Insider: Even in shutdown mode, Pacers still play well enough to impress the NBA's best

INDIANAPOLIS -- Before Giannis Antetokounmpo told the story of how he spoke Jrue Holiday's 51-point game into existence during a pre-game conversation in the Milwaukee Bucks' training room, he noted there was a reason Holiday had to score 51 in the first place.

"They were playing really good," the two-time MVP said of the Indiana Pacers. "They were playing fast. They scored 130 points. And we needed every point of the 50 points he had."

Maybe not every point, but the Bucks needed truly sublime performances from Holiday and Antetokounmpo to outlast the Pacers 149-136 on Wednesday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Holiday scored more points than all but seven players have ever scored against the Pacers in a game and also added eight rebounds and eight assists. Antetokounmpo finished the first half one assist short of a triple-double and ended up with 38 points on 14 of 18 shooting, 17 rebounds and 12 assists. According to a tweet on the NBA's official account, they became just the third duo in NBA history to combine for at least 85 points, 25 rebounds and 20 assists in one game.

But they put up those numbers because they were pushed -- in terms of pace and score -- by a team that was playing without its top three scorers. The best team in the NBA needed most of the fourth quarter to put away a team that has effectively given up hope of postseason play and ceased to care about its record. The Bucks certainly didn't leave Indianapolis feeling like they had just defeated a team that is tanking.

Four observations: Bucks' Jrue Holiday, Giannis Antetokounmpo overwhelm Pacers

"Everybody played hard," Antetokounmpo said. "We've played them I think four times and they've played hard every single game. If you come into Indiana, you have to know that's going to happen, no matter who's on the floor. I'm very impressed in a young team like that to be able to score 130 points and play fast and be disciplined and guard and make it tough for us."

On Monday when Buddy Hield missed his first game of the season with a non-COVID illness and Turner and All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton were also held out of action with previous injuries held up as an explanation, it became clear that the Pacers had abandoned hope of the postseason even though they haven't been mathematically eliminated yet.

Hield's illness certainly seems legit. The veteran guard famously doesn't skip games and Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said a "doctor had to intervene" to keep him away from Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Monday and Wednesday. However, Haliburton posted 39 points and 22 assists in two games this past weekend after his return from an ankle sprain and Turner scored 20 against Boston on Friday. They are dealing with real pain and discomfort from previous ailments, but it's hard to imagine that both men would be held out if the Pacers were raging against the dying of the light.

However, with five games to play, they're 33-44 and 3 1/2 back from the Bulls for 10th place in the Eastern Conference and the final spot in the play-in round -- which, even if they got it would require them to win two road games just to earn the right to play a seven-game series against the No. 1 seed, most likely the Bucks. The pursuit of such an opportunity doesn't seem like a good reason to risk either the health of their stars or their current draft lottery position.

Still, even if how the Pacers are approaching the season's final two weeks might technically be considered tanking, Wednesday's performance made it clear they still intend to squeeze every useful experience they can out of these final games. They were much more competitive than they were in Monday's loss to the Mavericks.

The contrast in approach between them and other tanking squads was particularly sharp on a night when the Portland Trail Blazers, who are in about the same boat as the Pacers at 32-44, lost 120-80 to the playoff-bound Sacramento Kings.

The Pacers might not win another game this season, and it's probably in their best long-term interest that they don't. If the Magic and Blazers, who are both 32-44, pass them, they could end up with the fifth-best draft lottery position. However the young players who take the floor the rest of the way have a lot they still want to prove. Counting the Bucks and Mavericks, Monday's opponent, the Pacers finish their season with six of their last seven opponents being playoff contenders.

"This is a good simulation of high-level regular season basketball and it has a playoff feel to it as well," Carlisle said. 'That helps."

For the second straight game, the Pacers started a lineup of five players 24 and under -- rookies Andrew Nembhard and Bennedict Mathurin in the backcourt, third-year wings Aaron Nesmith and Jordan Nwora at the forward spots and second-year big man Isaiah Jackson at center. The Pacers needed 30-something veterans T.J. McConnell and George Hill to function as a second-unit backcourt and James Johnson to step in at center for a while because of foul trouble, but forward Oshae Brissett and center Jalen Smith came off the bench so that seven of the 10 players the Pacers used were under 25.

