Indiana Pacers: Celtics are in for a surprise

The Indiana Pacers are a fifth seed in the playoffs, despite losing All-Star guard Victor Oladipo midway through the season. While the Boston Celtics are heavily favored, the Pacers are not a team that should be overlooked.

This is the fourth consecutive playoff appearance for the Indiana Pacers. They have advanced to the postseason in eight of the last nine years. But the team’s recent struggles can’t be overlooked. The Pacers finished the season a dismal 4-6 in their final 10 games.

That’s not exactly the momentum that you want to have going against one of the favorites to win the Eastern Conference.

Indiana has fallen short against the Celtics in three of four meetings this year. It also doesn’t help that the Pacers were dealt an embarrassing 20-point loss at the hands of the Celtics in the final week of the regular season.

I’m not anticipating a sweep, but the Pacers are going to have to fix some serious flaws if this is going to be a competitive first-round series.

The defense of the Pacers will have to be stellar. Kyrie Irving is going to attack the basket and make foul trouble a serious concern for Indiana. But Irving isn’t the only player with the ability to draw fouls. Jaylen Brown attacks the drives to the rim hard, as does Jayson Tatum.

It’s difficult for defenders to match their intensity without picking up cheap fouls. Not to mention Al Horford has the ability to wreak havoc on the interior defense of opponents.

The Celtics definitely aren’t the team to foul. They are shooting 80.2 percent from the free throw line as a team. That’s fourth-best in the NBA. The Pacers can’t afford to give up points at the line if they are going to have a shot at winning the closer games in the series.

Offensively, Indiana has to value each possession. Senseless turnovers will be the quickest way for the Pacers to prevent themselves from having a shot at victory. The Celtics are fourth in the NBA with 8.6 steals per game.

Pacers guards Darren Collison and Tyreke Evans must set the tone with smart ball handling. They need to get other players involved, without forcing entry passes into the paint.

Indiana will also have to take advantage of Boston’s inconsistency early in the series. The Celtics lineup has fallen into a series of slumps throughout the season. Marcus Smart is expected to miss the first round of the playoffs with a torn oblique, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Shuffling either Jaylen Brown or Gordon Hayward into the starting lineup will require some adjustment. Both of those players take more shots per game than Smart.

If the Pacers can capitalize on the adjustment, they have a legit chance at stealing at least one of the first two games on the road.

The biggest key to victory for the Pacers in this series isn’t one of the guys who have been carrying the team all season. I expect guys like Darren Collison and Bojan Bogdanovic to come up big.

But for the Pacers to have a chance in this series, Thaddeus Young will need to play some of the best basketball of his career.

The 30-year-old power forward is averaging 12.6 points a night along with 6.5 rebounds. His play has been elevated in the last 10 games of the season, scoring 14.6 points a game while still grabbing 6.5 boards.

Thaddeus Young will need to be aggressive with the ball to account for moments when the Pacers half-court offensive might stall.

The Pacers are certainly underdogs for this series. But since the injury to Victor Oladipo, the squad has been playing with house money. If they can keep up the nothing-to-lose attitude, there may be enough left in the tank to advance to the second round of the playoffs.