31, 17 and 10: Giannis and Miami put 145 on the Pacers

For one quarter at the Kaseya Center, the depleted team was winning. Indiana, down to 11 available players and only eight on standard contracts, led after the first quarter on Friday night, and then Miami's new frontcourt took the game away in the middle of it. The Heat outscored the Pacers 67-46 across the second and third quarters, opened the third on a 10-0 run, and closed out a 145-125 win in both teams' NBA Cup opener, their first home win of the season and their second straight victory after dropping their first four.

Giannis Antetokounmpo was the centre of all of it: 31 points on 13 of 18 shooting, 17 rebounds and 10 assists in 31 minutes, his second triple double of the season and the 58th of his career, with a single turnover. Around him the rest of the starting idea clicked into place. Bam Adebayo scored 27 on 11 of 14 shooting with nine rebounds, most of his damage done in the paint the defence had to abandon to mind Antetokounmpo. Miami won the points in the paint battle 64-50 and the rebounding 47-37.

The night that changes the scouting report, though, belonged to Klay Thompson. He scored 25 points with seven three pointers, 15 of them in the third quarter, in what the Associated Press called his best game since joining Miami. Davion Mitchell added 15 points and 11 assists, Andrew Wiggins scored 12, and Pelle Larsson was perfect from the field for 18. When Thompson shoots like this, a defence has to choose between the rim and the arc, and Indiana, running out of bodies, could not guard either: Quenton Jackson led them with 24 off the bench, Andrew Nembhard had 22 and nine assists, and it was nowhere near enough.

Both teams leave the night 2-4, Miami 1-0 in East Group B of the Cup, and the honest caveat is built into the scoreline: this was a win over a team dressing 11 players. The Heat's first four losses of the Giannis era were not against opposition this thin, and the schedule stiffens immediately, starting Monday at the Lakers at the head of a five game West Coast trip.

Our call is that the result tells you little and the shape tells you plenty. Beating a short handed roster proves nothing about May, but 145 points built on paint dominance plus seven threes from Thompson is the exact geometry this roster was assembled to produce, and it has now appeared once, in full, in a game that counted in two competitions. If Thompson gives Miami even 15 points of credible spacing a night, the Antetokounmpo and Adebayo pairing becomes a problem no scheme solves cleanly. Monday in Los Angeles will show whether Friday was a short handed gift or the first working draft of a contender.