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The regular season began for the Indiana Pacers with a 119-110 loss to the Detroit Pistons. During that game, Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner started their first game together and the results were intriguing.
After playing for 36 minutes, Sabonis recorded 27 points, 13 rebounds, and 2 assists. He did so while shooting an impressive 73.3 percent from the field and going a perfect five-for-five from the free-throw line. It was one of the most impressive performances that he has put together during his NBA career.
To put it into perspective, the 27 points that Sabonis scored against the Pistons was the third-highest single-performance of his career. It was also the first time since entering the NBA that he has managed to record at least 25 points and 10 rebounds within the same game.
It is worth noting that while Blake Griffin was sidelined against the Pacers and that Markieff Morris started in his place, but that shouldn't take away from Sabonis' performance. The Pistons began the game by having Andre Drummond guard Sabonis while Morris was tasked with defending Turner.
Most of the scoring that Sabonis did against the Pistons came in the pick-and-roll as a roll man. He produced an impressive 2.2 points per possession on five roll man possessions by going 5-of-5 (100 percent) from the field and record an ‘and-one' on one of the sequences. He took full advantage of the floor spacing from the units he played with throughout the game.
https://youtu.be/7KrBnFFclNg
There weren't many post-up opportunities for Sabonis and he went 1-of-3 (33.3 percent) from the field during his three possessions in this area. He still displayed a desire to get to his left-hand on each of those post-ups and on his two misses, it seemed that he was working too hard to set that up.
https://youtu.be/id9a2s9-_gM
Having too much reliance on his left hand has been an issue for Sabonis throughout his NBA career and especially during the Pacers' playoff series against the Boston Celtics. It will be important that he shows more of a willingness to use his right hand on finishes and achieves success so he is a more versatile scorer near the basket.
Sabonis achieved success when crashing the offensive glass as he ended his performance with two successful putback attempts. His ability to come up with offensive rebounds is going to be an important factor for the Pacers this season since they lost a lot of impact in key areas of the possession battle.
https://youtu.be/xJ4H9hhwvgs
There were a few other methods that Sabonis used to score against the Pistons. He made one field goal each from a jumper off a tough flash cut, a play off the dribble out of spot-up in semi-transition, and by running the floor in transition for a layup. Managing to score using a variety of different methods was key.
https://youtu.be/fjS8CkjTqvA
The performance that Sabonis had against the Pistons was a strong start to the 2019-20 season. He will look to follow it up against a matchup that could feature either Kevin Love or Tristan Thompson against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday.
