Tonight when you’re going house-to-house trick-or-treating, you’ll pass front lawns adorned with gawdy decorations and blow-up figures. But if you’ve ever been visited by someone or something from the great beyond, you know that it’s much more subtle and spooky than that.
The hairs on your neck stand up. Your breath shortens. Your heart beats a little quicker. You swear there’s someone in the room with you.
That’s what it must feel like playing against Sam Hauser. Forgive the hacky Halloween intro, please.
After scoring ten points on Opening Night, Hauser has sat out the last three with back pain, It’s something that has plagued him throughout the summer — he woke up funny and it’s been flaring up since the preseason — but returned Wednesday night in Indianapolis. He played just 14 minutes against the Pacers and scored 5 points (1-for-4 from behind the arc), but he finished a +12 on the night (just behind Neemias Queta’s +18) and his fingerprints were all over the game.
If a shooter isn’t hitting shots, their phantom presence can create space for other teammates to terrorize the defense. Early in the first quarter, twice Tyrese Haliburton had to stay home on Hauser in the corner, resulting to a drive from Tatum and a single-coverage fadeaway.
Those are admittedly Tatum highlights, but without Hauser’s threat, Tatum doesn’t have the space to operate.
Hauser can also take advantage of his own unseen gravity. Defenses expect him to come up on down screens, but since the preseason, he’s been more versatile attacking close outs and attacking the rim. Here, he reads the defense, curls into the restricted area, and finds Luke Kornet at the rim.
Where Hauser has no longer been able to sneak up on teams is on the defensive end. Before the Bucks game, head coach Joe Mazzulla talked about the difficulties on defense running double-bigs without Hauser in the rotation and it was clear against the Pacers just how much he trusts Hauser within their system. He’s a strong help defender and after proving himself in The Finals against the likes of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, you can count on him in isolation, too. He drew a charge in semi-transition staying in front of and played Ben Mathurin to a contested two:
The scary season comes to a close tonight, but Hauser’s terror campaign against the rest of the NBA is just beginning.
