Prior to and through Indiana’s five-game west coast road trip in January, which concluded with the Pacers holding the Spurs to well-below a point per possession in San Antonio, T.J. Leaf averaged 9.7 minutes of action and made an appearance in 38 of 47 games. After that particular swing, however, he only logged nine or more minutes twice while not playing by coach’s decision in 15 of the team’s last 35 games.
Around that same point of the season when the rookie’s minutes initially began to be more consistently few and far between, Indiana’s helter-skelter pace deliberately tapered off so the defense could tighten up.