Mark Daigneault | Indiana Pacers Post-Game | Feb. 25, 2022
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00:00Here is coach. We'll go with questions in the room and then we'll take the zoom.
00:03Go ahead with questions in the room. Go ahead.
00:06Casey Fender dot com. Mark, that overtime was just kind of pure hoops for four and a half
00:12minutes with no stoppages. What did you like about the way your team just kind of grinded that out?
00:18I thought the response, I mean, obviously it was a wacky play at the end of regulation,
00:22you know, a three point lead. And then, you know, the ball kind of squirted out.
00:26They get a second chance at it and bang a three. That's tough, you know, when you have an
00:31opportunity to close the game like that. And I thought the guys did a really good job of getting
00:34present and getting back where their feet are on the ground and, you know, strung together some
00:40stops, got some timely scores, timely plays executed well. I thought it was good.
00:45Also, what'd you think about the way Shea and Trey were kind of able to play off of each other,
00:51depending on how Indiana was guarding and then how it culminates with the Trey getting Shea
00:56in transition? Yeah. You know, I thought they were both really good. Obviously, you know,
01:00Shea was a, you know, really pretty dominant pace all night. They had a hard time keeping him away
01:04from the basket and out of the paint. And then I thought he made the right plays. And I thought,
01:09especially late, look, to your point, you know, they were starting to double them and Trey was
01:13an outlet for them. Trey did a really good job of attacking. I think, you know, because of Shea's
01:18talent, it's easy to catch it and want to throw the ball back to him to have him make every play.
01:23And I thought to our guys' credit, when we faced the double teams late in the game,
01:27like Shea got it out of those double teams and the guys just played out of them. The Basley three
01:31came on that play. Trey Mann obviously made some big shots, some big plays. So I thought they did
01:36a good job of staying aggressive. And then last thing, you kind of mentioned the execution on
01:40Basley. There was a couple threes that ended up in Whitney Waters' hands after some really nice
01:46ball movement, particularly the one at the end of the third quarter. Yep. Just your thoughts on
01:50the way that that group created those, generated those shots. And, you know,
01:55it's a lot of guys that haven't played together before, but they're making that happen.
01:58I thought the bench guys were really good. I mean, we're on the second night of a back-to-back,
02:01we're traveling in between. You know, I thought those guys gave us really quality minutes. They
02:06played 18, 20 minutes a piece and did a really good job as a unit. They generated good shots,
02:11they got some stops. You know, Lindy missed his first couple and then just kept staying with it,
02:15you know, which is impressive. And I thought Maladon, you know, after not playing very much
02:19last night, gave us really good minutes tonight. I thought Poku was really good, especially in
02:23some flurries of the game. And so, you know, we got contributions up and down the roster tonight.
02:30Mark, Lindy led your bench of minutes tonight, and you had only played, I think,
02:34eight minutes with a spare on the court tonight. Yep. You played 23. Yep. Made a couple of those
02:39punches. Did you learn anything about it or notice anything new now that you've got it?
02:45I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, I wouldn't say learn anything new, but just learn
02:50that kind of his style and the things that we've seen with him with the blue are kind of carrying
02:54into a game like that. So, haven't had the opportunity to throw him in the rotation yet.
02:59With Josh being out tonight, all the guys we have out, I thought it was a good opportunity to do
03:02that. We went to him early in both halves and I thought he played well. Like I said, he didn't
03:06get off from a shooting standpoint to a great start, but just kind of stayed with it, kept
03:10playing and did enough in his floor game and defensively to keep himself on the floor. I
03:14thought he played well. You guys scored 40 points in the second quarter. What did you see in the
03:19second quarter that was working so well? I thought it started with that bench unit. You know, those
03:23guys, they really set the tone. I think we played them all the way down to the four or five minute
03:28mark of that quarter. So, it was the majority of that group. It was Maladon, Hoku, Roby,
03:33Lindy and Veet. You know, those guys kept it moving. They stayed aggressive. They stayed
03:37downhill, always ahead of the defense. They got stops and allowed us to get out and run. A lot of
03:42good things there. I wanted to touch on just the boys that you mentioned, not just in the crunch
03:51time and overtime, but throughout the game, they were throwing a lot of punches. You guys kind of
03:54had to respond to a lot of runs and it was a lot of different guys doing that. Just what did you
03:57think of collectively as a group? Yeah, I thought pretty good. You know, and out of a lot of guys
04:04that, like I said, that bench unit hasn't played a ton, certainly together, but they just kind of
04:09hung in there on the road. And then, you know, that starting group, you know, took the punches late.
