INDIANAPOLIS — The Pacers can’t stop Jalen Brunson.
But they’re going to have to use a mix of different defenses and different defenders to try to contain him.
In their Game 3 win over the Knicks, that meant using Aaron Nesmith, who did yeoman’s work in slowing Brunson.
What that means for Sunday’s Game 4 matinee at Gainbridge Fieldhouse remains to be seen.
“Every game is different,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “You can’t give New York a recipe of the same thing over and over again. They’re going to adjust. Brunson is too great a player.
“So, the idea was to change the matchup and get a little more size, and Aaron did as good a job as you can possibly do. Brunson is so good. He’s the best scorer in the playoffs, I believe. … So that helped, and Game 4 could look completely different.”
Carlisle isn’t going on a limb.
Brunson’s 34.6 points average and 311 points total both lead all postseason scorers, and much of that has come at the expense of Carlisle’s defensively deficient Pacers.
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Andrew Nembhard started against Brunson in both games at the Garden, both Pacers losses.
After watching his shooting guard get overwhelmed and his defense cough up 24 second-half points to a hobbled Brunson in Game 2, Carlisle had seen enough and switched to Nesmith in the must-win Game 3.
It worked, as Nesmith held him more than eight points under his playoff average.
More importantly, he made Brunson work, shooting just 10-for-26.
It was his lowest-scoring effort since Game 2 of the first round and his most inefficient outing against the Pacers.
“He’s one of those tough guys that we have on the team. And he does it all,” Pascal Siakam said. “He’s not scared of the matchups, and we put all that trust in him, and he’s going to fight his butt off every possession. These guys, sometimes [the star] is going to make shots. It’s hard. So I think you just do your best, and I think he did it great [Friday]. And obviously we’re gonna need a lot from him for sure.”
At 6-foot-6 with a 6-10 wingspan, Nesmith offered more size than Nembhard or 6-1 backup guard T.J. McConnell.
In the first-round series win over Milwaukee, Nesmith had guarded the Bucks’ 6-7 Khris Middleton. Brunson posed a different challenge.
“Aaron did an amazing job, speeding [Brunson] up at times, not fouling him, and being super competitive on that side of the floor,” Nembhard said.
Nesmith’s efforts may have taken a toll in the fourth quarter, when a hobbled Brunson shot just 2-for-7 and finished minus-11.
“[Brunson’s] a tough cover, as talented as he is as a player. The things that he can do — 3s, layups, floaters — he has it all,” Siakam said. “So it’s a team effort, just trying as hard as you can to make it tough on him.”
