The Pacers wrap up the pre-season tonight in a clash with division and in-season tournament group rivals, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

This is the first of three meetings with Cavs over the next two weeks. After taking on Washington at home for the season opener on Wednesday, the Pacers will travel to Cleveland on Saturday for the first road game of the year. The teams will then reconvene at Gainbridge Fieldhouse two weeks from today for the first in-season tournament game in franchise history.

Lineup Expectations, Tonight and Going Forward

It's hard to gauge what the lineups will look like tonight. I'd expect Carlisle to keep his regular season rotation in tact for at least a half as Tyrese Haliburton has only played 23 minutes of game action and Andrew Nembhard will be making his pre-season debut.

According to the coach, "everything is still on the table" as far as the competition for minutes. Frankly, I don't expect that to change once the season starts. The team is simply too deep for 90% of the players to rest on their laurels. However, the competition will be an important subtext to tonight's game because the reintegration of Andrew Nembhard is no small thing.

Carlisle usually likes to play an 11-man rotation early in the year, with the 11th guy getting 10 or less minutes. So if we assume that 1. Tyrese 2. Brown 3. Mathurin 4. Toppin and 5. Turner are the starters, that leaves the following seven players competing for the final six spots (five of which get a decent run).

  1. TJ
  2. Nembhard
  3. Buddy
  4. Nesmith
  5. Smith
  6. Walker
  7. Sheppard

It's easy to cross off Sheppard because he's a rookie and he has positional overlap with Nembhard. At the same time, Sheppard has been one of the best performers of the pre-season. If all the talk about open competition wasn't merely lip-service, Sheppard deserves to play. That aside, I expect him to have to wait his turn.

This is where things get trickier. Walker, like Sheppard, seems like the obvious choice as the 11th guy. He's another a rookie with unpaid dues and, unlike Sheppard, his pre-season performances have been hit or miss. But, positionally, Walker is important. Benching Jarace for most of the game slides Nesmith back to the four and might negate the gains he's seemingly made in attacking from above the break. It also dampens the emphasis the team has placed on playing individual defense and rebounding. As we saw last year, while Nesmith is a dog defensively, he gives up too much height against most power forwards to simply guard them one-on-one. That bench unit would likely have to go back to trapping and rotating if it plays with four guards and Smith.

So if you play Walker at the four, which one of the veteran guards suffers? Nembhard is at his best as a point guard, meaning TJ would probably have his minutes cut in half. On balance, I think that's my preferred solution. It's a tough pill to swallow for McConnell, a guy who's still playing great basketball and whose fiery leadership is an important catalyst for this young team. But it balances the development of Walker and Nembhard in their natural positions with schematic fit in a way that satisfies both the future and the present.

As I mentioned earlier, the position battles will rage all throughout the season, so don't expect any dispostive answers to lineup questions tonight.

Obi Putting in Work

Carlisle and Obi spoke to reporters after yesterday's practice about Obi putting in extra work with Jim Boylen to get better on defense. Apparently, Obi has been in the building on just about every off-day to watch film and practice positioning and making the right defensive reads.

He's also working at getting better at defending smaller players, with an emphasis on "staying grounded." That means both staying low in his defensive stance and sliding his feet, as well as not biting on pump fakes.

The coaching staff believes that if he can do that and do a better job rebounding, Obi will grow into a special player. On the topic of rebounding, Obi is aware that he has a tendency to leak out rather than crash the defensive glass. He said he's committed to ensuring that the Pacers have the ball before he starts running the floor. He doesn't think that will hamper his fast break opportunities much because he's faster than most people guarding him and he doesn't really need the head start.

How to Watch

Tip-off is at 7:00 PM ET. The game will be broadcast locally on Bally Sports and out-of-market on NBA League Pass. For radio listeners, you'll find it on 93.5/107.5 The Fan.

See ya in the comments!

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