Don’t sleep on the Indiana Pacers out in the Eastern Conference

While everyone pays attention to the top teams, the Indiana Pacers are quietly asserting themselves as a threat to the rest of the Eastern Conference.

After years of relative ineptitude, the Eastern Conference appears to be going through a resurgence of sorts, possessing three of the five teams in the NBA that have eclipsed the 20-win mark.

The consensus top four of the Philadelphia 76ers, Toronto Raptors, Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics have all been acknowledged by the media for their production so far this season, including a myriad of moves made this past summer that have made some take the leap over others.

The Indiana Pacers, meanwhile, were not ones to make a splashy signing this past offseason, instead opting to upgrade their bench while turning inward to the development of a roster that took the eventual conference-champion Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games in their first round matchup last postseason.

And yet here the Pacers are, seeing the fruits of their progress even more than they could’ve possibly imagined, currently sitting in third place in the East at 20-10 and having torn through a good chunk of the league in the form of a seven-game winning streak.

Indiana is probably the furthest thing from the super-teams that have swept the NBA landscape as a necessary evil in order to compete for championships. Rather, the roster is mostly comprised of undervalued and castaway veterans who have managed to find their best selves in the Hoosier State.

Even Victor Oladipo, the team’s lone All-Star and unquestioned leader, arrived in Indiana after a brief one-year stint playing spot-up shooter next to Russell Westbrook for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Nobody could have predicted what would follow for the 26-year-old, who would go on to make the All-NBA Third Team last season.

Despite ranking fourth in 3-point percentage, the Pacers haven’t found this level of success with a high-octane offense. It’s been their defense that has caused opposing teams trouble, ranking fourth in steals, second in opponent field goal percentage and first in opponent points per game.

When Oladipo sat out with soreness in his right knee from the end of November to mid-December, Indiana didn’t really miss a beat, going 7-4 in the 11 games he missed. Head coach Nate McMillan has his guys playing at an extremely high level, and with the experience from the 2018 NBA playoffs in their back pocket, there’s no telling what the Pacers can accomplish come April.

So, yeah, the likely scenario is that the top of the conference standings plays out exactly as most predicted before the season, with the Bucks, Celtics, 76ers and Raptors occupying the top four spots in some form or another.

The Pacers will probably wind up exactly where they were at the end of the 2017-18 regular season as the fifth seed. They won’t have home-court advantage, nor will a good chunk of their roster be recognizable to the casual NBA fan.

Don’t get it twisted, though, because Indiana finds itself getting better by the day, and no team should want to face the Pacers when they put it together at the most important time.