Insider: Pacers searching for an identity

The Indiana Pacers are trying to have one foot entrenched in their new identity, and the other tapping across the line back to the old ways.

Though they’ve spent the entire offseason building a roster to compete against the best small ball teams in the NBA and even opened the season with their spread lineup, on Thursday the Pacers played the Memphis Grizzlies and tried to revisit their smash mouth ways.

It didn’t work.

Indiana might have felt out of rhythm and out of space by starting out with a pair of 6-10 frontcourt players. Whatever the case, the Pacers will need to spend the first weeks or months of this season settling into both identities.

Both feet need to find foundation, and after the falling 112-103 to Memphis, the Pacers looked slippery in trying to play like their former selves.

“That’s the biggest problem we’re having,” Paul George said, “just the inconsistency of who we’re playing with. Trying so many different groups, we got to establish an identity, and we have yet to do so.”

Instead of starting out with four wings, Pacers head coach Frank Vogel inserted Jordan Hill, the backup center, into the lineup to play alongside Ian Mahinmi. The move was intended to match brawn with the Grizzlies’ frontline of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. Any second guesser would have done the same. George or C.J. Miles would’ve spent the night taking body shots from the physical and imposing Randolph. So, while the Pacers played with a single big man at times, when Memphis turned to size, the Pacers mimicked. Even in the disastrous fourth quarter when Indiana, that is supposed to be stacked smaller and faster scorers, got outscored by a lesser explosive team, 39-28.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to use our best weapon, and that’s space and pace,” Miles said. “I think you get into the fourth quarter and everybody’s like, ‘Oh, it’s the fourth quarter.’ I think we have to figure out the fine line of being under control and being able to use that because if that’s your best weapon, why would you take it off the table?”

Starting out big in the first quarter, Hill was as likely to miss a pass targeted to him as blow an attempt at the rim. Monta Ellis was searching, searching, searching for offense and remained lost in a 1-of-5 start. George was preoccupied with his disdain for the officiating and after only a minute and 31 seconds into the game he picked up his second technical foul of the season – and this coming on the heels of a $10,000 fine levied by the NBA for his public criticisms of officiating after the Wednesday night opener in Toronto.

The Pacers came out missing 12 of 14 shots and it wasn’t until the 5:05 mark, with George pushing away Jeff Green and tossing in a 3-pointer, that a starter other than Ian Mahinmi scored from the floor.

“We just got a little out of sync,” Vogel said. “I think we got caught up with the officials early. I’m confident we can score the ball when we play with two bigs.

“We haven’t played a lot of big lineups in preseason on purpose to try to get comfortable with the spread lineups,” Vogel continued. “I was concerned with how it was going to look to start and we saw some bumps in the road. That’s part of what we’re going to go through this year but I believe it’s all going to come together.”

OK, so it’s too early to long for David West and Roy Hibbert to come back and clog the lanes. But it’s not a premature notion to notice that with either lineup – spread or smash – the Pacers look overwhelmed on the defensive end.

Imagine the absurdity of a longtime Indiana Pacer saying the team has to give defense precedence, but that’s exactly what Mahinmi expressed after the 0-2 start.

“Obviously, it’s not good enough,” Mahinmi said. “With the new system, I think we kind of get caught up a little bit with thinking too much offensively and there’s some slippage defensively.

“I ain’t going to lie to you, it has to be a priority right now, man,” he said. “We’ve got to get back to stopping people down the stretch.”

Under Vogel, the Pacers led the league in points allowed in the paint (37.5), according to statistics provided by Fox Sports Indiana. But in the first two games of the 2015-16 season, the Pacers have allowed 46 and 48 points, respectively. Even worse, the Pacers made the Grizzlies look as high powered as Golden State, giving up a 39-point fourth quarter.

“We have to work on everything,” George said. “Defensively, we were poor to give up 40 points to a team that don’t shoot 3s in the closing quarter is ridiculous.”

And with the recent memory of Indiana allowing 34 points in the final quarter against the Raptors, now there’s the making of a troubling streak.

“We had a few practices where we talked about defense but at the same time, I don’t want to lie to you guys and say we focused (on defense) a whole lot,” Mahinmi said. “We’ll get back to it. We just got to get our priorities straight.”

Star reporter Nate Taylor contributed to this report. Follow Star reporter Candace Buckner on Twitter: @CandaceDBuckner.