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While the Indiana Pacers' season has come to a close Monday night at the hands of the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, there was some bright sides to the sweep. One of those aspects was the emergence of the Pacers young star in Andrew Nembhard who had an exceptional series filling in mostly for Tyrese Haliburton as he spoke about his time in the postseason.
Nembhard was already in the midst of a solid season where he would show flashes of explosiveness, but never in a full scale until the playoffs where he had an increased role. It was not until the unfortunate injury to Tyrese Haliburton in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals where the 24-year old had to step in and be the point guard.
He was sensational as in Game 3, he scored a career-high 32 points to go along with nine assists and four rebounds and would continue in Game 4 putting up 24 points while racking 10 assists and six rebounds. While both games ended in a loss for Indiana, Nembhard spoke about how the “experience in the playoffs is second to none” for a young team like theirs according to Kyle Neddenriep of The Indy Star.
“I think for a young team like us,” Nembhard said. “This experience in the playoffs is second to none. There’s a lot of first times. There’s a lot of little things we maybe wanted to do better. I think we learned how these games go and what being in a series feels like. I’ve never played a team seven times or six times in a row. It’s an interesting feeling and a fun experience. There’s a lot of things we can reflect on and take into next season, for sure.”
Pacers' T.J. McConnell says Nembhard can “be a starter on any team”
What could have also helped is he was learning under arguably one of the league's best point guards in Haliburton who led the league in assists (10.9 per game), is a do-it-all scorer, and was the main engine for a fast-paced successful offense. Plus, he also has the help of back up point guard T.J. McConnell who has been a veteran in the NBA and had high praise for Nembhard, saying that not only is he a “starter on any team in this league,” but he also “rose to the challenge every night.”
“He could be a starter on any team in this league,” McConnell said. “He’s proven that night in and night out. What he’s done in the playoffs is truly remarkable, where defenses are game planning even more for you. He just rose to the challenge every night.”
While the season averages do not jump off the page, the talent has always been there for Nembhard as he came out of a top school in Gonzaga University, selected by the Pacers with the 31st overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. McConnell was one of his teammates that noticed Nembhard's progression and said “he never really acted like a rookie.”
“He came in from Gonzaga and just hit the ground running,” McConnell said. “He never really acted like a rookie, he was so big for us last year, he was our backup ‘2’ and then our ‘1’ when Tyrese got hurt. His ability to just adapt and play whatever we need him to is unbelievable. I’m happy for him and proud of him for sure.”
Rick Carlisle noticing the evolution of a potential star in Nembhard
If there is one person that Nembhard has gained all of his trust, it has to be Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle who gave the torch to the young star when Haliburton went down with the hamstring injury. After the Game 4 loss to the Celtics, Carlisle would sing the praises of the 24-year old while mentioning that Team Canada has been trying to have him on the team as he was born in Toronto.
“You’re seeing a young player that is tough minded, resourceful and highly competitive that is fearless and that has embraced these challenges,” Carlisle said. “It’s not an accident that Team Canada (Nembhard’s home) has been trying to get him on board the last two summers.”
While Indiana's season ended in disappointment as they were close to winning most of the games against Boston, there is a lot to take away positively as no one had this team making it far in the postseason. Nembhard would echo the same sentiments saying that their performance “gives us confidence to see what we can do next year.”
“We definitely had our hands on a few of these games,” Nembhard said via The Indy Star. “I think it gives us confidence to see what we can do next year. In terms of the X’s and O’s and adjustments we could have made, we have to get better as a team and learn from some of these experiences to do better next year.”
Pacers dealt with heartbreak and heartbreak in conference finals
Besides the continuous improvement of Nembhard, a key factor to the Pacers' success was star Pascal Siakam who was a calming, reliable weapon throughout the postseason. He has tasted championship gold before with the Toronto Raptors, so he knows “how hard it is to get to this point” according to Jamal Collier of ESPN.
“I can tell you like, yeah, we're going to learn from it and it's going to happen, but it's not guaranteed,” Siakam said. “I know how hard it is to get to this point. It's unfortunate. You want to give credit to the other team because they took advantage of every mistake that we made. They did well.”
“But for us, it's been hard, like heartbreaking losses after heartbreaking losses,” Siakam continued. “Yeah, you're going to be encouraged by it and you hope to put the right amount of work to continue to get better. Because we need to be a lot better if you want to compete with those teams. And understand it doesn't matter how good we played, we didn't get it done.”
Despite frustrating conclusion, Pacers have excitement for next season
While some may want to throw the term “fluke” at Indiana since they beat teams that have had major injuries like the Milwaukee Bucks with Giannis Antetokounmpo and the New York Knicks with several players, there's no doubt it was still a successful season. Even Obi Toppin would say that everybody “grew as teammates” and even the culture was strengthened during this time.
“This whole year we grew as teammates, we grew as a whole culture,” Toppin said. “It felt like everybody poured in everything they could for this organization every single day. Obviously, season didn't end the way we wanted to, but there's lot of good that came out of this season. And we don't want to overlook that. It was a big year for the Pacers and this whole organization, so we don't want to overlook that.”
All eyes are now on next season where the Pacers look to improve off of a sixth place finish in the Eastern Conference with a 47-35 record.
