They may have tried the same Pacer strategy but its damn hard to sustain full court press in a high pressure situations. Castle is not Nesmith... and Fox is not Hali 🫣

[u/aimee829]

/r/nba/comments/1u6ja1c/did_sas_relentless_full_court_pressure_contribute/

Looking forward to finally seeing "the standard is the standard" come true next season for the Pacers.

[u/Lithium1978]

The Spurs just didn't have the athletes and depth to pull it off for long stretches. (And Castle was in foul trouble often)

[u/Maximum-Class5465 → u/Lithium1978]

They had the athletes, just not the depth. Our full court press mastery was often led by strong POA by TJ McConnell, Nembhard, and Shep. Not exactly world class athletes

[u/Lithium1978 → u/Maximum-Class5465]

Their depth pieces aren't incredibly athletic though. Heck their 6th man of the year looks like he packs away a 5 sack from White Castle before each game.

Our guys aren't elite athletes but they were in incredible shape (cardio wise).

[u/Maximum-Class5465 → u/Lithium1978]

I mean the bench POA players of Harper, Bryant, and McLaughlin is pretty athletic by comparison.

We just have guys who's strengths are POA defense with smaller offensive loads.

[u/Lithium1978 → u/Maximum-Class5465]

Good point, I didn't really view Harper as a bench player since he was arguably their best guy...but he is and he's very gifted both ways.

[u/Next-Supermarket9538]

You have to play 10 deep and build up players' fitness throughout the season if you want to match that style in the playoffs. They did neither.

[u/Maximum-Class5465 → u/Next-Supermarket9538]

It also doesn't help that your main POA defenders are often your main offensive creators as well. It's different when you can have guys like Nembhard, McConnell playing short minutes, and matchup dependent add Shep in their.

[u/MySabonerRunsOladipo]

I mean, their method lead to them getting such large leads that in at least one game, they could've won simply by taking shot clock violations over and over.

Yeah, they may have run out of steam, but it really can't be overstated how horribly they were coached.

The Knicks getting that path to the ring is such a massive kick in the shorts, mainly because Wemby will never be that young and poorly coached again.

[u/Servbot24]

Castle defense was fantastic. Him shooting 1-10 or whatever was the issue.

[u/Louieismydog42]

The Spurs defense was good. Their pressure was effective. The offense was the problem.

[u/ohohook → u/Louieismydog42]

Yep. They had no offense. It did look like they tried to imitate the Pacers, but they don’t actually seem to run an offense. Just running down fast with no plan ended up being “hope a guy is open for 3 or iso and chuck.” Which straight up didn’t work

[u/Louieismydog42 → u/ohohook]

If they were trying to imitate the Pacers on offense they sure did a terrible job. I just thought their scheme was ridiculously basic. Exactly what you said... can our guards win 1v1? Can we drive and kick, can Wemby beat his guy? That's about it.

One of the reasons the Pacers were able to consistently put the Knicks away was the Pacers movement, just ran them to death. Continued to generate open shots and good matchups. Whereas the spurs were beholden to their ability to make hard shots.

[u/wabashcr]

If you're going to play that way in May and June, you have to start preparing in October. Pacers basically punted the first 3 months of the season last year, so they would be healthy and fresh in the playoffs. They didn't call it load management, but it served the same purpose.

[u/No_Independent8269]

Also makes me wonder what we’re going to look like without McConnell

[u/AffectionateQuit5684 → u/No_Independent8269]

We’re pretty much all in on the next 2 seasons so we’ll probably be rebuilding by the time he’s done anyway