Model of cosmology, that Jay Huff could fit really well and that Tyrese Haliburton could assist Andrew Nembhard as if Nembhard were controlled by a joystick and that with Carlisle doing Carlisle things the Pacers could be better?? Certainly possible in string theory!

Hmm...it doesn't seem as though there's enough evidence to (ahem) tie that theory down. Last season, just before the extended layover during the NBA Cup, the Pacers had a 10-15 record, ranking 19th in offensive rating and 24th in defensive rating. Quietly, in addition to Tyrese Haliburton looking more like Tyrese Haliburton, a big part of the turnaround was limiting turnovers, as taking and making more shots allowed them to set their ball-pressure defense.

Of course, there were other factors. All of the point-of-attack defenders got healthy, with Nembhard performing at an All-Defense level, Siakam was more accustomed to the system at both ends of the floor, and several players made in-season improvements, whether it was Haliburton's defensive activity, Mathurin's crashing as a rebounder, Nesmith's progression as a movement shooter and from two-point range, or Turner regaining some of his punch around the rim. Still, the defense started making a turn once the offense made a turn, and part of the reason why the offense needed to make a turn was because Haliburton, well, didn't exactly look like Haliburton to start the season while they were also trying to reconcile the team's playstyle to the style of players who suddenly needed to play.

And, here's the thing: That was with him still on the floor, at least providing some semblance of gravity, as he adapted to the league's increased physicality and being face-guarded the full-length of the floor. If that isn't there, it's possible they may end up missing his shooting more than his playmaking, although his playmaking, especially with regard to advance passes and his ability to dictate pace, is largely why he gets guarded like this.

To his credit, Nembhard's had some of his biggest games on the biggest stages while running the offense and also guarding the other team's best player, but there's going to be fewer opportunities for him to play four-on-four and he's also going to be drawing more top assignments, who will have more reason to duck under. As was laid out in last month's mailbag, there's ways he and the team can combat this with Nesmith and Mathurin both playing key roles. He's a problem-solver and so are the Pacers, but it would be extremely tough to see them having a higher ceiling without Haliburton, especially when there isn't a clear answer, as of yet, for who can be the Andrew Nembhard for Andrew Nembhard.

As Rick Carlisle said on my podcast, "I know how great (Haliburton) is. Unfortunately, I'm going to find out even more how great he is by not having him with us this year."

There will still be meaning to this season without Haliburton, and various players may step up in his absence, making for an even better version of the team when he returns, but it will likely become evident that, even when he may appear to be deferring or doing nothing, he still does a whole lot of something.

Patron-only popsicle content

Nostalgia really can be sweet. The future is uncertain, but the past is known. Like watching highlights of Aaron Nesmith and Tyrese Haliburton taking over down 15 with just over four minutes remaining to pull off an overtime win against the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, it sure was comforting to think back to an old punch recipe that my sister and I used to make for special occasions when we were kids. Don't get it twisted. It's nothing very "special." Just lime sherbet mixed with Sprite, but I have a lot of special memories of things we were commemorating or celebrating when we made it.

Turns out, I happened to see some lime sherbet at the store and for no special reason decided to see if my sister would want to turn that old recipe into a new popsicle.

Because she's the wonderful person that she is, she agreed. Neither of us knew exactly what to expect, as we don't often (by my rule) include anything with dairy in our hand-crafted popsicle concoctions. The first few bites were the perfect combination of smooth effervescence and then things started to get rocky about halfway through. Hopefully, this isn't a metaphor for next season. Then again, maybe it won't be so bad if it is. Just like pulling that popsicle out of the mold, there's no predicting the future when it comes to basketball, but the Pacers can create the future as they play basketball, which may turn out just as sweet as the nostalgia of my punch recipe, even if they also hit some unexpected rough spots.

And hey, who knows, like the color of this month's popsicle and in keeping with the heavy emphasis on the center position in this mailbag, maybe, just maybe, the grass will also be greener (or at least stay green-ish) wherever the Pacers go.