3 post-All-Star break questions facing the Indiana Pacers
The Indiana Pacers kick off the stretch run tonight vs. the Atlanta Hawks. Here are three questions facing the team over its last 24 games.
For the NBA’s surprise team on the 2017-18 season, to say that whatever happens over the rest of the year is gravy would be an understatement. To borrow another food analogy, there’s so much icing on the plate, the cake has disappeared from view.
With a record of 33-25, there’s virtually nothing that could happen to the Indiana Pacers over the last 24 games (well, aside from injury) that would render the season a disappointment.
If they had hit on only one of the two pieces received in the Paul George trade, they’d have been pleased. As it stands, one looks to be a perennial All-Star while the other is already being referred to as a core building block for the future.
Moreover, the team is punch drunk as a result of surprising win after surprising win this year, leaving them in the thick of a playoff race no one predicted they’d be a part of. If they make it, cookies for everyone, regardless of the outcome. If they sputter down the stretch, it’s one more lottery pick to add to the mix.
All that being said, they’ve come this far, and there’s no turning back now. The team will give everything it has to make a postseason push while still keeping its eye on the big picture.
Here are three questions that affect both.
Should the Turner/Sabonis duo be unleashed in full force?
The Pacers have been paying lip service to playing the combo together more since the beginning of the season, and continue to do so now. We still haven’t seen it on a consistent basis though.
On the year, Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis have shared the court for just 202 minutes over 34 games, an average of less than six minutes per contest. During that time, they’ve sported an uninspiring -1.5 net rating, with the drop off coming largely on offense. Overall, the Pacers score 108.4 points per 100 possessions — good for sixth in the league — but just 104.7 with both of their young bigs sharing time.
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This isn’t completely shocking. Even though both players theoretically have enough range to avoid shrinking the court on offense, theory and actuality are very different things.
After hoisting 159 deep balls in his rookie season for Oklahoma City, Sabonis has taken just 27 3-pointers this year. Turner, on the other hand, has put up 2.5 per game, but only at a 35 percent clip. That’s acceptable for a high volume wing taking a lot of difficult step-backs and contested bombs, but it’s not scaring opposing defenses, especially come playoff time.
It’s possible Nate McMillan sees the writing on the wall and will wait until next season to see if he can figure out a way for his two centers to coexist. Since Turner returned from his latest injury, he and Sabonis have shared the court for just 30 minutes over nine games, and the results have been even less encouraging despite the team’s 7-2 record.
It’ll be interesting to see what Indiana does should it find itself in the playoffs, where rotations are typically shortened and only the very best players see the court. Should they make it, the Pacers may have to roll the dice a bit more with their two 21-year-olds and simply hope for the best.
Speaking of which…
Do they have enough gas left in the tank?
With the Cleveland Cavaliers looking like a new team following their roster shakeup (seriously, when will we learn to stop paying attention to anything they do before the All-Star break?), we can safely call them a lock for the postseason. That leaves six teams for five spots.
The Washington Wizards and Milwaukee Bucks, like Indiana, are trending in the right direction, having won seven of 10 heading into the break. All are within a game of each other in the fourth through sixth spots. Nipping at their heels are the Philadelphia 76ers, winners of six in a row. The Miami Heat, not quite in a free fall but definitely grasping for anything not moving, sit in eighth, losers of seven out of 10.
The Detroit Pistons are on the outside looking in, 1.5 games back. After winning the first four games following the Blake Griffin trade, the Pistons cooled off, losing three in a row before beating Atlanta heading into the break. They’re also due to get starting point guard Reggie Jackson back from injury in a few weeks, sit just four games back of Indiana in the loss column, and own the tiebreaker thanks to winning the season series 3-1.
The Pacers will have their work cut out for themselves if they want to stay in the top eight. They are just 13-14 away from home this year, and 14 of their remaining 24 games are on the road.
Lucky for them, some other teams in the race have a tough remaining slate. The Pistons, who have just nine wins away from home this year, will have to play 15 of their last 25 on the road. The Bucks also play more road games than home games, and they too have a sub-.500 record when they travel.
Also helping Indiana’s efforts is the fact that starting point guard Darren Collison should be back in about a week. All things considered, they should have enough to get them to the dance.
The bigger question is whether – and how – they should switch things up if they get there.
Lineup changes?
The Pacers have a +2.1 net rating for the year, good enough for ninth in the league. The odd part is that the net rating for their starting lineup of Victor Oladipo, Turner, Collison, Thaddeus Young and Bojan Bogdanovic is only a +0.3 in 498 minutes of court time.
The most-used lineups of all but one of the teams ahead of them boast net ratings far surpassing those associated with their teams as a whole, and the one exception — the Golden State Warriors — is close (+9.3) to the league-setting pace the team has established as a whole (+10.0).
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Where things truly get interesting is when you consider Indiana’s three highest-minute five-man units after the starting one. All three blow away the first five in efficiency.
The lineup replacing Myles Turner with Domantas Sabonis has outscored opponents by 8.9 points per 100 possessions over 349 minutes. Meanwhile, the one with Cory Joseph in for Collison is besting foes by a ridiculous 14.6 points per 100 in 118 minutes, and the five-some featuring both Joseph and Sabonis is 12.9 points per 100 better in 94 total minutes.
None of these numbers are a complete surprise, especially where Sabonis is concerned, who has been beasting of late.
Would Nate McMillan switch things up so deep into the year?
Almost certainly not. The Pacers have done everything but rent out a billboard to proclaim that Myles Turner is still considered a franchise cornerstone by the organization. They don’t want to do anything to further shake his confidence in what has been an up-and-down, somewhat injury-riddled season.
The situation still bears watching though, because regardless of what they do or don’t do over the course of this season, questions loom about Turner’s long-term fit alongside Sabonis. Those questions won’t be answered in the next 24 games, but they should give the Pacers a little more info before they kick off extension talks with the former Longhorn come July.
Next: 2017-18 Week 19 NBA Power Rankings
These are all things to look forward to for one of the few teams happy to be exactly where it is. The gravy boat continues to overflow as the march to the playoffs begins in earnest Friday night.