04:14You know, we were down by four, I think with about five minutes to go, which was the same situation
04:18we were in last night. And then, you know, last five minutes of the game, you know, we dug in there,
04:23got some stops, whereas last night, obviously the defense kind of let us down. And so, I thought
04:27there was improvement there. You know, I thought the boys, again, up and down for a young team was
04:32really, really good tonight. Anybody else in the room? Go ahead. Just to follow up on
04:41Shae's end one there, late in overtime, Trey's got it on a fast break. Are you sort of like
04:47wondering to yourself, okay, like what decision is he going to make here? And then he pulls up
04:51a little bit, Shae's trailing, you find Shae, like, well, what did you think of that sequence?
04:56I mean, he's just, he's proven, I mean, you go back to the Dallas game on the road,
05:00Trey Mann now, you know, Dallas game on the road, Knicks game on the road. There was just kind of
05:06like a, there's a poise to him. You know, he doesn't seem too rattled by the moment, you know,
05:10he's a baller. And so, you know, I'm not surprised at this point when he stays aggressive and tries
05:16to make plays. And I thought on that one in particular, you know, he had good poise, you
05:20know, we had timeouts in our pocket, but you got a broken floor situation. You got to kind of trust
05:24your guys there. We were able to convert, you know, I thought he showed really good poise.
05:29All right. We got two on Zoom. We'll go first to Christos Saltas. Go ahead, Christos,
05:34with your question. Hello, coach. Congratulations on the win. Great win, first of all.
05:40Speaking about Shae, we mentioned a lot about his leadership, the way that he leads on the
05:45floor, but how his presents help the other guys to maximize their effort and take the best out
05:51of them on the floor. Yeah, I thought he did a pretty good job of that today. I mean, they were
05:56switching a lot of pick and rolls, one through five, which slows your offense down and certainly
06:02presents some mismatch opportunities from him. And he had some plays where I thought he might
06:06have been a little overzealous, but other than that, you know, I thought he had a really good
06:09balance of attacks tonight and also getting his teammates involved. You know, he shot the ball
06:14well tonight. I thought we played in a good rhythm offensively in both units, and I thought he had a
06:18lot to do with that. And we'll wrap it up with Jerry Ramsey. Go ahead with your question, Jerry.
06:24Hey, Coach. I've heard you say before that if you can do it in a Blue game, you can do it
06:29in a Thunder game. Can you just reiterate your confidence in what a majority of your guys are
06:35out on the floor tonight, spent some time with the Blue? Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things I
06:40learned when I coached with the Blue and in the G League is that, you know, the top end talent in
06:46the G League is different from the NBA. Obviously, the size and athleticism is different, but the
06:51style of a player is not different. And at the end of the day, it's still basketball. And if a
06:57player stylistically is showing skills in a G League game, be it, you know, Wiggins or Dork
07:04defensively on, you know, really good scoring guards, or whether it's, you know, Trey Mann's
07:08ability to get to his help spots, Poku's pace, Maladon's pace up the floor. Lindy Waters is
07:15kind of floor game and style of play. You know, I've seen enough guys go from G League games to
07:20NBA games and really not look a whole lot different, you know, enough to know that, you
07:26know, you can have confidence in what they get into the game with the Blue. And so I give them
07:31credit. They've kept themselves ready. They've taken an optimistic and opportunistic viewpoint
07:36towards that program. And, you know, like I said, we think that program's extremely valuable to our
07:41development program. And, you know, I thought tonight was an example of that. Thanks coach.
07:45Thank you guys. Thanks coach. We'll bring players next.