Indiana Pacers Can Be Even More Dangerous in NBA Playoffs Than Expected
The Indiana Pacers are on a roll. The top of the Eastern Conference better beware.
The Pacers may be losers of two straight, but they're still 13-4 since the start of February. Now, even coming off a 19-point defeat at the hands of the Toronto Raptors, they're still clenching onto the inside of the playoff picture in the oh-my-gosh-what-am-I-looking-at Eastern Conference.
| Standing | Team | Record | GB of 8th |
| 7 | Indiana Pacers | 30-36 | -- |
| 8 | Miami Heat | 30-36 | -- |
| 9 | Boston Celtics | 30-36 | -- |
| 10 | Charlotte Hornets | 29-36 | 0.5 |
| 11 | Brooklyn Nets | 27-38 | 2.5 |
Those standings are hideous, aren't they?
If Indiana does actually get in, though, don't look for Frank Vogel and Co. to fall off like a low seed is supposed to do.
The Pacers are playing beautiful basketball of late. Their rise pairs with the Eastern Conference's demise. And no, that's no coincidence.
At the beginning of the year, we kept hearing those tentatively enthusiastic statements. You know, the ones that people would use with codewords like "actually" and "shockingly," as if they didn't really believe it would last but truly wanted it to do so.
"Hey, the East actually isn't that bad in the top five or six this year!"
It wasn't totally inaccurate early in the season. The Raptors got off to a 24-7 start and looked like they could contend for the conference's top seed. The Washington Wizards began the year better than expected. The Milwaukee Bucks came out of nowhere while playing some of the best defense in the NBA under new coach Jason Kidd. The Chicago Bulls got Derrick Rose back while adding Pau Gasol and Nikola Mirotic to play alongside a transformed Jimmy Butler. The Atlanta Hawks were steamrolling everything that moved.
But everything regresses to the mean. Aside from in Atlanta, it's all backwards now.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are the perceived favorites to come out of the East, even if the Hawks did destroy them a couple of weeks ago.
Toronto is 16-20 since that 24-7 start. The Wizards recently dropped six consecutive games, though their current four-game winning streak is starting to bode well for them. Chicago has lost Rose, Butler, Gibson and hope. Milwaukee is trending around .500.
Then, right below them, sit those pesky Pacers, sneaky contenders to put up a fight come the postseason.
It's easy to forget that the Pacers have been a perennial playoff team under Vogel, never failing to make it into the postseason and getting into the Eastern Conference Finals during each of the past two years. Last season ended tamely with a second-half "collapse" (Indiana still won 56 games) and a seven-game first-round series against the Hawks which looks less damning now than it did then. Still, the Pacers have been the second-best team in the East (behind the Miami Heat) over the past four years.
Now, they're starting to win games in the same ways they did before.
Roy Hibbert hasn't gotten enough credit for holding up this team. Even after all the injuries, after all the roster attrition, the Pacers rank seventh in points allowed per possession. That's better than the Memphis Grizzlies. Better than the Chicago Bulls. Better than the San Antonio Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Pacers still run the same defensive system, one that's dependent on the strength of its wing defenders funneling guys toward Hibbert, who's as quality a rim-protector as the NBA has. Part of the reason a defensive fall-off was expected was because Paul George and Lance Stephenson were no longer present. Without their defensive help, the Pacers were bound to drop, especially considering how much their scheme relied on those two to take care of business in sending guys into their center.
The D has technically gotten worse—it led the league in points allowed per possession a season ago—but it's not like it's fallen off a cliff. It's a mere dip, and the potential return of George—who doesn't seem close, but is hinting at a comeback after breaking his leg over the summer—could remedy a bunch of that.
Of course, it hasn't hurt that Indy has discovered some unexpected help on the wing, surprising at least from the outside.
Solomon Hill may still be learning how to score, rebound, shoot—well, do most things other than actually get to the rim. But there's one part of the game that makes him perfect for this team: The 23-year-old already understands how to execute within Vogel's system.
The rest of the wings have stood in serviceably as well. C.J. Miles is a respectable defender who has shot better of late after a particularly slow start. Rodney Stuckey, meanwhile, has suddenly learned how to shoot threes, boosting his accuracy all the way to 40 percent from beyond the arc, in the midst of his most efficient season ever.
None of this was good enough to win games early. An unfamiliar team without any overwhelming players isn't going to pile up the victories, even if it is well-coached—and rest assured, Vogel is one of the NBA's finest bench minds.
The Pacers just haven't had their guys.
Stephenson, as we knew him, no longer exists. Charlotte Lance lives in his body now. George Hill has missed much of the year. So has David West. George, obviously, hasn't played.
Part of the reason the Pacers on their run of late is because they're finally starting to get healthy. Actually, it's way better than that. They're a marvelous 18-9 with both West and Hill in the lineup.
It's not just the record, either. Indiana is outscoring opponents by 6.5 points per 100 possessions with each of those guys sharing the floor. That's a net rating which would be second-best in the NBA if it belonged to a team. And we're still waiting on the return of PG.
Hill and West, of course, were role players in past years, but they offer something more than the general upgrades they already are on their backups: They can shoot. Indiana low in both the accuracy and range department. Hill gives a little bit to both categories. West, meanwhile, is consistently one of the best midrange shooters in the NBA.
It's not always about making shots for Indy, just creating space. The threat of those guys sinking in an attempt is enough to force the defense into actually guarding them, something some D's still don't even do with Stuckey when he sets up behind the arc.
Defensively, West and Hill provide continuity. If understanding Vogel's system is of utmost importance, who's going to comprehend it better than a couple of guys (already with defensive chops) who have been in Indiana for years?
The Pacers are getting hot at the right time.
Indiana has the third-best net rating over the 13-4 stretch they're on right now. It's second in points allowed per possession during those 17 games.
So, let's say Indy continues this run for the rest of the year, finishes with 41 or 42 wins, edges out the 34-32 Bucks—whom it trails by only four games at the moment— for the No. 6 seed in the East and gets to avoid Cleveland and Atlanta in the first round because of it. Don't the Pacers, with or without George, head into the playoffs with a legitimate shot to defeat whomever they face, whether that's Washington, Toronto or Chicago?
Of course, the Pacers could stay hot and still miss the playoffs altogether. They're tied for the eighth spot with two other teams, not exactly guaranteed to make it into May. But Indiana is trending upward, and if it does find a way to sneak into postseason basketball, the top of the Eastern Conference should know not to take it lightly.
Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.
All quotes obtained firsthand. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of March 17 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference and NBA.com.
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