Picking Apart the Indiana Pacers Turnover Problems

The Indiana Pacers are 24th in the NBA in turnovers with 15.4 a game, one of the reasons they keep losing close games.

The Indiana Pacers turn the ball over a lot. They are 24th in the league per game and 20th in terms of percentage of possessions that end in a turnover.

Coming out of the All-Star Break, those 15.4 or so turnovers a game are more than just lost possessions. They are leading to points for the Pacers’ opponents. Indiana is ranked 22nd is opponents points off turnovers, as the Pacers’ opponents are scoring 17.1 points a game off Indiana’s mistakes.

When you turn the ball over on 15.2% of your possessions, per NBA.com, you’re going to have that problem.

Paul George’s 3.7 a game lead the team, but he does lead the team in usage at 30.1%. So just looking at the raw numbers won’t give us a perfect answer at to who holds the most responsibility.

Of the starters, Monta Ellis leads the team in turnover percentage — a measure of how many times a player turns the ball over per 100 possessions — at 13.1%. Paul George is just behind him at 12.9%.

However, the biggest difference between the two in this regard is Ellis’ usage rate is nearly a third less than PG’s at 21.5%.

More from 8 Points, 9 Seconds

To Indiana’s credit, the team cut down on turnovers against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday, giving it away only 11 times. But we saw some of the same mistakes that create them. Against Oklahoma City, they committed several in the pick and roll game, and that bears out in the stats, as Ian Mahinmi and LaVoy Allen turn the ball over around 7.5% of the time in their 147 attempts this season.

The only black eye since the All-Star break has been the 21 they committed against the Orlando Magic. As mentioned above, against OKC they turned it over 11 times, and in their loss to Miami on Monday, they turned it over just 12 times.

Somewhat surprisingly, Myles Turner has already caught up with the rest of the team’s roll men and will soon overtake Jordan Hill. So far he’s been the roll man 93 times and he’s only turned it over 2.2% of the time. That’s likely because he doesn’t have to charge towards the rim like some of the other big men do thanks to his shooting range. When he’s on the court Indiana has run the PnR 29.3% of the time, but he needs to improve how he finishes on these plays as his points per possession is 0.81.

With him in the lineup and running the pick and roll we might see these turnovers go down for that reason, but we’ll have to wait to see what effect he has for Indiana in the long term. So far there hasn’t been much of a difference.

As for the ball handlers in the pick and roll, Monta and PG lead the way by turning the ball over 17.8% and 15.5% of the time, but they also have the highest points per a possession for Indiana on these plays at 0.82 and 0.87, respectively.

While a high pace contributes to the fact the Pacers turn the ball over, the fact they allow so many points off them is the bigger problem. Indiana turns the ball over as often as the Golden State Warriors do, however, the big difference is what happens off those turnovers.

Indiana’s opponents score 19.4% of their points off the Pacers mistakes, worst in the NBA, whereas the Warriors only allow 15.2% of their opponents points to come that way. Paul George and Monta Ellis, in particular, have to cut down on their mistakes if the Pacers want to lower these numbers.

Next: Miller Time Podcast Episode #134: All-Star Breakin’

If Indiana has any plans for doing more than just making the playoffs, they have to stop giving the ball to their opponents and letting them score.

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