The Pacers need answers for Duncan Robinson and Bam Adebayo

After dropping their playoff opener to the Miami Heat, the Indiana Pacers made some tweaks for Thursday's Game 2.

They made a point of seeking out more 3-pointers in an effort to even out the math, hoisting 34 attempts from long range after taking just 24 in Game 1. On defense, they placed renewed emphasis on packing the paint and helping aggressively on drives, holding the Heat to 9-of-19 shooting in the restricted area. And in the end, the outcome was the same: A comfortable Miami victory.

There are plenty of reasons the Heat are up 2-0, including Jimmy Butler's defense on T.J. Warren and sudden ability to hit threes again, and the fact nobody on Indiana has been able to stay in front of Goran Dragic. But the biggest reason the Pacers lost Game 2 was their inability to deal with Duncan Robinson and Bam Adebayo.

It didn't take long for Indiana to get a taste of what was in store Thursday, as Robinson shook loose on each of Miami's first three possessions and knocked down three straight triples to open the game. One of those came off a scramble following an offensive rebound, but another happened because Victor Oladipo helped off of Robinson in order to deal with a lesser threat.

That became a recurring theme. There were possessions in which the Pacers played perfectly adequate defense on Robinson, only to have him hit a contested three with minimal daylight. But there were others in which they simply didn't treat him with requisite respect.

Their coverage on the play below became compromised when Oladipo got bowled over trying to draw a charge on Adebayo, but there's no universe in which Malcolm Brogdon should be abandoning Robinson to contest a Jae Crowder three:

Oladipo on the play below (closest Pacer to the basket off the top of the clip) made a tremendous recovery, but his fly-by closeout that allowed Robinson to relocate for three was necessitated by the fact Oladipo helped on Butler's cut when Warren seemed to have things under control:

Robinson hit his first six 3-point attempts, finished 7-of-8 from beyond the arc, and drew a 3-shot foul for good measure, racking up a game-high 24 points in 25 minutes.

It's not easy to limit Robinson's 3-point shooting, at least not without springing leaks elsewhere. Robinson's gravity alone opens up so much for Miami's offense. But the Pacers may have to rethink when and from where they send help. Surrendering wide-open looks to other Miami shooters may be preferable to semi-contested looks for Robinson. The Heat led the league in 3-point percentage during the regular season, but the non-Robinson contingent - which shot a strong but survivable 11-of-27 from deep Thursday - is closer to average.

That said, the biggest overarching problem for the Pacers in this game, much like in Game 1, was still their inability to score. That's a related problem, though, because a big part of it has been their inability to exploit Miami's sharpshooter at the other end of the floor.

Robinson isn't a terrible defender - he brings size at 6-foot-8 - but he isn't an explosive lateral mover, can get overpowered physically, and is very often the weakest Heat defender on the floor. The Pacers' best hope of limiting his impact on offense is to make him feel some pain on defense. They haven't really been able to do that so far, and if they can't do so moving forward, they have little hope of getting back into this series.

This first-quarter Malcolm Brogdon-Myles Turner pick-and-roll perfectly encapsulated the issues the Pacers have experienced at the offensive end in this matchup:

Rather than attacking Robinson in isolation with the left side of the floor cleared out, Brogdon called for a Turner screen and invited Adebayo to join the play. The Heat responded by switching Adebayo onto Brogdon, which is a matchup they'll happily live with due to Adebayo's remarkable combination of size and mobility. The Pacers have gotten zilch this series when attacking Adebayo, and this was just one example of many from the first two games of their inexplicably seeking him out as if he's some lumbering, lead-footed center and not one of the best switch bigs in the league.

You'd hope Indiana could make the Heat pay on the other end of that switch, even though Turner isn't much of a post player. With Robinson forced to front him, Brogdon needed to trust that his center would be able to score - or at least make a play against Miami's back-end rotation - if he just entered the ball over the top. Instead, Brogdon allowed the window to close and settled for a contested pull-up three.

This is one place Indiana really misses Domantas Sabonis, who is excellent at creating quick seals and immediately going to work against smaller defenders in the post. Without him, it's unclear if the Pacers have any viable antidote to Miami's switching.

In any case, as a general rule, the Pacers should probably avoid using Adebayo's man as a screener. If he's guarding Turner, then Turner is going to be far more valuable as a spot-up threat who can pull Adebayo away from the play. At the least, Turner should be prepared to slip the screen in order to try and beat the switch. (To his credit, he played his role well in Game 2, shooting 7-of-8 from the field and 3-of-3 from deep.)

The Pacers' guards can still hurt Robinson by targeting him in small-small pick-and-rolls and attacking him one-on-one. They could use more of what Oladipo did below against the Miami zone, backing up to give himself a runway and directing traffic to clear out for a blow-by that resulted in two free throws:

The play below is another good example of how the Pacers can find success attacking him. With Robinson's man, Justin Holiday (second Pacer from left atop the clip), dragging him into the action by screening for Oladipo, Robinson tried to show hard and recover to avoid the switch. But Holiday refused to let him off the hook, cleverly re-screening on the other side. That gave Oladipo an advantage, which he used to collapse the Heat defense and create a Holiday three with the hockey assist:

Of course, those aren't cure-alls. Adebayo is still a problem without a solution for the Pacers, both in the myriad ways he can gum up their offense, and the pressure he puts on their defense with his hard screens, roll gravity, and two-man synergy with Robinson. Adebayo finished with just seven points on seven field-goal attempts Thursday, and was easily the best player in the game. The Pacers won Adebayo's bench minutes by 10 points, but were outscored by 19 in 32 minutes with him on the floor.

It's fair to wonder whether this version of the Pacers, with Sabonis sidelined and Oladipo still operating below his athletic peak, simply don't have the means to counter Miami's weapons at either end of the floor. Even their effort to amp up their 3-point volume, sensible though it was, resulted in a bunch of pull-ups that felt forced. They still managed only 14 free-throw attempts, and didn't seem any more capable of creating and exploiting off-the-dribble advantages.

But if Indiana's going to turn things around, focusing on attacking Robinson, and avoiding Adebayo, would be a good place to start. More than anything, it's what those two guys have done to Indiana, and what Indiana has been unable to do to them in turn, that has the Pacers staring down a hasty playoff exit.