'Exuberance and a defiance': Pacers T.J. McConnell still pushing as season comes to close

INDIANAPOLIS -- Before the word came back from Secaucus, it appeared that T.J. McConnell had won the Pacers a game in the most fitting way possible.

The gritty veteran Pacers point guard was still in the paint when Oklahoma City guard Josh Giddey missed a driving floater and failed to grab his own rebound, allowing it to slip through his hands. As the ball careened to McConnell's right toward the Pacers bench, he bolted for the sideline and beat ace Thunder defender Luguentz Dort and Pacers rookie Bennedict Mathurin to the spot. McConnell collected the ball just in front of the sideline and, with his momentum carrying him out of bounds, turned and whipped the ball off Dort's leg. As the ball came back at him McConnell fell back into a seat on the Pacers' bench with both arms raised as the officials ruled it was Indiana ball with the Pacers leading 117-115 with 14.5 seconds to go. He wasn't calling for a reaction from the crowd, but when he stood up the rest of Gainbridge Fieldhouse stood with him, appreciative of not just a game, but a season of all-out effort from the 31-year-old from Pittsburgh.

The call was challenged and officials ruled that after the ricocheted off Dort it first hit the floor in bounds, then grazed McConnell's left side while he was falling into the chair. However the inspired Pacers got a stop on the ensuing Thunder possession, then made key free throws to secure a 121-117 victory Friday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, snapping a four-game losing streak and causing more stress for a Thunder squad holding a 1/2 game edge for 10th place in the Western Conference and the West's final play-in position.

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McConnell's statistical reward for that hustle play was a defensive rebound immediately followed by a turnover, but it was emblematic of an evening when McConnell never allowed the Pacers' energy level to dip. The 6-1, 190-pounder scored a team-high 21 points on 10 of 15 shooting, dished out eight assists, chased down nine rebounds and added a steal in 29 minutes and 19 seconds. The Pacers were +16 when he was on the floor and won for just the third time this season in a game in which they had neither All-Star Tyrese Haliburton nor center Myles Turner.

"He just had the motor running, which he always does," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. "He was running down loose balls, he was pushing it. He was many times the facilitator on offense. His attitude was one of the big reasons we were able to win."

It is notable -- and noble -- that McConnell is still playing like winning matters with the Pacers being where they are. They still aren't quite mathematically eliminated from postseason play, but it's just a matter of time. Thanks to the Bulls' win over the Hornets on Friday, the Pacers (34-44) sit 3 1/2 games behind the Bulls (37-40) for 10th place in the Eastern Conference and the final play-in position iwith just four games left on Indiana's schedule and five on Chicago's. The Pacers effectively surrendered their hopes Monday when Haliburton and Turner were held out of the lineup. Carlisle said Thursday "it's possible" that neither take the floor again this season.

But even if the Pacers are effectively shutting down their contention for postseason, Carlisle doesn't want his team on the floor to look like it's given up. These Pacers are too young and impressionable to be involved in an overt tank job. Though just packing it in could help improve the Pacers' draft lottery position -- they're currently seventh in the order but could move up to fifth -- they're becoming more competitive instead of less as the season heads towards its end.

When Carlisle goes to his bench to add veterans to the mix with the younger players, he needs them to keep the intensity level high and demand that the young players keep up, giving them a sense of what it means to be a professional at this point in the season. That's never been a problem for McConnell.

"The thing that I've just tried to do is no matter who's out or who's playing, we have to give the same energy, every single night," McConnell said. "That's kind of how I've played my entire career, that next-man-up mentality. The advice to the young guys is you have to take advantage of every opportunity you get to step out on the floor."

McConnell is a walking example of just how far that approach can get a person. Though he had a sensational high school career playing for his father, Tim, at Chartiers Valley High School in the Pittsburgh suburbs, he was undersized, so he was underrecruited. He was Pennsylvania's Class 3A Player of the Year as a senior, but the No. 348 rated player nationally in the Class of 2010. He had two excellent years at nearby Duquesne, then transferred to Arizona where he led the Wildcats to a 77-12 record and a pair of Elite Eights over two seasons, but he was not taken in the 2015 draft and signed as a free agent with a Philadelphia 76ers team that was in its most painful stages of its rebuild. In his rookie year, they went 10-72, but in large because things were so abysmal, he got to play in 81 games that year and start 17 of them.

He impressed that franchise with his pesky defense and smart ball distribution. The next year he started 51 games, and the year after that he was the backup point guard on a playoff team. Now he's in his eighth year in the league. He made just over $525,000 in his first year, but now he's in the second year of a four-year deal that pays him $8.1 million this season.

"He's a unique player that has a unique style of play, but I just think he's one of the most unusual competitors that I've ever seen in the NBA," Carlisle said. "He just brings an exuberance and a defiance that is a big part of what we're doing and what we're building."

