The Indiana Pacers' secret weapon to surprise their rivals: A 4-point play

Coaches and teams across the league spend hours trying to come up with a great play out of timeouts. The Indiana Pacers might have one of the best four-point plays. And they've used it with and without success several times.

Social media erupted when Tyrese Haliburton scored the game-winning play against Giannis Antetokounmpo to surprise the Milwaukee Bucks. He got fouled on the play. But the Bucks should have seen it coming. The Indiana Pacers executed the exact same play against the Boston Celtics in the third game of the Eastern Conference Finals. Against the Celtics, Aaron Nesmith missed a shot that would have tied the game. Throughout this season, they have executed the play multiple times.

With the win, the Pacers are tied for the fourth spot with Milwaukee. If these two end up in the 4th and 5th spots in the Eastern Conference, we can expect an incredible first-round series. They certainly have a lot of history. The play the Pacers run to have Haliburton win the game is a creative way to free up a player. When the Pacers ran it against the Celtics in last year's playoffs, the Internet referred to it as the four-vertical play.

The play starts with a player receiving the ball on the wing. The other four players line up behind half-court. Three of the players have to run diagonally across the court, clearing space for the man who will receive the ball and shoot. In this case, it was Tyrese who snuck underneath the screens, caught the ball, and sank a corner three.

The play shares many similarities with actions on the football field. In American football, two or three receivers line up on one side of the ball. The first set of receivers goes in one direction to clear the defense, leaving space for the other receiver to slip underneath and get an easy catch.

The mastermind behind the Pacers' play

Former player Jenny Boucek is the one who designed the play for the Indiana Pacers. She played college basketball at the University of Virginia and then professionally for the Cleveland Rockers in the WNBA. She also played professionally in Iceland, where she won the national championship and national cup.

Boucek joined Rick Carlisle's staff with the Pacers in 2021. She is one of the key assistants on the team, responsible for helping players with their shooting mechanics. Jenny studies the athlete and their natural movement, and then tries to blend that with the science of shooting. Though her basketball playing career was cut short by a back injury, it seems like her coaching career will go a long way.

In a summer podcast, Jenny talked about the origin of the play. It might surprise you, but the origin is from her experience playing flag football. "We had a playbook and there were three on the line of scrimmage and the quarterback, all eligible receivers. We had a playbook with all these routes to try to open people up, and it was a blast. Sue Bird and I always talked hoops, she's very creative, and one day we were chatting. We started talking about some of those routes we used to run and if they could transfer to a basketball situation. That's the genesis of this play, from flag football," she explained in a podcast.

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, El arma secreta de Indiana Pacers para sorprender a sus rivales: Una jugada de 4 puntos