Indiana Pacers Postgame Media Availability vs Cleveland Cavaliers (Game 3) | May 9, 2025

Indiana Pacers Postgame Media Availability vs Cleveland Cavaliers (Game 3) | May 9, 2025

Well, I’m going to try to answer all your questions before you ask them. Uh, this is was a very poor effort at the beginning of the game. Um, through too many parts of the game. Uh, it’s on all of us. We all own it. Um, pretty clearly I didn’t have these guys ready for this. So, I take responsibility for for that. Um, Tai had a rough game. I gotta do more to get him involved, get him shots, um, get him in better positions to, you know, defend better, all those kinds of things. So, um, you know, the guy’s had an amazing week. It’s one game and if he was up here, he’d say, “I’ll be better, you know.” So, he will and and I got to help him be better. Um, in terms of the zone defense, um, we’ll look at it. We’ve seen every zone there is this year. We’ve had success against everything we’ve seen. We’ve had struggles at times, but we’ll we’ll adjust and do better. Um, and then uh you know, Cleveland played great and they played desperate. They played the way they needed to play. Um, and you know, we’ve we’ve got to simply fight harder from the very beginning of the game. We did not do that. I mean, you get down 11 nothing. Um, you know, you’re not you’re not there. You’re not there the way you need to be. And so we got to do better there. You’ve talked about rebounding a lot throughout the series being something. Well, we got k we got killed on the boards. I mean, look, you know, it’s 56- 37 on the boards, 18 to4 on the offensive boards. And look, this is not this this is not on the officials. All right? Zero to do with the officials. this is us not playing with enough presence, posture, disposition, whatever you want to call it. And so, um, we we’ve got to fix it. And, you know, we’ve got 48 hours to do it. And actually, it’s a little less than that now. But, um, you know, it’s, uh, you know, playoff series are are long. Um, lots of ups and downs, lots of like new storylines every every game. I mean, um, you know, from from the standpoint of this game, the story line is, you know, we we we got to fight harder. We didn’t fight hard enough. They did. They outfought us. Since you mentioned forcing disposition, I guess, was that a big reason why you put James in at the end to make a point about forcing disposition and put a guy out there that’s obviously going to play with that? James has been working hard and decided to put him in the game to get some minutes. What um you’ve talked about how some guys can change the geometry of games. How do you think Evan Mobley being back changed the geometry of this one both when they were playing zone and when they were playing man? Well, look Moy is a great player. He’s a defensive player of the year and he’s an all-star. So, you know, um bring that guy. It’s like bringing Hakee Awan back to the Houston Rockets, you know, or I’m trying to think of who else, you know, um he’s a great player, so he’s going to he’s going to help their team be be considerably better. And so, you know, for us, you know, we’ve got to we’ve got to do better at the point of attack. We got to block them out. Um we got to keep we got to stay square on them and make it harder for them. Uh we didn’t we didn’t do that enough with any of their guys. And you know, we’ve got to we’ve got to we’ve got to pick it up obviously. What u I guess in terms of I guess one positive what would you like from what you saw from Ben Math in terms of especially after you had that I’m not worried about Matine. I mean in a game like this um where it’s physical and it becomes a fight. I mean that’s his kind of game and he’s showed out you know he showed up and it’s not just about him putting the ball in the basket. I mean, he’s out there fighting, you know, fighting these guys full court. And um I thought he had he had a good mindset and I thought I thought some of our guys had had a good a good mindset. We just collectively didn’t do enough together. And we can’t have, you know, we can’t have four guys tied together and one guy on a possession, you know, not all there. And you know, I’m sure when I go back and look at it, there will be a lot of those. And that’s, you know, we own it. So, you know, we got to do better, Rick. Donovan had backto-back 40-point games. I guess what do you all have to do differently to contain him more? I know he’s a great player, but what have you seen? Yeah, I mean, he’s a great player. Um, we got to make it harder on him. I I don’t I don’t know what else to tell you. Um, he’s, you know, he’s opportunistic. He’s been living at the free throw line. We got to keep him off the free throw line. I mean, it’s one thing if he makes difficult shots over over a hand. It’s another thing if if if we march him to the free throw line and give him man in ones. We can’t do that. Pascal, that zone they went in really challenged you guys in this game. What is so difficult about it or the way they’ve been trying to defend you guys today? I mean, I just thought it was just slow. We didn’t we didn’t get to anything really. Um, weren’t able to attack it in in a good way. We’re just going to go back, watch it, um, find a way to get better. I mean, uh, I don’t know. I can’t really tell you much about it. And you found some cracks in that defense. What did What do you think is the key to getting through it in the next game? Just watching film, learning from it, and doing it. Rick’s talked about rebounding being a big thing for you guys. They I think we’re 19 more than you guys in this game. Is that something