Discover how Rick Carlisle‘s coaching evolution, from Mavericks too Pacers, unlocked the potential of star point guards. This article examines Carlisle’s pivotal relationships with Jason kidd,Luka Dončić,and now,Tyrese Haliburton,highlighting the trust and freedom that fuel the Pacers’ dynamic offense. Learn how Carlisle’s willingness to adapt has transformed his coaching style, leading to success on and off the court. News Directory 3 insights reveal the secrets behind Indiana’s playoff run. Explore the strategic shifts and player dynamics, and see the future unfold.
During a replay review late in the fourth quarter of Game 1 of the NBA
Finals, the stage was set for Tyrese Haliburton’s game-winning shot.
The Pacers were awaiting the outcome of a challenge from coach Rick Carlisle,
who wanted officials to double-check whether
pascal Siakam
was fouled or had touched the ball last before it went out of bounds.
It was a pivotal moment with Indiana trailing by one point, adn Carlisle
wanted to make sure his team was prepared for either outcome. If the review
was successful,the Pacers would have possession. If not, he instructed his
crew to play defense and get a stop without fouling. With an eight-second
difference between the shot and game clock, the message was clear: no more
timeouts. Get the rebound and go.
“Get the ball in Tyrese’s hands,” Carlisle said after the game. “And look
to make a play.”
First, the Pacers got the stop against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the
league’s reigning MVP, who missed a 15-foot fadeaway with
andrew nembhard
glued to his hip on defense.
Aaron Nesmith
corralled a tough rebound over Lu Dort before a crowd of players swarmed to
the paint. Nesmith quickly shuffled the ball to Siakam, who found
Obi Toppin, who swung the ball to Haliburton just before half court with six seconds
remaining.
What followed was one of the most clutch shots in NBA Finals history.
Haliburton dribbled and jab-stepped along the Pacers’ sideline before
curling back inside the arc and rising up to score the game-winning basket,
a 21-foot jumper with 0.3 seconds remaining
as the Pacers stole Game 1 of the series in Oklahoma City.
It may have seemed easy for Carlisle to trust Haliburton in that moment,
especially given the Pacers star’s propensity for hitting big shots in the
biggest moments — Game 1 was his fourth game-winning or game-tying shot in
the final seconds of these playoffs — but such faith is years in the
making.
The freedom the Pacers play with on offense is born out of the relationship
between carlisle and Haliburton, a bond that began the night after Indiana
traded for Haliburton in February 2022. But the groundwork also dates back
to Carlisle’s tenure with the
Dallas Mavericks, starting in his first season with the team in 2008-09 when he butted
heads with Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd and continuing when Carlisle
was tasked with the handling of another emerging superstar:
Luka Doncic.
“What I learned my first year in Dallas was to give J-Kidd the ball and get
out of the way, let him run the show, let him run the team,” Carlisle said
before the start of the NBA Finals. “Tyrese,very similar situation,but
didn’t take half a season to figure it out. the situation in Dallas with
Luka was the same.
“It’s pretty clear, when you have a player of that kind of magnitude, that
kind of presence, that kind of knowledge, vision and depth, you got to let
them do what they do.”
The beliefs has paid off for the Pacers, who took a 2-1 NBA Finals lead
over the
Oklahoma City Thunder
on Wednesday night with a 116-107 victory.
Haliburton and Carlisle have been the masterminds behind this Pacers’
offense, which is scoring 116.7 points per 100 possessions in the
postseason while featuring a fast-paced style and comeback ethos that has
fueled an improbable playoff run through the Eastern Conference.
At the center of it all sits a coach who has learned to adapt through the
years with a point guard he happily turned over the reins to.
“When he gave me that nod, that was like the ultimate respect,” Haliburton
said after practice tuesday. “That was the ultimate trust that I could get
from anybody, because he is such a brilliant basketball mind. He’s been
around such great guards, great players. for him to give me that
confidence, I think has really taken my career to another level.”
The empowering of Kidd, a development that followed a lot of headbutting
between coach and point guard, could be considered a turning point in
Carlisle’s career.
Carlisle carried a reputation for being controlling when he first arrived in
Dallas.He was known to clash with players during the early days of his
coaching career in his first stint with Indiana from 2003 to 2007, when he
was coaching Metta Sandiford-artest, Stephen Jackson and Jamaal Tinsley.
Those Pacers won 61 games and went to the Eastern Conference finals in
2003-04, but they also played a meticulous style with Carlisle calling
plays on nearly every possession.
When Carlisle arrived in Dallas a few years later, he tried to do the same,
even with Kidd, 35 years old with nine All-Star appearances, on the roster.
It didn’t go over well.
“It wasn’t easy for [Carlisle] to let it go,” former NBA guard J.J. Barea,
who played with the Mavs from 2006 to 2011 and again from 2014 to 2020,
told ESPN. “To be more free about it. But he knew for us to win he had to
let it go. J-Kidd and him went to battle, but it worked out at the end.”
Kidd emphasized how he wanted the offense to be more free-flowing,
stressing that a savvy point guard dictating the flow of the game would lead
to better rhythm than a coach on the sidelines trying to manufacture it.
Carlisle resisted for more than half a season. It wasn’t until midway
through the 2010-11 season — his third year coaching Kidd in Dallas —
that Carlisle really gave his point guard the reins. The Mavs won the
championship that season.
Carlisle didn’t wait nearly as long to give Doncic the keys to the Mavs’
offense. That occurred while Doncic was a teenager in the midst of his
Rookie of the Year campaign during the 2018-19 season.
The personal relationship between Carlisle and Doncic
was often rocky, but the partnership between coach and point guard produced outstanding
offensive results. In Doncic’s second season, the Mavs set the NBA record
at the time for offensive efficiency by averaging 115.9 points per 100
possessions.
carlisle constructed an offensive system that suited Doncic, one that was
drastically different from the one that Kidd operated. Carlisle’s Mavs
played a heliocentric style with Doncic dominating the ball,emphasizing
spacing with stationary spot-up shooting threats as he ran pick-and-roll
after pick-and-roll.
The Pacers are succeeding with Haliburton operating a system that is fueled
by playing fast and off-ball movement.
“One thing you can say about Rick is he coaches his talent,” Haralabos
Voulgaris, the Mavs director of quantitative research and development from
2018 to 2021, told ESPN. “His system is whatever maximizes the talent that
he has. He understands that the game is changing and he has to always keep
on changing and learning and adapting and growing.
“It’s not many older coaches that have had that mentality, especially ones
that had success when they were younger.”
Carlisle’s track record with point guards hasn’t always been perfect. He
clashed with Rajon Rondo a few years after Doncic’s rookie season, with
Rondo wanting to play more methodically while Carlisle advocated for
pushing the pace.The rocky relationship led to Rondo’s tenure in Dallas
lasting just 46 games.
“It wasn’t a good fit for either of them,” Barea said.
Carlisle wasn’t a fan of the Mavs’ trade for Rondo, agreeing to it only
because Dirk Nowitzki wanted it, and didn’t consider Rondo to be the type
of talent that merited offensive control. He had no such reservations about
Doncic — or Haliburton.
“When I see Haliburto
