{"id":107317,"date":"2024-11-16T14:34:19","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T19:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=107317"},"modified":"2024-11-16T18:58:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-16T23:58:33","slug":"pacers-nba-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/11\/16\/pacers-nba-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers ‘Ugly’ NBA Cup Loss Piles Onto Frustrating Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Indiana Pacers are dealing with a disappointing start to the 2024-25 campaign, and their\u00a0<\/span>NBA Cup<\/span><\/a>\u00a0debut did nothing to combat their slow start. Granted, the team is dealing with injuries to a few key players, but their core\u2014their star players\u2014are all in the lineup but have only managed a 5-7 record in a conference that, given their talent, should have them posting a much better wins-loss stat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pacers ‘Ugly’ NBA Cup Loss Piles Onto Frustrating Season<\/h2>\n

Pacers Coach Rick Carlisle Takes Blame for ‘Ugly’ Loss in NBA Cup Debut<\/h3>\n

The Pacers came out victorious in the East in last season’s inaugural NBA Cup but eventually fell to the\u00a0<\/span>Los Angeles Lakers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the finals in Las Vegas. Their bid to come out of the East again this time around began with a thud in a 124-111 loss to the Miami Heat\u2014another Eastern Conference team struggling this season. At one point, the Heat were up by 22 in the third quarter. Indiana’s stars,\u00a0<\/span>Pascal Siakam<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Tyrese Haliburton<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Myles Turner<\/span><\/a>, were collectively underwhelming in the contest. It was their bench that provided whatever life the Pacers had from guys like\u00a0<\/span>Obi Toppin<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(21 points) and\u00a0<\/span>T.J. McConnell<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(14 points).<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn’t the disappointing loss\u2014and on their home floor, mind you\u2014that got the most attention, though. It was the boo’s and jeers from the Pacers fans that really drove home the team’s ugly play. That exact word, ugly, was the word\u00a0Pacers head coach\u00a0<\/span>Rick Carlisle<\/span><\/a>\u00a0used when\u00a0<\/span>he spoke with the media following their first NBA Cup matchup<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Ugly game, a lot of ugly stretches, pretty clear that I didn’t have these guys ready\u00a0to play,” he said after the game.\u00a0“Put the responsibility on me, I got to do a better job getting these guys prepared.\u00a0It was embarrassing, there were two stretches where our fans booed, and rightly so.\u00a0I was ashamed to hear that, but they were right.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Carlisle knows that his team is better than the product they displayed on Friday night. He addressed that when alluding to the rematch with the Heat on Sunday on their home floor.<\/p>\n

“We’ll get together tomorrow and look at some of this stuff and do what we need to do to do better.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much Better Than They’re Playing<\/h3>\n

It has been a strange start to the year for the East. Teams that should be atop the conference are at the bottom, such as the Milwaukee Bucks and\u00a0<\/span>Philadelphia 76ers<\/span><\/a>. Playoff-contending teams like the New York Knicks, Heat, and Pacers are currently only at .500 or a game or two under. The team that was likely expected to be undefeated has three losses\u2014the Boston Celtics. Meanwhile, the Cleveland Cavaliers are 14-0, which was highly unexpected.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s a weird scenario <\/span>right now<\/span>, but things will surely open up as the season progresses. Whatever is going on with the Pacers is likely to balance out, given that this is a team that is much better than their record shows. Haliburton is a superstar, and Siakam is an All-Star in his own right. The injuries to\u00a0<\/span>Andrew Nembhard<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Aaron Nesmith<\/span><\/a>\u00a0haven’t helped either. Getting them back in the next few weeks should benefit Indiana in the long run. <\/span>As for now, Indiana <\/span>simply<\/span>needs to play better\u2014up to their talent and skill level.<\/span> As Carlisle stated, they have a second opportunity against the Heat on Sunday to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Indiana Pacers are dealing with a disappointing start to the 2024-25 campaign, and their\u00a0NBA Cup\u00a0debut did nothing to combat their slow start. Granted, the team is dealing with injuries to a few key players, but their core\u2014their star players\u2014are all in the lineup but have only managed a 5-7 record in a conference that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":107332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,11,62],"tags":[2832,950,637,2617,1754,1208,2200,2607],"class_list":["post-107317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-pacers","category-nba","tag-aaron-nesmith","tag-andrew-nembhard","tag-myles-turner","tag-obi-toppin","tag-pascal-siakam","tag-rick-carlisle","tag-t-j-mcconnell","tag-tyrese-haliburton"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}