It was another disappointing loss on Sunday for Rick Carlisle and his group. They lost a close 113-109 basketball game to a severely undermanned Charlotte Hornets team. The Hornets were without key players like LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges, Mark Williams, Tre Mann, and others, but somehow still found themselves victorious.
The Pacers struggled to contain slept-on sophomore Brandon Miller in this one. He dropped 26 points, to go with six rebounds and five assists in this one.
Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle sounded like he was in a foul mood at the post-game press conference. It was not too long ago that Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton called out the team in relation to needing a sense of urgency. They are still searching for that feeling, if Carlisle's comments were to be taken as an indicator.
"We're struggling in the margins of the game," Carlisle said, calling out his team. "[We need to] put two hands on the ball, avoiding avoidable turnovers, simple things within our defensive system that we control. We're not doing a good enough job on those. We got to probably communicate a lot better."
Carlisle was blunt about his team's effort in areas like rebounding, where they got pummeled. The Hornets beat them 45-29 on the glass.
"I think they were trying harder," Carlisle said of the Hornets. "We got try harder. There's some things about this game that took energy out of it and we've got to be a team that can can generate energy when things aren't going well. Unfortunately, a lot of our struggles come down to what's happening offensively and that's something that we control and we have to change."
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The Pacers have now lost five of their last six games. It may be early in the season, but the type of habits that are developed at this point of the basketball calendar can often be year-long occurrences. That is a troublesome thought for this group of Pacers.
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This story was originally published December 9, 2024, 8:03 AM.