INDIANAPOLIS — Ivica Zubac had Suns center Oso Ighodoro on his back pushing him down toward the baseline and forward Royce O’Neale lurking over his right shoulder when Pacers’ forward Jalen Slawson’s 3-point attempt from the left wing caromed off the back of the rim.
So Zubac leaned back on Ighodoro, leaped and stuck his big right arm up to get his hand on the ball and bring it together with his left. Zubac’s back was then to the rim and Ighodoro and O’Neale were converging, but he saw Jarace Walker out of the corner of his eye cutting into the wide-open lane. So Zubac raised the ball high, pivoted in between the two defenders and — all in one motion — dropped the ball into the paint for a bounce pass that perfectly led Walker for a two-handed dunk.
In one play, Zubac displayed all the qualities that made it imperative for the Pacers to acquire him from the Clippers at the trade deadline. The 7-foot, 240-pound size. The physicality. The strong but soft hands. The skill. The vision. The intellect. The feel for the game.
That’s why the Pacers were willing to give up two first-round picks from previous seasons in Bennedict Mathurin and Isaiah Jackson and three future draft picks — conditionally including this year’s premium first-round pick — to get him. That’s why they believe Zubac is the center they need to be a championship contender again when they regenerate for the 2026-27 season and beyond.
That rebound-and-pass combo was one of several highlights for Zubac in his debut with the Pacers on Thursday night after he spent his first month with the team making sure the left ankle sprain he suffered in late December with the Clippers fully healed. He went in with a minutes restriction and he played just 16, all in the first half, but he posted eight points on 4-of-6 shooting, six rebounds and two assists.
The Pacers still lost 123-108 to the Suns’ thanks to 43 points from Devin Booker and 36 from Jalen Green for their 11th straight defeat and fell to an NBA-worst 15-51, but wins aren’t the point for the mathematically eliminated Pacers anymore and getting Zubac integrated is one of the last meaningful on-court goals for this season.
“The numbers translate to a double-double,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “He was a big factor on the inside. His passing was a factor. His finishing around the basket was a factor. And his physicality is something that is unique, really in the entire league. A lot of good things. It’s the first time he’s played in a month, so when you consider that, it’s pretty impressive.”
Zubac suffered a Grade 2 sprain on his left ankle in the Clippers’ Dec. 20 game against the Lakers and sat out the next five games, but returned on Jan. 3 and played in 15 of his last 16 games for the Clippers before he was traded just before the deadline on Feb. 5. The Clippers won 10 of those games to rescue their season from the dead, but Zubac was admittedly playing through pain even as he was averaging 14.4 points and 11.0 rebounds per game and shooting 61.3% from the floor.
When the Pacers acquired Zubac they required no such physical sacrifice. After a 6-31 start they were still 13-38 at the deadline and had clearly focused their eyes on 2026-27 when they will bring All-Star point guard and franchise cornerstone Tyrese Haliburton from an Achilles tendon tear suffered in Game 7 of last year’s NBA Finals. So they shut him down to heal so he could ramp back up just to get a feel for how the team operates.
“I can’t say that I shouldn’t have been on the court,” Zubac said in a pregame interview Thursday. “I felt confident enough to play those games. We did a really good job of rehabbing that ankle. I was playing. I didn’t expect it to be 100% until the offseason. But once I got here we had an opportunity to get it all the way right. I feel like we’re there now and I’m ready to play.”
Carlisle said the Pacers have been ramping up Zubac for close to 3 1/2 weeks. Carlisle was already a big fan of Zubac’s game. The 28-year-old is averaging a double-double for the second straight year and coming off a second-team All-Defense selection. However Carlisle became even more impressed when he got to work with him directly.
“He’s got a great intellectual curiosity for the game,” Carlisle said. “He understands the game very well. We’ve all seen him play enough. He’s a talented guy moving toward the basket. He passes it. He finishes. He’s got great hands and he’s got a real great feel for the game along with having a real power element to his game.”
Zubac showed off all of those elements in those limited minutes Thursday. Each of his four field goals were within 12 feet of the basket, but he showed a diversity in his attack.
Zubac’s first bucket was a dunk off a lob from guard Ethan Thompson on a screen-and-roll. The second was off another screen-and-roll action with Thompson, but on that one he threw up a one-handed floater from just inside the foul line and sank it.
He finished with two hook shots. The first came when he was in the dunker spot on the left side of the lane and got open space when two-way contract forward Jalen Slawson drew a double team on a drive and found Zubac wide open with a dish. The second came when Zubac was fighting with Ighodoro in the restricted area and Pacers point guard Andrew Nembhard lobbed him a pass that just cleared Ighodoro’s arms. Khaman Maluach, the Suns’ 7-foot rookie out of Duke, converged to help the 6-11 Ighodoro with a double team, but Zubac pivoted and hit a right-handed hook over both.
“He’s got great hands,” Slawson said. “If he gets a guy on his back, you can throw the ball anywhere near him and he’s just going to go get it.”
And even when Zubac wasn’t touching the ball he was clearing out space for those who did with screens. Nembhard scored 23 points on 6 of 7 shooting including 2 of 2 from 3-point range. One of the 3s came because Zubac screened out his defender twice.
“A couple times he hit guys on screens and it was crushing blows,” Carlisle said. “He’s so big he can barely feel it and the other guy is getting his bell rung. It’s not just about making guys feel it, it’s creating a problem. He’s gonna create a lot of good problems for us and some tough problems for the defense.”
Zubac and Nembhard checked out for good at halftime and neither were around for interviews after the game. All-Star forward Pascal Siakam, forward Aaron Nesmith and guards T.J. McConnell and Quenton Jackson did not play due to injuries. The Pacers had a skeleton crew for the second half, and three of the six players who played more than 10 minutes after halftime are on two-way contracts. That group put up a good fight and was outscored by just two points in the third quarter, but Booker and Green combined for 43 second-half points and that was far too much to withstand.
That’s a sign, of course, that as pleased as they are with Zubac, the Pacers are very much interested in keeping this year’s first round draft pick. According to the terms of the deal, the Pacers get to keep the pick if they win the draft lottery for one of the top four picks. The Clippers get it if it falls in the 5-9 range. The Pacers get it if it falls anywhere from 10-30 but it’s almost impossible for them to win enough to fall back that far. So they seem to be clearly operating with the goal of finishing in the bottom three of the league standings to give themselves a 14% chance at the No. 1 overall pick and a 52% chance of picking anywhere in the top four.
But they clearly determined they would be better off with Zubac than anything they could get with pick 5-9 because of all the ways he can impact the game. His skillset is different than that of Myles Turner, whose free agency departure created the need for a new center in the first place. Zubac doesn’t space the floor the way Turner does and he’s not quite as effective of a shot blocker. But he’s better on the glass, better around the rim and a better passer than Turner, and the Pacers are excited to see how that skillset will mesh with Haliburton next season as well as how it will fit when Siakam, Nesmith and McConnell get back on the floor in the coming weeks.
“We’ve got 16 more games to look at more ways to utilize him, utilize his passing, etc, etc.,” Carlisle said. “He’s a veteran. There’s no doubt he’s a top 10 player at that position. And he knows who he is. He knows his strengths. He knows areas where he needs the system to help him and he navigates it well.”
Dustin Dopirak covers the Pacers all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Pacers Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: In debut, Ivica Zubac shows qualities that made him a Pacers priority
Reporting by Dustin Dopirak, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
