Pacers play with and edge vs Heat in best outing of season
The Pacers blew out the Heat in their best win of the season, for many reasons.
INDIANAPOLIS – 20 seconds into Pacers vs Heat on Saturday, Pascal Siakam raced ahead in transition for a bucket to give his team a 2-0 lead. The first 19 seconds of the game were tied at 0-0, but after that layup broke the deadlock, the Pacers never trailed.
They dominated Miami, ballooning their lead as high as 24 in just the first quarter. That already tied their second-biggest lead from any game this season, and they exceeded it early in the second frame with a 47-22 edge. For all of the ugly things that have colored the Pacers season, they have yet to suffer a wire-to-wire loss like the one they handed the Heat.
"We had a good edge," Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said postgame. "You must be ready to compete at all times," he added of playing against the Heat.
By record, Miami (20-19) is the second-best team the Pacers have taken down this season – the Golden State Warriors are a half-game better right now. But that Warriors win came in crunch time, this Heat win was 48 minutes of solid basketball with just one lull. It was the Pacers best outing of the season.
Tony East
The natural wonder is why this level of play hasn't shown up more consistently for the Pacers this season. They've had a nine-plus point lead in the first quarter in every game of 2026 – clearly they can reach a somewhat high level of play. But they rarely sustain it like they did against the Heat.
The standout moment of the game came in the third quarter. At halftime, the Pacers held a 16-point lead, a healthy edge but not one that guarantees victory. Miami did put together a 41-18 run in a victory over Indiana just a few weeks ago. So even a seemingly comfortable advantage for the Pacers wasn't really that comfortable.
And, as the Pacers have shown often this season, they put together an awful stretch of the game to start the third quarter. Miami went on a 9-0 run, quickly cutting their deficit to seven. A few back-and-forth minutes later, and the score read 65-58. This has been so many games for the Pacers – mostly capable play, but one long stretch where the bottom falls out.
This time was different. Micah Potter, on the floor with Jarace Walker in the frontcourt due to Siakam's foul trouble, hit a key three after reading a defensive collapse around Andrew Nembhard and popping into space. On the Pacers next possession, Potter pulled in an offensive rebound and kicked the ball out. It eventually swung to Nembhard, who hit a deep three to put the Pacers back up 13. Timeout, Heat.
The Pacers, collectively, took a deep breath when those long-range jumpers went through the net. 2:17 of action later, they were ahead by 19. For once, instead of having one poor stretch define the game, the Pacers responded and kept their opponent away – their lead actually reached a game-high 29 while the third quarter was still going on.
"It was certainly much needed. I thought Potter was a big part of that," Carlisle said of his team's response. Potter, so far, has been a critical addition to the Pacers center rotation.
"We just had a group out there that responded extremely well," Carlisle added. "We just need to keep reminding ourselves of the things that we need to do to be successful. The obvious one is to play with an edge."
There is that word again, edge. In this outing, one in which the Pacers avoided their biggest pitfall of disastrous runs, that edge was clear. They were connected in a way that hasn't always been the case this season.
The player and ball movement was sublime – the Pacers logged 37 assists, their second-most in a game this season. They generated 19 turnovers with pesky, on-a-string defense. Bench lineups weren't disorganized messes. They looked like the deep team that was able to win without Tyrese Haliburton last year.
And they did it without Siakam carrying them. For the first time this entire season, the Pacers won without Siakam scoring at least 22 points. He was great in other ways, most clearly in defending Bam Adebayo and drawing double teams. But it was still noteworthy that the Pacers were able to win with Siakam posting just 11 points (yet adding seven rebounds and five assists).
Between the quality of opponent, the avoidance of disaster, the non-reliance on Siakam, and the dramatic score difference, it was the Pacers best outing of the season. And it came with great performances from young talents like Johnny Furphy, Jarace Walker, and Ben Sheppard.
In a season filled with losing, playing with an edge provided the Pacers a win and useful information about how they can be effective without Haliburton or Siakam. That has both short and long-term value, making the 123-99 victory a perfect one for the Pacers' updated goals for the rest of the campaign.
Another new starting lineup
The center rotation keeps changing, and the Pacers opted to start... Siakam at the five against the Heat. The opening lineup: Quenton Jackson, Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Furphy, Siakam.
That's a new one. Oftentimes, Carlisle keeps explaining, these decisions are matchup based. I asked him about this starting lineup after the game.
"You look at their lineup and the level of skill and athleticism and everything else. And Bam is a unique guy at five. He's a five that has three skills. That matchup is a difficult one. All the matchups led us to the conclusion that starting smaller was definitely a better idea defensively and we hoped it would work out offensively," Carlisle shared. "It seemed to work out."
In 7:46 together, that group of five played the Heat to an even 16-16 draw. They struggled to make shots when on the floor altogether but defended at a high level, and that tradeoff worked well once substitutions came in. Potter and Jay Huff both had solid matchups against a not-so-stout Miami second unit as lineups with one of the centers on the floor performed well.
So the Pacers new lineup, which shot 5/17 when sharing the court, was solid thanks to its defense. But the true advantages were twofold – it opened up a strong second unit for this particular game and allowed the Pacers to keep exploring the Furphy-Siakam frontcourt.
Not many lineups have done well for the 8-31 Pacers, so the Furphy-Siakam pairing being -5 is worth monitoring. More impressive: the +1.3 net rating (albeit on a small sample) that duo has when playing without a center on the floor.
"I think he plays the game the right way on both sides of the floor," Andrew Nembhard said of Furphy, pointing to his defense and growth.
That's what 2025-26 should be about now, finding combinations and pairings that could help in future seasons. Bonus points if they include a younger talent as this duo does. The Pacers should keep tinkering with the opening lineup and five-man units in general to find things that work. Currently, they're at 23 starting lineups with none having played more than five games. That's the right approach.
Andrew Nembhard, slingin'
Nembhard had 29 points on 10/16 shooting, which is terrific production on its own. But the eye-popping part of his stat line: nine assists, zero turnovers.
It's just the third game of Nembhard's career in which he had at least nine assists without coughing up the ball. In the first two, he had 19 points combined. This game has a strong case for Nembhard's most productive ever.
But the reason it pops is more so that it continues a trend. The young guard, playing with far more floor general responsibilities this season, has improved as the season has progressed when it comes to his caretaking abilities. His numbers reflect that.
"He's had some really spectacular games in recent days where the points are up, the assists are up. And when the efficiency is where it was tonight, he's elite," Carlisle said of Nembhard before calling his playmaking key.
Nembhard has six games with at least nine assists this season. Four of them have come since Christmas. Obviously, his own injury and the team's general inability to make shots early in the campaign skews the impact of that sentence, but he's still played in 30 games this season. Four of his better ball movement outings have been in the last two-ish weeks.
Zero turnovers is excellent, too. When I was asking Nembhard about his outing and I mentioned zero turnovers in the question, he quietly said "Excited about that," before I finished speaking. That was telling. "I think we're moving the ball well on that side of the floor... I'm just being a little bit more careful," Nembhard explained of his impressive numbers.
Let's just make this an even split. In Nembhard' first 15 games this season, he had 94 assists and 35 turnovers. In the last 15 outings, he had 117 assists and 33 turnovers. "I like that, definitely. I feel like I turned it over a little too much in the past," he said. There is still some room for growth, but Nembhard is clearly improving his floor general abilities.
When it comes to turnovers, Nembhard has only had more than three twice in the last 15 games. Both times, it was against Boston. That's Indiana's next opponent, and the next opportunity for the entire team to follow up on their best outing this season.
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