they’re doing? Technique. Why do you feel like you guys have been so behind in this? Yeah, they they play like a team that’s down 200 and, you know, they they outfought us, out rebounded us. Um, yeah, that can’t happen. Uh it doesn’t matter who they have like or what they do like we like yeah that’s bad. So we got to get better at that. There a theme to these slow starts to you? This is two games in a row or just you guys got to get going better? Um yeah, we just got to bring the fight from the beginning like um we just we just didn’t we just didn’t do it and um we we we have to correct it and do do it the next game. Um but yeah, they they they brought the fight to us. We can’t let that happen. For either both of you guys, how does just moy change the geometry of what you do? What what they do? I mean, how much how does it he just make them a lot difficult more difficult to attack? He’s obviously defensive player of the year, but how does he add to what they can do? Um um I yeah, I don’t I don’t know much. I mean, I think he’s his length like he’s like you said, defensive player of the year. So, um they got him Jared Allen, like you know, they they pressured us and they they move well. So, yeah, like I said, I think they played better and we got to we got to we got to bring another gear to to what we do. Pasco didn’t seem like it’s a while for you to get a rhythm in this series, but seemed like you were able to get some buckets down the stretch uh and kind of find a rhythm there. I mean, what do you what do you feel like you found, I guess, in the second half, uh in terms of opportunity to get some buckets? No, I just got to find, you know, some creases in the offense, you know, continue to move as a team. We got to cut we got we can’t be predictable. Um that’s what we’ve been all year. Um, and I think, you know, we just got to continue to, um, find ways to stay active on on offense and, um, you know, keep the ball moving and and just find find spaces and and, you know, like just take whatever the defense gives us. Pascal, how do you just wash this one and move on to focus on game four? Yeah, you just got to move on. At the end of the day, it’s one game. Um uh I I this is serious, you know, and you know, like we we won two games and obviously that feels good, but um we understand that it’s it’s going to be a fight and and those guys um are where they are for a reason. So they they they came back and um like I said earlier, they out fought us on in every category. Like I mean 50/50 um rebounds like they they just did better than us and and we got to go back um and and come back stronger. But um I I believe in our team and and the level of you know resilience that we have and the guys that we have on our squad. Like I I know that you know this one is going to sting, but we got to we going to come back and and be better next game. Ben, after such a great game for yourself today, how frustrating is it that you still have to, you know, walk away as a team with with the loss like this? Um I mean I I wouldn’t say it’s a I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing, you know. I think it’s just a moment of uh a reality, you know, a reality check to come back uh for next game on Sunday and just be ready to play. How does this team regroup from your perspective for Sunday’s game? It already started. Um we lost the game. We got together and you know, tomorrow is another day. Um I feel like it’s not it is another like day to to you know, to realize what we did wrong and just to apply for next game. Pascal, you obviously have a ton of playoff experience and success in the playoffs. With Tyrese having a game like today, what do you say to him tonight, tomorrow to get him ready for Sunday? Um, I always say playoffs is up and down. Like, I mean, and you’re going to have um you’re going to have good days, you’re going to have character building days, and you know, this is one of those. We just got to um continue to get better. We’re going to watch film. I’m sure he’s going to do that. um he works extremely hard on his craft and um as a team we just like I said we just didn’t we just didn’t have the juice that we usually have and um and and it’s not an individual thing it’s like it’s a team thing and um and for us we just got to go back um continue to work we we know what we got to do um and like I said it’s a series and and and it’s it’s great that we won two games in a row and like everything you know everybody I’m sure everybody’s excited but um you have a team on the other side that that wants to accomplish something too and um it’s going to a fight and and we got to be the the the team that fights the most and and fights harder and um and I think we’re going to do that next game. Uh for both gentlemen, what’s the what’s the line between bringing more physicality, more energy to a game without going over that line and whether it’s putting Mitchell on the foul line or lot getting a lot of fouls, that sort of thing. How do you bring that right to the edge where you can be physical back to them without giving something up? Yeah, I think I think we got to we got to find um you know the balance and and um I think you know the game has been called you know in a physical way and and I think you know we just got to um continue to do what we do and and at the end of the day like um I I don’t think we we have to adjust who we are like we we going to be who we are and um and live live with the

Rick Carlisle, Pascal Siakam and Bennedict Mathurin speak to the media following Friday’s loss to the Cavaliers in Game 3.

0:00 – Rick Carlisle
4:56 – Pascal Siakam & Bennedict Mathurin