Hooray! The Pacers have finally won a game, moving them out of the total losers bracket. And they won because Domantas Sabonis literally could not be stopped by any player on the Nets roster. He was simply too much of a man for them.
Jarrett Allen, I can understand him getting dominated by Sabonis. He’s kinda scrawny, doesn’t seem like he enjoys contact very much. He’s more of a shot-blocker than a stout post defender. But DeAndre Jordan, man, you gotta be stronger than that. You can’t just let Sabonis put his elbows into you over and over until you’re underneath the rim and he’s scoring with ease. You’re, like, a million times bigger than he is.
And if Sabonis wasn’t making the Nets’ bigs look like Swiss cheese, he was dropping three-pointers on their heads. Slowly, he’s adding that shot back to his game after abandoning it wholly in his first few years with the Pacers. Combine that with his post play and intriguing short midrange game (which we didn’t really get to see in this one), and he’s turning into a complete offensive player without anyone really noticing.
If the Pacers want to keep winning games (because just one is not enough), they need to keep running the Malcolm Brogdon/Domantas Sabonis pick-and-roll until it stops working. And then keep running it, because it’s not ever going to stop working. Ever. No need for anyone else to touch the ball, really.