NBA
Andrew Nembhard Fills The Gaps For The Pacers
Jackson Frank is a freelance NBA writer and editor who's been covering the league since 2017. He's previously written for places such as The Athletic and SB Nation. He loves ing big men and defensive-minded wings, and is always on the hunt for the perfect taco.
Get to know Jackson Frank betterPublished22 May 2025
To ignite Game 1’s high-scoring affair between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks — a 138-135 overtime victory for Indiana to snag a 1-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals — Andrew Nembhard twice thumped the ball between his legs and laced a pull-up triple from the top of the key. Given Nembhard’s reputation as a playoff showman, the early bucket might’ve suggested a gaudy individual performance was on the horizon.
Instead, he took a backseat in the box score much of the night. He missed his only other two shots of the first half and ended the opening 24 minutes with four points and two assists. When overtime arrived, Nembhard was stuck on eight points and three assists.
Yet five minutes later, once the Pacers had cemented another improbable comeback and stolen home-court advantage, Nembhard certainly made his voice heard, recording seven points and a helper in the extra period. He delivered some of the biggest plays of overtime, even if Tyrese Haliburton and Aaron Nesmith’s theatrics rightfully garnered the loftiest praise.
Throughout the night, Nembhard filled whatever gaps Indiana, Haliburton and Pascal Siakam required of him. He has embedded himself as a copacetic fit with these Pacers, and Game 1 was no different. Nesmith took the largest share of the Jalen Brunson assignment defensively, but Nembhard etched his mark on that end and has become a pestering point-of-attack option. He can maintain advantages operating off the catch, keep the ball humming as a playmaker and thrive when tasked with secondary creation.
Consider a play like this, where Haliburton recognizes Myles Turner may be open in the paint yet lacks the proper angle or necessary timing to feed the big man. He reads the floor, locates Nembhard and lofts a to his backcourt mate, who swiftly delivers it to Turner and helps generate a pair of free throws.
If Nembhard enters the ball a beat later, OG Anunoby may be positioned to deny Turner and the advantage is extinguished. But that doesn’t happen. Indiana’s rotation is full of valuable ers and decision-makers, Nembhard included.
On one overtime possession, Indiana deployed Haliburton as a decoy to load the weak-side and occupy help. Doing so offered Nembhard the requisite space to attack Brunson, who owned five fouls and rolled out the red carpet to avoid a sixth. With help so focused on the Pacers’ star point guard, Nembhard received a crushing screen from Nesmith to enact the switch and plowed inside for an unimpeded score (71 percent at the rim this regular season, 90th percentile among combo guards, per Cleaning the Glass).
A shrewd call like that from head coach Rick Carlisle and his staff to leverage Haliburton’s gravity cannot function without another ball-handler available to punish Brunson. Fortunately, Nembhard is qualified for the gig. It’s a harmonic marriage between scheme and personnel, the prevailing theme of Indiana’s back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals appearances.
Shortly after the go-ahead bucket by Nembhard, he’s back at the helm with Indiana down a point. This time, Haliburton screens for Nembhard, who again beats the cautious, foul-stricken Brunson downhill and shocks New York’s defense into rotation. Nothing he contributes here shows up in the box score yet he’s the one who ensured the Knicks were trailing the play and could never recover before Obi Toppin pogo-sticked home a putback dunk (note the timeliness and accuracy of the kickout , too).
Occasionally, he served as a ball-screen release valve to either burn mismatches developing outside of Haliburton’s orbit or capitalize against a scrambling New York unit. First, his dribble-drive game bolted him past Mitchell Robinson to get Thomas Bryant a touch versus Brunson — matchups stemming from the Knicks’ decision to hedge the screen on Haliburton and also for Nembhard’s offensive threat (that’s quite the nifty no-look dime to set up Bryant’s finish).
Then, much deeper into Wednesday’s affair, New York switched a Haliburton-Siakam pick-and-roll with Miles McBride and Karl-Anthony Towns. But as Robinson lurked inside, Siakam avoided the lanky, domineering rim protector. So, he swung the ball to Nembhard. At that point, the Knicks didn’t want to leave the smaller McBride on Siakam and Anunoby switched him out of the matchup. That left the 6-foot-4 Nembhard to plunge into the 6-foot-2 McBride and elevate for a pull-up jumper (46 percent from midrange in the regular season, 76th percentile).
Throughout the Pacers’ mad dash to force overtime, their offensive cohesion was apparent. Every trip down, they had various actions ready and executed them pristinely. New York’s poor defense just guaranteed most of the good shots created would fall. That synergy is integral to their success. They know where to be on the floor, who performs which duties and will cycle through choice after choice until they discover something of quality.
Nembhard is no different in his “role clarity,” as Turner calls it. After New York surged ahead in overtime with a four-point lead, Nembhard filled his lane, spaced away from Nesmith as to not bunch up and Haliburton snapped a to him for the corner long ball. During the regular season, he’s only a career 33.5 percent 3-point shooter but has thus far knocked down 49.5 percent (53-of-107) of his playoff triples in two seasons.
And it’s not just drilling spot-up threes or chiseling into off-the-bounce jumpers where Nembhard thrives alongside Indiana’s hubs. On separate occasions in Game 1, he parlayed the extra attention Haliburton and Siakam commanded into cuts for buckets.
Anunoby overindulged on a Siakam post-up, which left Nembhard open under the rim. Late in overtime, Josh Hart was so focused on potentially providing help for Brunson against Haliburton that he fell asleep and let Nembhard score comfortably following a 45 cut to the rim (Indiana would not trail again in the game).
For all Nembhard showcases as a complementary offensive cog, he is perhaps considerably more impactful defensively. Despite Donovan Mitchell’s incredible second-round showing, Nembhard wrangled valiantly with the star slasher. His blend of strength, deceleration, fluid change of deceleration and slippery screen navigation are menacing; ball-handlers struggle to manufacture clean air against him. His footwork and technique fighting around picks are textbook.
Watch him duck his shoulder low, stay connected to Anunoby, run him off the line with a feisty yet disciplined closeout and incite an offensive foul:
And on the preeminent play of the game, Nembhard was prepared for Brunson’s tendencies. He knows Brunson prefers taking stepback threes to his right — basically every player is more comfortable going to their non-dominant hand — and shaded the All-NBA point guard away from that side. As a result, Brunson was out of rhythm and misfired badly on his game-tying hoist. He may have found some room, but it didn’t happen where or how he desired. That’s because of Nembhard.
Off the ball, he’s diligent and active, like when he rotated to Towns behind a Mikal Bridges post-up, deterred the jumper, coaxed a and stunted on Brunson’s drive for the steal…
…Or when, with under 30 seconds to go, he anticipated the play-call, shot the gap, deflected the and prompted a massive turnover.
The Pacers’ shot-making trivializes a lot of possible roster flaws; they tout so many adept shooters and decision-makers to override most concerns. The game has been, and always will be, about buckets, of course. But all that scoring nonetheless leaves room elsewhere to fill. It’s often where Nembhard emerges for Indiana, and it’s absolutely where he emerged in Game 1.
