Indiana Pacers: Deadline moves have eased the pain of Victor Oladipo’s injury

The Indiana Pacers have been able to stay afloat in the Eastern Conference despite losing All-Star guard Victor Oladipo, and a successful trade deadline has helped keep them in the playoff hunt.

In their seven games since the All-Star break, the Indiana Pacers haven’t had much of an identity, but are still sitting at third place in the Eastern Conference. They’re one of six teams in the league with at least 40 wins. They even managed a seven-game win streak not long after Victor Oladipo‘s season-ending injury on Jan. 23, and defeated the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks on that streak.

In the midst of losing their star guard and trying to find a new source of scoring to rely on night-to-night, the Pacers actually had a pretty successful trade deadline, which, along with mixed contributions from their supporting cast, could keep them relevant in the Eastern Conference all the way up until the 2019 NBA Playoffs.

By dumping Nik Stauskas and Wade Baldwin‘s contracts and clearing room for veteran guard Wesley Matthews after his release from the New York Knicks, the Pacers got a scoring guard to hop in the starting lineup for a low price. More importantly, they kept the whole team intact and didn’t go all-in on a blockbuster deadline deal, affording this team the chance to play together and prove their resilience in the absence of Oladipo.

Even though injuries to guard Tyreke Evans and forward Domantas Sabonis have created even more bumps in the road for the surprisingly durable Pacers, head coach Nate McMillan has been able to tweak things for the team to adjust.

"“I didn’t post up Victor, but I can post up Tyreke,” McMillan told Sports Illustrated‘s Rob Mahoney when asked about finding work-arounds for offensive sets. “I didn’t post up Victor, but I can post up Wesley.”"

Matthews’ contributions will play a slightly bigger role now that Sabonis is temporarily out of the rotation. He’s scored double figures in his last six games with the Pacers, despite the team’s 3-3 record during that stretch. It also helps that he has a comrade in Doug McDermott, a player with whom Matthews played 26 games with in Dallas last year.

"“He reminds me a lot of a guy like Thad [Young] in terms of leadership in the locker room,” McDermott told the IndyStar. “He hangs his hat on defense, but he also really can shoot the ball. Really good guy.”"

Even more encouraging throughout all the injuries has been the play of Myles Turner, who nearly recorded a triple-double with blocks in Tuesday night’s victory over the Chicago Bulls. Turner, despite not scoring at a high clip in recent games, has logged 17 blocks in the Pacers’ last three contests, and his defense helped stop Zach LaVine and the Bulls.

"“This is the time of the year where–right before the playoffs–that you’ve got to kind of start finding your stride,” Turner told reporters after the Tuesday’s win. “We’ve had instances this season where we’ve felt pretty good about ourselves, but I don’t think we’re where we need to be yet.”"

Bojan Bogdanovic has taken on the role of primary scorer, averaging 27.2 points per game in the Pacers’ last five games.

"“Tough month of March for us, but no one believed that we were gonna be here…but we’re still here,” Bogdanovic said Tuesday after pouring in 27 in the win. “I think we’ve got enough.”"

For Indiana, they’ll see the top-seeded Bucks once more on Thursday night, followed immediately by the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday. This tough month of March also includes matchups against the Golden State Warriors, Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics, respectively.

But if this Pacers team can salvage some wins against these tougher matchups, they may position themselves to be a more favorable playoff matchup than we might give them credit for.