Charting the Indiana Pacers Free Throw Woes

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The Indiana Pacers have free-throw problems.

For example: The Charlotte Hornets were able to overcome a pitiful offensive performance (30.7% shooting from the floor) to win on Saturday, and it had a lot to do with the bee squad outscoring Indy 16 to 9 at the line. The Detroit Pistons had an even larger margin, 21 to 10, while beating the Pacers on Friday.

This isn’t a recent trend but a season-long failing.

Indiana has taken fewer free throws than its opponents in 27 of its 42 games this year, per Pacers.com.

This is a far cry from last year, when Indiana fouled little and got to the line plenty. Only five teams have gotten to the line less often (as a percent of field goal attempts) than the Indiana Pacers in 2014-15. By contrast, last season, Indiana got to the line at a better rate than all but eight teams.

A former strength is now a huge weakness.

The other obvious issue is the team’s poor accuracy from the line: Indiana has hit just 74.6% of their foul shots this season, putting them 19th in the league. Last year, they made 77.9%, which was good enough to slot them in 7th place.

Only five teams have gotten to the line less often than the Indiana Pacers in 2014-15.

This is a rare problem for a team that has been near the top of the league in free-throw shooting in recent years. Usually, they outpace the accuracy of their peers because the Pacers have a rare combination of two accurate big men, Roy Hibbert and David West, who shoot in the mid-to-upper 70% range. And this year, Hibbert is certainly doing his part this year by shooting a career-high 82.1% from the charity stripe.

But that has been negated by Luis Scola falling off a cliff. He has made just 64.8% of his freebies this season compared to 74.2% for his career. And while Ian Mahinmi has always been a terrible free-throw shooter (career percent: 63.2%), his 30.3% rate this year has been disastrous.

Combined, the two factors mean that Indiana is scoring just 16.1 points per game this season from the line compared to 18.1 last year. While many flaws are to blame for the team’s poor scoring and two points might not seem like a huge deal, this is a precipitous drop. And the disappearance of these easy points is a huge reason why the offense is so much worse this season.

Some of this is easily explainable by the fact that Paul George is gone.

George was — by far — the player who got to line the most often last season. His 5.8 free-throw attempts per 36 minutes led the team. That is much better than this year’s leader, Rodney Stuckey, who is getting to the stripe just 4.6 times per 36.

David West’s falloff has also hurt. He got to the line 3.7 times per 36 minutes last year. But that number has fallen to just 2.2 this year — a drop that is magnified by the games he has missed and the fewer minutes he is playing per game (31 minutes to 29).

Mark Montieth wrote about the team’s woes for Pacers.com, noting how Frank Vogel had preached in the preseason about the importance of getting to the line.

"Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel made free throw attempts a point of emphasis for his team in the preseason, and has been preaching it to his players ever since. Although it’s shown improvement lately, it needs more. Indiana ranks 21st in the NBA in free throws attempted and 22nd in free throws made. It’s no coincidence their won-loss record is tied for 21st.“It’s about our assertiveness and our ball movement,” Vogel said. “It’s not about throwing your body into defenders when you have the ball, it’s about moving the basketball. When you move the ball you create open lanes and open attacks at the rim where they’re forced to foul you.”"

Obviously, that strategy has failed.

Yes, the Indiana Pacers have many problems to fix. But one of the bigger ones is something that a child could improve through practice.

It’s obvious now that this won’t be a fun season, but a lot of the pressure could be eased if they would just get to the line a bit more — and start making those shots again.