The issues for the Pacers may have begun as far back as the beginning of the season when they got off to the hottest start in the league. During the first two months the Pacers lost only four games. As impressive as that is, there may have been some things going on then that have contributed to their collapse. The first is minutes management by the coaching staff. Largely as a result of the first two months of the season the Pacers starters have more minutes logged in games won by over twenty points than any other players in the entire league. Yes, you can make the argument that logging those minutes earlier in the season should be easier, but those minutes take their toll no matter when they are played. Also, they are totally unnecessary. And now you see the Pacers just playing poorly and without energy, not executing crisply on defense and not doing basic things on offense like setting hard screens because they don't have the energy to hustle to spots and be physical with opposing players. Think simply of the opposite of the Spurs where no player on THE ENTIRE TEAM is averaging over thirty minutes per game. It can't be a coincidence that they are playing their best ball at the end of the year as other teams sputter.
The other issue from the beginning of the season was simply success. This is a young core of players that were thrust into the roles of superstars and elite players at their positions and guys ready for huge raises as their contracts end. Paul George spent the first half of the season being anointed the best two way player in the league and superstar of a championship caliber team(Yes, I was one of those people doing that). He simply hasn't handled it well. On the court we have seen him devolve into an iso-ball player with a poor shot selection (but more on that later). Off the court George has been even more of a disaster as the TMZ cameras and drama have been something that he has handled poorly in the media while clearly letting effect his focus on the basketball court. The next guy I picked on at the beginning of this paragraph was Roy Hibbert. Defensively, Hibbert is still a beast, but offensively he just spends most of his time on the block calling for the ball and not playing within the offensive scheme. And then when he doesn't get it, he tends to not rotate to the opposite block or set screens. He often just shrugs and whines like he's Dwyane Wade in transition defense and his teammates are refs. And then there is Lance Stephenson. I think Lance is awesome. The rage he plays with is both terrifying and hilarious to watch. Early in the season Lance seemed like he was on a mission to get the Most Improved Player Award renamed after him. And playing that well with his contract coming to an end meant there was an endless amount of talk about how rich he would become over the summer. But what do you know, in classic Lance fashion all the hype and praise went to his head. The ferocity in his game turned into reckless insanity. The ability to run the second unit turned into a lack of trust in his teammates. The highlights that made him fun turned into showing off for potential suitors. Sometimes getting off to the best start in franchise history is tough to handle.
Since the all-star break things have just gone wrong. So what is happening now that all these past contributions caused? Mostly all of the problems are on offense. Offensively the Pacers have fallen off of a cliff. While the Pacers have never been an elite offensive team, since the all-star break they have scored fewer points than any team in the league besides the 76ers (we'll say any team in the league period since the 76ers don't count as an NBA team). Some of this is due to simple regression. Paul George's shooting numbers we so great during the 2013 part of the season that if he had sustained that all year he would have been alongside Kevin Durant as the best offensive player in the world. That's right, alongside, not even just behind. I mentioned Stephenson's improvement earlier. While it was certainly possible to see the two of them stay great, there was almost no way that level of play could be sustained. Sometimes regression happens. But this is not just regression. Stephenson is playing in a way that clearly shows he is more concerned with free agency than with helping his team win. George on the other hand is just playing poorly. His shot selection has been worse than usual. He is not getting to the rim and when he has he has been worse than Ricky Rubio (aka worst in the league) finishing there. He is shooting less threes also. All of this tends to lead to more midrange shots. And while George is a good midrange shooter, that shot is the least efficient one on the court. A lot of this could be cured if George just took one step back when he doesn't have the ball. He has started lurking just inside the three point line which not only changes his efficiency but also puts him one step closer to defenders trying to close out on him when he gets the ball. The Pacers may have the best defense in the league, but when your offense is just not executing and coaches aren't correcting simple mistakes like telling players to move one step in any direction, it is just hard to win games.
Then there are the new players who have been added. I'll hit this quick. Danny Granger was traded to the 76ers for Evan Turner. Granger wasn't exactly filling up the stat sheet, but his teammates love him. Taking that away and adding Turner whom the Pacers seem to be apathetic towards at best and is also playing poorly has just hurt. And then there is Andrew Bynum. After the end of his tenure in LA when he tried to break J.J. Berea in half, his year spent bowling in Philadelphia with a hairdo that defies logic (this is worth googling I promise), his time refusing to practice in Cleveland, the thirty seconds he spent in Chicago, and his stint in Indiana while the Pacers have fallen apart, it may be safe to say that Andrew Bynum is THE WORST TEAMMATE IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS!!!!!!
Look, this has been going on way too long to be nothing. We are way beyond the small sample size argument. The Pacers have problems that a real and could lead to an early exit from the playoffs. But their problems are fixable. Also, there is evidence that says we shouldn't worry too much. Fivethirtyeight did a piece Friday in preparation for the Heat-Pacers game about late season swoons effecting teams in the top seeds of a conference. I encourage you to read it. If you don't have time the cliff notes are that there doesn't seem to be much effect. Teams with late season swoons often still make deep runs. So who knows, maybe nothing is wrong.
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