Indiana Pacers: 3 goals for the final stretch of the season

Indiana Pacers goal No. 3: Crash the boards

Despite having Sabonis on the squad who is averaging 11.8 rebounds per game, the Pacers only collect 42.5 rebounds per game which is only good for 26th in the league. However, that is not the worst rebounding number for the Pacers.

They give up 11.2 offensive rebounds per game which is last in the league. On top of that, they are 29th in the league collecting only 74.9 percent of the available defensive rebounds. This has impacted their defense where the Pacers are ranked 25th in the league.

The problem is that it is tough to play good defense for 24 seconds at a time for any team. Add to this the aggressive switching style employed by Bjorkgren and it even harder. If you don’t secure the defensive rebound, adding another 14 seconds onto that will usually allow the opposition to score.

The answer is that everybody needs to take responsibility for collecting the rebound at the end of a possession. This comes back to effort and when the team seems to not want to play for the coach, it is unlikely to happen this season. This is going to result in an early exit from the postseason if they do not fix it.