Loss vs 76ers final moment in eventful Pacers day: Fines, injuries, and front office movement
What a newsy week for the Pacers.
INDIANAPOLIS – Did you know the Indiana Pacers played a game Tuesday?
Beyond the team's battle with the Philadelphia 76ers that night, it was an eventful day for the franchise. Injury updates, a key front office departure, and more on the recent fine handed down by the NBA all became central topics on Tuesday before another Pacers loss.
If you've been watching the Pacers of late, you know exactly why they ultimately fell against the 76ers: right now, the Pacers can't defend. They've allowed over 130 points three games in a row, something they did just 11 times in their first 56 games. Between the second quarter of the Pacers game in Washington through the third period of their outing against Philly, they allowed 30+ points in 10-straight quarters.
Not much is going right for the Pacers on the less glamorous end of the court. "It's tough. We've got new guys in the system," guard Andrew Nembhard said of the Pacers defensive struggles.
Tony East
Players and head coach Rick Carlisle acknowledged the current challenges that exist because of injuries and roster changes. There are new lineup combinations on the floor constantly. That has caused some of the poor defensive play of late, but there's been poor execution too.
"We can certainly do better than we did tonight," Carlisle said of his team's defense.
The 76ers made 45 two-point shots, more than the Pacers total field goal number. Philly finished with 82 points in the paint, a season-high allowed for the blue and gold, and scored 25 points off of turnovers. They scored 135 points compared to the Pacers 114, and they did it with relative ease.
While the Pacers are currently deploying some players who project to be deep reserves, if they're on the team at all, next season, that's not their entire rotation. Ben Sheppard, Jarace Walker, Nembhard, T.J. McConnell, and Jay Huff all played against Philadelphia and could feature heavily for the Pacers in 2026-27. They all need to be ready for focused defense come October, yet few of them are showing anything of note on that end of the court right now.
It masked an otherwise acceptable night for the team. Rookie guard Kam Jones scored the Pacers first eight points on his way to a career-high 13. "Just playing with a little more confidence. Being more aggressive on offense and defense," Jones said postgame.
Micah Potter was fantastic, scoring over 20 points for the first time in his NBA career. His mobility caused problems for the 76ers, and he defended well enough against his former Team USA teammate Joel Embiid. He added three rebounds and three assists as well. "My teammates found me. It's kind of as simple as that," Potter said during a podium interview after the game. "My teammates found me, super thankful for it. I was able to catch the ball and finish."
Potter's chemistry with various ball handlers has noticeably improved of late. His big outing, combined with Jones' career night and productive games from Nembhard and Jackson, could have been enough to describe the loss as a positive one for the team.
But the Pacers defense was so flimsy that they walked away with a concerning blowout defeat. They've come up short in four-straight games since the All-Star break and can blame their defense for three of the four losses. Improvement is needed on that end of the floor.
Anyway, to the rest of the news.
Johnny Furphy has surgery
13 days ago, I asked Carlisle about the possible surgery timeline for Johnny Furphy after he tore his right ACL against the Raptors on February 8.
"My understanding is with ACLs, usually there's a period of time that passes for swelling to go down," Carlisle explained. "Pretty sure they're in the process of deciding which doctor is going to do [the surgery]. Don't know the timetable, it's going to be at least a week."
Tuesday was officially the day that Furphy had his procedure. The surgery was performed by Dr. Brian Cole of Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush in Chicago, and Furphy's season is over.
"Very successful, everything went extremely well," Carlisle said of the surgery. "And so that's great news."
A timeline-ish for Ivica Zubac
Carlisle made major headlines with some of his comments on 107.5 The Fan Tuesday morning, which meant something else he shared went under the radar.
James Boyd asked Carlisle for a timeline on Ivica Zubac and his debut for the franchise. "I don't see him playing this week," Carlisle began. "I don't know, it's hard to say. I think some time in the next two to three weeks we could see him... With the importance of him to us both present and future, we've got to make sure he's right. We've got to make sure the flexibility, range of motion, he still has swelling in there, this is an opportunity to make sure we get him to 100%."
The Pacers head out on a road trip next week that begins in Los Angeles with a game against Zubac's former team. In total, it's an eight-day trip, then the Pacers have two home games on a back-to-back after returning. Zubac would have been helpful for the Pacers and their poor defense on Tuesday night, particularly against star big man Joel Embiid.
