MILWAUKEE — The message coming out of Monday's Pacers practice at Fiserv Forum was quite simple. The Pacers know they didn't play well enough to win Game 1 of their best-of-seven playoff series with Milwaukee on Sunday night. They're doing everything they can to ensure that doesn't happen again on Tuesday night in Game 2.
"We’re obviously the team that needs to make the adjustments," Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said. "So we’re in the process of doing that. There’s obviously a lot of things we need to do better."
There wasn't much else to say after a 109-94 loss that saw the Bucks jump out to a 30-point first half lead, with All-Star guard Damian Lillard dropping 35 points over the first two quarters.
The good news for the Blue & Gold is that Sunday's loss only counts as one game in a seven-game series. In fact, it was just the higher seeded team holding serve. If the Pacers can find a way to win Game 2, they'd head back to Indianapolis with homecourt advantage in the series.
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Pascal Siakam has the most playoff experience of any Pacer, having started for the Toronto team that won a title in 2019. He also had the best performance in Game 1, tallying a playoff career-best 36 points on 15-of-25 shooting and 13 rebounds.
Leading up the playoffs, Siakam repeatedly preached the importance of remaining even keel through all the ups and downs of a seven-game series. That message is especially important after a disappointing performance in Game 1.
"Just stay the course," Siakam said. "It’s a series, first to four games. I think that we’ve just got to come in with better intensity. They played well. They had a really good game. They came out, Dame was almost unconscious in that first half. That’s what he does. He’s a great player. (Khris) Middleton was doing the same thing. We’ve just got to be locked in more and have more intensity and go at it again.
"That’s just my message. At the end of the day, if you’re winning by 30 or winning by one, it’s one game."
Accountability starts at the top for the Pacers, with Siakam and All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton. The Bucks keyed their defense around stopping Haliburton in Game 1, and the 24-year-old took just seven shots in his playoff debut. He finished with nine points on 4-of-7 shooting, seven rebounds, and eight assists in just under 38 minutes.
Both after the game on Sunday and again at Monday's practice, Haliburton vowed to be more aggressive in Game 2.
"I thought their scout was good," Haliburton said. "But I think a lot of it was more self-inflicted. They’re a good team, they guard well, but honestly a lot of it is on me more than anything. I’ll be better tomorrow."
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Haliburton said that the Bucks didn't do anything schematically different from the coverages he's grown accustomed to seeing in the second half of the season. Veteran guard Patrick Beverley drew the majority of the minutes on Haliburton and Milwaukee seemed intent on getting the ball out of his hands as much as possible.
Haliburton's biggest takeaway from Game 1 was that the Bucks were able to dictate the pace. The Pacers had a historically great offense in the regular season, leading the league in scoring (123.3 points per game), assists (30.8 per game), and field goal percentage (.507). So much of their success on that end is predicated on their ability to get out and run, with Haliburton and backup point guard T.J. McConnell constantly looking to push the tempo.
The Bucks, however, were able to slow Indiana down on Sunday. The Pacers had just four fastbreak points in the first half and finished the night with a season-low 94 points on just 39.6 percent shooting (20.5 percent from 3-point range).
“When you’re taking the ball out of the rim, it’s hard to control the pace," Haliburton said. "We’ve got to do a better job of getting stops so then we can run. I felt like we rarely were able to do that...That’s a big part of our offense is what we do defensively. But even when they’re making shots, we’ve got to do a better job of getting it out with some pop and getting it down the floor.”
By keeping the Pacers out of transition, the Bucks have been able to clog the paint in the halfcourt, keeping 7-foot-1 center Brook Lopez there as a deterrent from the Pacers attacking the rim.
That focus did result in Milwaukee allowing the Pacers some open looks from beyond the arc on kick-outs, but the Pacers simply didn't knock down shots on Sunday, especially in the first half. Indiana missed its first 13 3-point attempts, not making a three until Myles Turner finally got one to fall with 2:55 remaining in the second quarter.
“We make some shots, the trajectory of the game changes," Haliburton said. "No panic button over here. We’re going to keep doing what we do, run our offense the same (and) shots are going to fall…We’ll be better tomorrow.”
The Pacers can take a little solace in the fact that they had an improved effort in the second half. After Lillard torched them over the first two quarters, they held him scoreless after halftime. And they found a little rhythm offensively, particularly late in the third quarter, when they closed the frame with a 13-2 run to get back within 12.
It was too little too late for a comeback, as the Bucks put the game away with a spurt of their own at the start of the fourth quarter. But the Pacers showed some signs of life in the second half.
"I thought we just had a little bit more," Siakam said. "In the playoffs, it’s about that, having a little bit more. We’ve got to have a lot more. Show more aggressiveness and compete. Our compete level’s got to go up."