Indiana Pacers: 3 takeaways from Game 1 vs. Cavaliers

3. Going big didn’t work

All season long, there has been one lineup combination the Pacers haven’t played that much of, but has remained intriguing nonetheless. They broke it out on Sunday afternoon, and it wasn’t great.

All year, the Pacers have spoken about both Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis as two-thirds of their young core, conveniently ignoring the fact that they both play the same position. Nate McMillan has played them together on occasion, mostly to middling results.

Sunday won’t have him rushing to do it again. In five minutes of court time, lineups featuring Turner and Sabonis were outscored by 11 points. It makes sense that a team thriving on defensive pressure would skip a beat when two slower guys shared the floor. The Cavs almost never play with two bigs now that they’ve put Tristan Thompson in mothballs, so don’t look for this combo to see much more time.

At least not in this series.