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Sunday 20 January 2019 23:41, UK
Talk about the top tier teams in the Eastern Conference never seems to involve the genuinely excellent Indiana Pacers. Their recognition is way overdue, writes Mark Deeks
It is generally acknowledged that there have been a clear top two among the teams in the Eastern Conference. The Toronto Raptors currently lead the pack with a 34-13 record, the Milwaukee Bucks are two wins back in second place at 32-12, and the duo have looked the most consistent along the way.
A tier below that lie the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers, who are also expected to contend, yet who have not hit top gear yet. Despite their high talent level and three-star set-up, the 76ers have been inconsistent through a combination of injuries, ill-fitting complementary talents, chemistry, roster turnover and the pressure of such scrutiny, while the supposedly loaded Celtics have, in the words of their own Marcus Morris, not their found identity yet.
But there is also an interloper in the mix. The fifth team in the discussion is the current third seed, and one never given its proper dues.
With a 29-15 record, the Indiana Pacers are one loss ahead of the 76ers, and a full three games up on the Celtics. The latter two were universally anointed as contenders for the NBA Finals this season, whereas the Pacers never were. And yet Indiana is the best team of the three thus far.
In part, Indiana has done it through continuity, along with a dollop of luck. They return the same front seven players in their rotation as last season; the starting five that features Darren Collison, Victor Oladipo, Bojan Bogdanovic, Thaddeus Young and Myles Turner, plus sixth and seventh men Domantas Sabonis and Cory Joseph.
Only when we get down to the eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th men (where Tyreke Evans, Doug McDermott, Aaron Holiday and Kyle O'Quinn all provide upgrades on last year's quartet of Lance Stephenson, Glenn Robinson III, Joe Young and Al Jefferson) do we see any change at all to the significant parts of the playing roster.
Further to that, the Pacers have been fortunate with injuries. Aside from a brief 11-game absence for Oladipo, and a recent five-game stretch for Turner, the Pacers have hardly missed a beat. Five of their top nine have not missed a game, Sabonis has missed two, Evans has missed four….and that's it.
That said, notwithstanding the above, the reason for the continuity is more because of how the balance of these pieces works. This continuity was a choice. And it is on the defensive end where the Pacers have really reaped the benefits of this lack of upheaval.
Two years ago, in the final iteration of the Paul George era, the Pacers ranked 16th in the league in defensive efficiency (the measure of how many points per 100 possessions a team gives up). Last year saw a slight uptick to 13th, but still very much in the middle of the pack.
This season, however? Second. Behind only the stand-out defence of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Turner has been the major driving force of that improvement. Drafted high on account of his potential as a modern day stretch five, able to play on the perimeter offensively and block shots around the basket like a prime Raef LaFrentz, Turner was as frustrating as he was enticing. There was talent, both physical and skills-based, but there lacked both fire and awareness.
After a slow start to this season, with his numbers (that had already regressed across the board last season) down once again, it looked as though another anti-climactic season from Turner was on the cards.
Since that time, however, Turner has broken out. December was the best month of his career, not because of the better scoring (15.7 points per game on a .593 per cent true shooting percentage) or the new-found rebounding fire (9.4 rebounds in only 29.2 minutes per game), but because of the much-improved defensive play.
Turner leads the NBA in blocks thus far this season at 2.8 per game, and while blocks are not automatically themselves a fair reflection of a center's impact on that end, they are a good indicator of it in this case.
With his great length and plays on the ball, Turner was always supposed to realise his potential best on this end, yet a limited understanding of angles, positioning and timing made him exploitable hitherto. Now, though, he is both anchoring the interior and smothering the pick-and-roll on the perimeter. He is a new man and, thus far, a Defensive Player of the Year candidate.
With Turner playing with much greater defensive awareness, especially on the perimeter, the Pacers now have an anchor behind a defence that was already pretty flexible given the talents of Oladipo and Young. Young brings the versatility to defend the combo forwards such as himself, the deflections machine to go with Turner's shot-blocking prowess, and between the two, the Pacers always threaten an effective switch.
Similarly, when engaged, Oladipo is also one of the better two-way players in the league, both willing and able (sometimes) to hound opposing star wings. And with Sabonis' rebounding rate keeping the team suitably average in that department, the Pacers have built themselves a defensive unit as good as any in the league, and one that will only improve as Turner does.
In the interests of balance, we should highlight that the offense, while not too flawed, does not stand out. Indiana is tied for 16th in offensive efficiency, lacking dynamic or reliable crunch-time offensive options at both the power forward and small forward spots.
The crunch time play is so often reliant on the individual talents of Oladipo, and he does continue to come through for his team in this regard, yet overall, Oladipo has been on a worryingly Danny Granger-esque offensive regression on this season. It is one hopefully attributable to the minor injuries to some degree, yet it also is something that will need to change for Indiana to truly compete for an NBA Finals berth.
However, the interests of balance are precisely why we are drawing attention to the Pacers right here. Talk about the East never seems to involve this genuinely excellent team in its top tier, instead gravitating more towards the sleekness of the Raptors, the rejuvenated offence of the Bucks, the soap opera of the 76ers and the relative struggles of the Celtics.
But Indiana are right there with all of them. And if they need to embrace this underdog mentality in order to get their due recognition, they will.
