Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle has justified benching the entire starting five against the Miami Heat.
, the Indiana Pacers did not look like a team that had made it to the Eastern Conference Finals in the previous season.
This led to Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle making the tough decision to bench the entire starting five after they gave the worst defensive performance the team has seen over the last two seasons. And they were already in the bottom five in most defensive categories."Ugly game," Carlisle said, per. "A lot of ugly stretches. Pretty clear that I didn't have these guys ready to play. Put the responsibility on me. I've got to do a better job of getting these guys prepared.
"Poor effort," Carlisle said. "I think we showed five transition clips at halftime where we just simply were not playing hard enough. Miami is a polished, veteran team that is desperate right now. They're under .500 and they're trying to fight their way out of that. They're a team that can make you look bad. And they did."
In the end, this was an eye-opening game for Indiana. They were expected to decisively win this game. Instead, they were embarrassed by a team that was missing their franchise player.
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