Pacers Go Jumbo, Scratch Haliburton in Bizarre Saturday Lineup vs. Nuggets

The Indiana Pacers are rolling out a starting five on Saturday that looks like it was pulled out of a random name generator, and the most glaring takeaway is the guy who is missing.

According to Underdog NBA, Indiana will start Jalen Smith, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Pascal Siakam, and Ivica Zubac against the Denver Nuggets.

"Underdog NBA tweeted the lineup alert on Saturday."

If you are scanning that list looking for Tyrese Haliburton, you can stop scrolling. The franchise point guard is nowhere to be found in the opening unit, leaving Nembhard to run the show. Nembhard has already been logging heavy run this year, averaging 33.4 minutes over his first seven games, but steering this specific group is a completely different assignment.

Starting Smith alongside Siakam and Zubac gives Indiana a frontcourt that is objectively massive. It is the kind of lineup you build in a video game when you are tired of giving up offensive rebounds and just want to clog the paint until the opposing team taps out.

For anyone holding tickets on Pacers player props, this rotation shuffle throws a serious wrench into the math. Without Haliburton dictating the pace and dominating the usage rate, the offensive volume has to go somewhere. Siakam is the obvious candidate to eat up those extra touches, but the spacing is going to look incredibly weird.

Indiana is trying to build some momentum after squeaking out a 107-103 win over the Memphis Grizzlies earlier in the week. Throwing this jumbo lineup at Denver is certainly a choice, but you have to try something different when dealing with the heavyweights of the Western Conference.

We will see if this supersized experiment actually works or if it just clunks around the floor for a few minutes before the rotation normalizes. Either way, keep an eye on the postgame quotes to see exactly why the Pacers decided to go full bully-ball on a Saturday night.