In pure terms of minutes, McConnell's role shrunk this season. He averaged 24.1 minutes per game last season, though he lost most of the year to a broken wrist . While he was out, the Pacers acquired Haliburton, the centerpiece of their franchise. In the offseason they drafted Andrew Nembhard, a sturdy point guard by trade from Gonzaga who starts at the 2 next to Haliburton, but runs the point as the starter whenever he's out.

So McConnell has the role of second-unit point guard, averaging 20.3 minutes per game with little hope of promotion. But he's undergone development in his game that has made this one of the most productive years in his career. He's put constant work in on his jump shot and made 24 of his 55 3-point attempts this season, a career-best 43.6%. That's an extremely low volume of attempts for an NBA point guard, but McConnell has been notoriously hesitant to shoot from outside. This is the first season he's hit 20 3s or more since 2017-18.

Just being slightly more of a threat has made him even more effective off the dribble. McConnell may be small, but he's fast with the ball in his hand, and he has a remarkable ability to either get to the rim or get to his spots for short pull-ups between 5 and 8 feet from the rim. If he gets under the bucket and finds he's being shadowed by long-armed big men, he just keeps circling around until he finds a spot where he can pull up, which is a method not many players can pull off.

"He's probably one of the point guards where you can say, 'T.J., get to the paint,'" veteran wing Buddy Hield said. "He can get to the paint every single time. ... I've been studying him and watching him. He's little. He's quick and he's very deceptive with his moves. He's hard to time. His center of gravity is lower than everybody and he just gets under defenders and he blows by with these quick bursts of speed.”

With the combination of his outside shot and dribble-drive game, McConnell is having one of the best offensive seasons of his career. His 8.4 points per game are just .2 points south of his career high and he's averaging 5.2 assists against 1.9 turnovers. He's shooting 53.6% from the floor, the second best figure of his career.

"It's tough to guard him because a lot of teams give up those mid-range shots or those layups contested at the rim," Nembhard said. "He hits those at an unbelievable percent. From him, what I can take from that is just sometimes you have to get to your spot and be confident and shoot over top or just have shots in your game you feel super-comfortable going to."

And he's still the same unnerving defender he's always been, pressuring ball-handlers the length of the floor and making teams pay for lazy passes in the backcourt. Two years after he led the NBA in total thefts, his 78 steals are the third-highest total on the team and his 1.9 steals per 36 minutes are the best among Pacers who have appeared in at least 50 games. Nembhard and wing Aaron Nesmith always draw the toughest perimeter defensive assignments to start games, but McConnell usually picks up a top ball-handler whenever he enters.

"Defensively, the stuff he does is stuff you can't teach," Carlisle said. "He has this way of anticipating and nose for the ball. He strips guys. If you tried to run a clinic on how he plays defensively, you wouldn't be able to really do justice to it unless you had him there trying to explain what he's doing."

McConnell's energy has kept the Pacers afloat at some of their toughest moments. It wasn't always enough to get them wins, but he helped set the standard for hard play. When Haliburton missed 10 games in January with an elbow sprain and Nembhard struggled to pick up the torch, McConnell averaged 16.1 points per game over a 10-game stretch. Haliburton has missed nine of the last 11 games, but McConnell has scored in double figures in each of his last six games and helped the Pacers to surprising wins over the Bucks, Raptors and now the Thunder in Haliburton's absence.

The young players have noticed.

"T.J. plays at 110 every game," 23-year-old forward Jalen Smith said. "We all know it. Everybody knows it. That's his niche in the league. He's going to press you full court and he's going to drive right by you on offense. His energy is contagious to the team. It builds that fire in everybody else to want to be as great as T.J. is on the court."

McConnell has worked particularly closely with Nembhard. He berates the rookie with deadpan harassment in the locker room, but sings his praises whenever he gets in front of a microphone. Nembhard is more physically gifted and has a much higher ceiling, but he's already a better player because of lessons learned from McConnell.

"A guy of his stature, you have to have a certain type of swagger and confidence about you to even compete in his league," Nembhard said. "That's a thing he's taught me is never be afraid of the moment, never be afraid of who you're going up against. ... His leadership is elite.”

How long the Pacers can keep him to be a role model for their young roster is hard to say. The 23-year-old Haliburton will be the franchise's starting point guard for as long as he wants to stay and the Pacers are building everything around him. Nembhard’s long-term niche as Mathurin moves into a starting role might be second-unit point guard. McConnell is under contract for next season and has a partially-guaranteed deal for 2024-25, but he could be valuable in a trade package before then that brings in more young assets.

But whenever McConnell does move on, Carlisle wants nights like Friday and images of McConnell chasing down loose balls seared into his young players' minds.

"He's very special," Carlisle said. "He really fits into what we are and what we're trying to be."