The Indiana Pacers haven’t put together back-to-back wins since early February and just can’t seem to win on the road. Now, they’re alternating wins and losses.
The Indiana Pacers have been all over the place for the last month or so. They collapsed into the All-Star break, losing a season-high six games in a row. The losing streak brought their record to a mediocre 29-28. That’s an uneasy win percentage for a team with playoff hopes.
Once the break ended, the Pacers thankfully stopped losing every game, but now they can’t find any consistency. They’ve alternated wins and losses for the past seven games with bizarre results in both columns.
Indiana’s been able to beat legit playoff teams like the Houston Rockets, the Memphis Grizzlies and the Atlanta Hawks. They even took the San Antonio Spurs to the final seconds on their home court before Kawhi Leonard took over.
But, sandwiched in between those impressive performances and solid wins were a few bad losses. They lost to weaker Eastern Conference competition such as the Miami Heat and the Charlotte Hornets. Both games could be important as the playoffs get nearer.
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Miami and Charlotte aren’t out of the playoff race yet and Indiana could’ve used a little more distance to separate themselves.
Simply, this team is struggling to win on the road. Yes, they did beat the Rockets in Houston, but that seems like more of an anomaly than anything.
The Pacers have nine road games and nine home games left and they’ll need to win at least a few road games to assure themselves a playoff spot. Anything worse than that and they might be sitting at home or, worse, playing the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round.
The lack of consistency from game to game has to be concerning, as well. One night, the Pacers are beating the Grizzlies by double digits. The next night, they’re letting the Heat score 113 on them.
The Pacers are roughly in the middle of the pack both offensively and defensively and they haven’t put together solid performances on both sides of the ball recently. Just in the past two games, they’ve both scored more than 110 and less than 90 against similar competition.
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Much of this probably has to do with the streaky nature of certain Pacers players. Paul George is about as consistent as it gets, but the other guys are less reliable. Jeff Teague can easily alternate hot-scoring nights with woeful single-digit scoring performances.
Sometimes, C.J. Miles can’t miss and other times he can’t buy a bucket. Even Myles Turner is just in his second year in the league and can be nullified by more experienced big men. Without a bevy of steady, night-to-night players, it’ll be hard for Indiana to win many in a row.
The Pacers returned to their winning ways Wednesday night, defeating the Detroit Pistons at home 115-98. It was a slog of a game in the early going. The crowd was dead and the Pacers just couldn’t pull away.
The third quarter finally saw Indiana take control, thanks to George. The win took Indiana to 33-31 on the season. Still, it remains to be seen if the Pacers can get some momentum going.
Next up is another road game Friday against the Milwaukee Bucks. If the Pacers really want to solidify their playoff position, they’ll win this game and kick off a small winning streak. They face Miami, the New York Knicks and Charlotte before taking on the Toronto Raptors.
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A little five-game win streak before facing off against one of the conference’s best would say a lot about what this team could accomplish in the postseason.