March 13, 2026, 7:46 p.m. ET
- Pacers coach Rick Carlisle stated the team is in constant communication with the NBA regarding player availability.
- The team was previously fined $100,000 for violating the league’s player participation policy.
- Carlisle explained that limiting minutes for players like Andrew Nembhard and Ivica Zubac was a pre-planned strategy communicated to the league.
INDIANAPOLIS — Pacers coach Rick Carlisle opened his pre-game news conference before Friday’s home game against the Knicks with an explanation of the team’s communications with the league regarding player availability.
The Pacers were fined $100,000 by the NBA in February for a violation of the NBA’s player participation policy but have continued to sit out top players and have lost all 11 games since the All-Star break.
Carlisle clarified that the Pacers had informed the league prior to Thursday’s game against the Suns that guard Andrew Nembhard and center Ivica Zubac would only play one half. Both were removed after Nembhard scored 23 points in the first half and Zubac posted eight points, six rebounds and two assists in his first game since being acquired from the Clippers.
The Pacers have been a central target in the league discussion regarding “tanking,” the colloquial term for prioritizing draft lottery position over wins. The Pacers are obviously incentivized to do exactly that as they are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention at 15-51 and traded their first-round draft pick for 2026 on a conditional basis to the Clippers in the deal that landed Zubac. The Pacers get to keep the pick if they win the lottery for one of the top four picks. They lose it if it falls in the 5-9 range. They keep it if it’s between 10-30, but it seems highly unlikely they’ll win enough games to move into that realm.
The Pacers have not had close to a full compliment of players in most of their games since the All-Star break, but Carlisle said the team has been in constant contact with the league about that subject.
“There’s a lot of noise out there about this, that and the other,” Carlisle said. “But we talk to a gentleman in the league office by the name of Drew Galbraith (the NBA’s senior vice president of player health) before every game. This goes back to probably mid-January. He works with Dave Weiss (executive vice president of operations and administration). These are highly respected people. They’re looking out for the sanctity of the game.”
Carlisle said Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan and head athletic trainer Josh Corbeil represent the Pacers in those discussions. He said the team has been in contact with the league regarding their current stretch of five games in seven days that started on Thursday, and the league has acknowledged the difficulties they face. The Pacers are already without All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton (torn right Achilles tendon) and forward Johnny Furphy (ACL tear) for the rest of the season. All-Star forward Pascal Siakam (right knee sprain) and guard Quenton Jackson (right calf strain) recently suffered additional injuries that are keeping them out for an undetermined amount of time.
“We explained that heading into this stretch, five games in seven days, with two guys that just went down with injuries — that being Quenton Jackson and Pascal Siakam — that we were going to be really strapped trying to get through these five games with only two off days without having to really be strategic about how to do it and how to use the guys on two-way contracts,” Carlisle said. “… Last night, Zubac and Nembhard only played the first half. That was planned. The league was made aware of that and they were made aware of our plans to try to work through this very busy period. Just want to make it clear these conversations are ongoing. They happen very frequently. They started, really, back in January.”
The Pacers aren’t incentivized to end their 11-game losing streak. That being said they have been hit hard by injuries all season going back to Haliburton’s Achilles tendon tear in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. They lost three rotation players — Nembhard, Toppin, and since-traded Bennedict Mathurin — to multi-game injuries in the season’s first three games and started the year 2-16 and then 6-31. They won nine of their last 18 games prior to the All-Star break but haven’t won since. Though they have made personnel decisions that would seem to be indicative of tanking, Carlisle insisted the moves have been based on player health with the understanding of the league office.
“The NBA season is a lot of wear and tear,” Carlisle said. “We’re competing. Our guys are competing when they’re in these games. Pascal had a hard 30 minutes in Portland and came up with a swollen right knee. Everything is very proactive. We’re very proactive with reporting. They’re proactive with talking to us. We’re not going to make public our exact plans for every game. That would be foolish, would be a bad decision from a strategy standpoint.”
Dustin Dopirak covers the Pacers all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Pacers Insider newsletter.