Carlisle and the NBA talk Pacers fine
If you missed it somehow, the Pacers got fined during the All-Star break for violating the Player Participation Policy. They responded to the fine during their first practices out of the break, and all was quiet on that front since.
Tuesday morning, during the aforementioned radio interview Carlisle participated in, Kevin Bowen asked the head coach for his reaction to the fine. "I didn't agree with it. There was a league lawyer that was doing the interview that kind of unilaterally decided that Aaron Nesmith, who had been injured the night before and couldn't hold the ball, should have played in the game. Which just seems ridiculous," Carlisle began.
He continued to share, in his words, how the process of the NBA investigating the Pacers for resting multiple players went down. Carlisle said the NBA didn't examine Nesmith, who had a hand injury, as a part of the process and said the league didn't speak with him either. "This was shocking to me," he said before sharing that the NBA asked if the Pacers considered medicating Nesmith in order to have him potentially play in the game vs Utah despite the Pacers entering that night on a back-to-back and sitting at 13-37.
I reached out to the NBA for a statement after Carlisle's comments. A spokesperson shared the following: "Coach Carlisle’s description of the process that went into the decision to fine the Indiana Pacers is inaccurate. An independent physician led the medical review. In addition, the Pacers’ General Manager and the team’s Senior Vice President, Sports Medicine and Performance were interviewed as part of the process. The Pacers confirmed that it had provided all of the information requested by the league and the team reported that an interview with Coach Carlisle or a team physician wasn’t necessary."
It's not perfectly clear where the NBA's statement and Carlisle's comments don't align outside of the specific job title of the person leading the review. Regardless, the league calling Carlisle's recall of the events inaccurate deserved one more follow up. I asked pregame, and here is what the Pacers head coach said just before the game vs the 76ers:
"My number one fixation is player health. I have a long history of concern for this going back to all of my head coaching. One of the jobs of the head coach is to manage player health. The Aaron Nesmith situation was bothersome to me," Carlisle began. "It really was bothersome to him. I don't want to belabor this. It's time to move on. It's time to move forward. But player health, and you've got a guy like that that's missed a lot of games over the last two years and one reason is because he goes so hard and because he goes so hard for our organization, I just felt it's important to support him, and support the organization. I'll leave it at that."
It is time to move forward, and the league or the Pacers could go back-and-forth with comments on the matter. Speaking with Nesmith will be the final part of this equation, but he is currently sidelined with an ankle injury. I also wish the league would have included what, if any, dialogue they had with Nesmith specifically as a part of the investigation.
Ryan Carr leaves the Pacers for IU
Pacers senior vice president of player personnel Ryan Carr has departed the organization. He has joined the Indiana University Men's Basketball program as their executive director of basketball, essentially acting as GM for the program.
Carr has been with the Pacers for over two decades and essentially oversaw their draft operation. He is well-connected in the basketball world – it's remarkable how many NBA executives I've met who have a story about bumping into Carr in an extremely obscure basketball place.
"We would like to sincerely thank Ryan Carr for the dedication, innumerable contributions, and tireless service that he has provided to the Indiana Pacers during his 25 years with the organization. As he embarks on this new chapter in his career with Indiana University — a place that means a great deal to him and his family — we have no doubt that he is the right person help boldly lead the Hoosiers basketball program to success," the Pacers basketball operations staff said of Carr's departure.
Carr sat courtside for IU's loss to Northwestern on Tuesday night. Filling his role will be a big task for the Pacers, especially with a potentially major draft coming up this summer.
Carlisle discussed the move before Pacers vs 76ers. "Also want to congratulate Ryan Carr on his new position with IU as the GM of their basketball program. Pretty awesome opportunity. They pursued him hard," he said. "He's done a great job with evaluating talent and knowing the draft and so on. So it'll be a big loss for the Pacers, but a great hire for IU and Coach DeVries and everything they're doing down there. So congratulations to him."
So, that's everything that happened Tuesday. Oh wait, Pascal Siakam suffered a left wrist injury during his late-game collision with Khris Middleton on Sunday and missed Pacers vs Sixers. Carlisle doesn't know how long he will be out.
Okay, now that's everything that happened Tuesday. Subscribe below to not miss anything else about the Pacers or Fever.
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