Shorthanded Pacers offense stalls, crushed by Pistons in lowest-scoring NBA game this season
78 points? In 2026?
DETROIT – The Pacers went to Detroit to battle the Pistons on Saturday night, the two year anniversary of their trade to acquire Pascal Siakam. Since then, Siakam had missed just six games for the Pacers – an outing in Sacramento the day after the trade became official, four games in 2024-25 due to personal reasons, rest, and a small elbow injury, and one game earlier in the ongoing season due to rest.
The first half-dozen outings without the star forward went... just okay. A 4-2 record is solid, but a -25 point differential is not. The Pacers snuck by the Kings and Cavaliers, for example, but were blasted by the Warriors and Magic. Tyrese Haliburton played in one of the six games – removing that game drops the point differential to -30.
Give the Pacers credit for winning tight games without Siakam before. But history, including an 83-points scored drubbing in Golden State back in November, suggested the Pacers were about to get crushed by the Pistons when the team announced that Siakam would sit out on Saturday in Detroit for rest.
And it wasn't just Siakam. Aaron Nesmith rested too while T.J. McConnell and Andrew Nembhard watched from the bench for injury management. Of the Pacers top nine players from last season, only Ben Sheppard suited up.
Why all the absences? "It's a back-to-back. It's something that's been staring at us on the calendar for quite a while," Carlisle said. With a 10-32 record entering the game, long-term health should be the focus for the blue and gold.
Tony East
So, few expected the Pacers to win. But even fewer expected that the team would put together one of the worst halves, and overall performances, in franchise history.
Eight seconds into the game, Quenton Jackson – the Pacers starter at point guard on this night – missed a three. The Pistons scored nine seconds later and never trailed again. The Pacers would miss their first four shots before Jackson eventually scored, and along the way they had two turnovers.
At that point, it was 9-2 Pistons. Over the next five minutes, Detroit would score 15 unanswered points to take a 24-2 lead. Ethan Thompson put some juice into the Pacers offense, but they trailed 31-11 after 12 minutes of play.
11 is a truly putrid quarter. The shorthanded group shot 4/20 from the field without making a three-point shot and coughed up seven turnovers. It felt uglier than that, but surely the law of averages would get the Pacers back to normalcy in the second quarter. Right?
Instead, things were hardly better. The Pacers made six shots in that frame instead of just four, and Jarace Walker hit a three late in the first half. But it took 23 shot attempts to get there, and the Pacers had six turnovers. They scored just 25 points in the first half, barely avoiding the lowest-scoring first half in franchise history.
"We didn't shoot well," Carlisle said of the first half failures postgame. "These guys battled. We didn't shoot it well, we didn't play well offensively, but they battled the whole game. That's the best team in the East. I thought these guys fought hard."
Walker, who ended the outing as the team's leading scorer with 13 points, called it a tough night. "I'd say just overall movement and just shot making," he said of the ugly first half. "I feel like we got a couple decent looks in the first half, but I feel like we didn't shoot the ball well... Missed a couple free throws, too."
Then, he said the obvious part. "And then, with the lack of guys that we have, a tough night."
At the break, the Pacers were 10/43 from the field. They made one of their 18 three-point attempts and four of their 11 looks at the charity stripe. 13 turnovers only hurt. It was 59-25 Pistons when both teams went into their locker rooms – for reference, Anthony Edwards scored 26 points by himself in just the fourth quarter of Timberwolves-Spurs on the same night.
If the Pistons missed every two-point shot they took in the first half, they would have been ahead 27-25 at halftime. There are many shocking stats, and none of them are good for the Pacers.
"First half, it was just rough for us. [Weren't] getting things going," center Isaiah Jackson said.
The second half was more normal. The Pacers scored 53 points and shot the ball okay but had 11 turnovers, an expected issue for a team of guys playing much bigger roles than they are used to. The third and fourth quarters produced a score of 62-53 Pistons, which would have been an 18-point game if stretched out to a full 48 minutes. That's still a blowout, but about where most would expect an NBA game with talent imbalance to land.
Instead, the actual final score was 121-78. It's the lowest point total by an NBA team this season and fewest since the Boston Celtics had 76 on April 9 of last year.
For the Pacers franchise, it's the first game under 80 points since a 73-point outing on April 6, 2018. It had been almost eight years since the team put together an offensive performance that poor.
"There's a lot of circumstances here that made this very difficult. Our guys kept playing, they kept slugging," Carlisle said postgame. "You know, the beginning of the third quarter was good. They took a timeout [first]. It's a tough night."
It's just the sixth time in Pacers history they've lost by 43 or more points, and it's tied for the fifth-largest defeat in the franchise record books. The team has played worse, but very rarely.
Even if the absences make it clear why the Pacers were crushed, a closer game should have been expected. The team has won without Siakam before – they've won without Siakam and Haliburton before, albeit not often. This time, nobody was able to stand out and get the team going. It led to an all-time ugly loss.
Isaiah Jackson is back on the floor
Jackson, back in his home state, returned to the hardwood for game action on Saturday. It was his first appearance since suffering a concussion against the Boston Celtics on December 22.
It was a lengthy absence, and Jackson had to re-condition before playing again. He said that he felt gassed in the first half but found a second wind for the third and fourth quarters. But before playing, he explained that his concussion came with strong symptoms.
He initially got hit in the head a few days before the Pacers played in Boston – he got dinged up playing against the New York Knicks but opted to play through an injury. Then, in the outing against the Celtics, he took an elbow to the face and left the floor.
"I knew then and there I had [a concussion]," he said. He was throwing up in the locker room, and his symptoms got worse in the coming days.
He described headaches and foginess. Jackson dealt with sound and light sensitivity that was bad enough he retreated to his room and closed the blinds. He put sunglasses on. It made him feel better, and his concussion symptoms cleared about a week into January.
He was re-conditioning afterwards and available again on Saturday. "So we've been playing pickup and stuff and I feel good. Feel confident tonight," he said.
That confidence turned into production. He may have been the Pacers best player in the blowout, logging 12 points and five rebounds. Jackson's spot in the team's healthy rotation is worth keeping an eye on.
Tony Bradley to return on another 10-day contract
Tony Bradley's first 10-day contract expired after midnight on Saturday, but the Pacers plan to sign him to another one. Rick Carlisle made that announcement after the Pacers loss.
"Tony's 10-day is up, and I believe we're going to have him back for another 10-day. So you can announce that," the head coach said. Bradley found out earlier that day he'd be retained.
By signing the deal on Monday, Bradley will be available for the Pacers next five games. The contract will span through January 28, and after that date the Pacers will have to decide if they want to sign Bradley to a standard deal or not. Waiting until after the trade deadline (February 5) would come with financial benefits, though they'd be without a 15th player for a few days.
Bradley played well on his recent 10-day contract, averaging 4.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game while shooting 56.3% from the field. He, like Jackson, was decent against the Pistons and contributed 12 points in the loss. Bradley has been ahead of Micah Potter in the rotation on a few recent occasions, another dynamic worth watching on the Pacers road trip.
Said trip resumes in Philadelphia on Monday night. The Pacers will have their top players back and will try to sort out the five spot. Meanwhile, in Miami, IU Football will be watched by most of the state.
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