On offense, Carlisle let them loose. The Bucks play the Celtics, the second-place team in the Eastern Conference, in a nationally televised game Thursday night. Carlisle knew the last thing they'd want is an uptempo game in the first night of the back-to-back. So that's what he gave them.

The Pacers are already the 10th-fastest team in the league and they dialed it up a notch on Wednesday. The Bucks had 111 possessions and the Pacers 108. The Pacers had 101 field goal attempts, the most they've had since Jan. 14, making 52.5% of their shots and knocking down 14 of 30 3-pointers. They had seven scorers in double figures, posted 36 assists on 53 baskets and registered a sharp efficiency figure of 1.25 points per possession.

"I think the best thing we did today was just push the pace on a team that has a lot of vets that probably don't want to run and play as fast as we do all game," said Nembhard, who posted a career-high 15 assists to go with 15 points. "We got a lot of good stuff in transition I'm pretty sure. I think that was the best part of our game and we were just playing free basketball. We weren't running too many plays, just trying to play off of each other and read each other's movements on the court."

The Pacers have pushed Nembhard to be more aggressive when he's running the show, and they also wanted the wings to feel free to attack and create as well. Mathurin, Nesmith and Nwora have rarely had the opportunity to play together this season, but they played excellent in concert on Wednesday. Mathurin scored 29 points. Nesmith had 22 on 7 of 9 shooting including 5 of 5 from 3-point range and Nwora scored 18 points against the team that traded him in February.

"I think we're all just starting to learn each other and figure each other out," Nwora said. "We've only been with each other for so long. ... Moving forward, that's a big part of where we are right now, just learning together, growing together for the future."

Bennedict Mathurin's performance was particularly impressive considering how much he struggled over the weekend. He'd started just eight games all season at that point and all because of injury reasons, including two games while Haliburton was out with a sprain ankle. When Haliburton returned, however, Carlisle moved Hield to the bench so that Mathurin would get a better sense of the "responsibility," as he put it, of starting. Mathurin struggled on both ends, missing defensive assignments and scoring just six points on 3 of 8 shooting combined against the Celtics and Hawks.

He scored 26 points on Monday, however, then got his 29 Wednesday on 11 of 21 shooting and 6 of 9 free throws. He also grabbed nine rebounds and two steals and dished out a pair of assists in a performance that served as a reminder of why he should be considered a candidate to be first-team All-Rookie.

"Mathurin is learning a lot about playing as a starter in high-level games and what that's all about," Carlisle said. "I like his vibe. I like his approach. I like the fact that he's a sponge for information right now, before, during and after games. That's how you have to be as a young player with his kind of ability."

On defense, the Pacers couldn't put together any real resistance on Antetokounmpo, on Holiday, or even on center Brook Lopez for that matter. Those three alone scored 110 points on 43 of 62 shooting (69.3%). As a team, the Bucks shot 62.4% from the floor, scored 86 points in the paint and posted 1.34 points per possession.

But even getting schooled like that had educational value. The Pacers got an up close look at Antetokounmpo and a sense of how difficult it is to stop one of the most physically gifted players to ever walk the Earth. In Holiday, Nembhard got to spend time defending a player who encapsulates everything he wants to become as a steady point guard who makes an impact on both ends.

"Damn near everything," Nembhard said when asked what about Holiday he wants to emulate. "He scores from all levels, knows how to use his body really well on both sides of the floor, guards everybody's best player. He's really talented."

The Bucks noticed the same thing about the Pacers, because even though Indiana is as close to tank mode as it will get, it still made the league's best team work.

"For them, the sky's the limit," Antetokounmpo said. "They have a bright future. They have great players. They have obviously an unbelievable coach who knows the game who has put them in position to be successful. And I'm not surprised because you know that coach Rick is always going to have his guys playing hard."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers vs. Bucks: Giannis says ‘sky's the limit’ for Pacers future