C.J. Miles: New Year’s Revolution

There have been two versions of C.J. Miles this season: the injured, ineffective C.J. Miles and the heathy, happy, brutally effective C.J. Miles.

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Even before coming to Indiana, Miles spent most of 2014 dealing with injury. In his final months with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he played only 31 minutes after the All-Star break due to his ankle injury. He then began his time with the Pacers dealing with migraines and a sore calf.

But since December 10 he has been mostly healthy (missing just one full game and parts of two others with a bruised knee and a respiratory issue, respectively). Better still, in the seven games that weren’t disrupted by these ailments, Miles has scored in double-digits in every game that wasn’t cut short by those ailments.

When healthy, he’s been a force to be reckoned with coming off the Pacers bench. Just a quick look at the numbers reveal all you need to know.

Before December 10, when he missed seven of 21 games, Miles was shooting 29% from the field, 23.8% from beyond the arc, and scoring 7.9 points a game. Whether it was the migraines, being with a new team, or any of the other injuries, Miles wasn’t playing like you would expect him to.

He was trying to get closer to the basket instead of spreading the floor with his range, but even when he shot from deep he couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal a basket. He only scored 10 or more points in five of those games, and even in those better games, he only shot above 40% twice. Miles looked more like dead weight — until he started to turn the corner with a 15-point performance against the Atlanta Hawks on December 8.

But it was the December 10 game against the Los Angeles Clippers when Miles began to look like he could be a capable replacement for Lance Stephenson. He dropped 30 points on Lob City, shooting 50% from the field and hitting 7-of-14 3-point attempts. The bench nearly won the game for Indiana, and C.J. Miles was a big factor in why that was possible.

He came off the bench to hit 4 treys in the first half, and it wasn’t as if he was doing anything drastically different, he just started making shots. Instead of shots going half way down and rimming out, they sank to the bottom of the net. The cold streak was over and sub-30% shooting wasn’t going to be a problem, in fact since then the only nights he shot that poorly were the nights he left with injury.

And since then Miles has been the Pacers leading scorer, putting up 17.1 points a game while also improving his shooting percentage to 42.5% overall and 41% from 3-point range.

It isn’t just the offense that is better either. In his last 624 minutes of play, the Pacers have a 92.9 defensive rating when Miles is on the floor.

So what really changed? I honestly think it was more of his shooting normalizing for a number of reason.

There was no reason to think he would shoot 29% all season — a figure that is more than 10% below his career accuracy. The only numbers that maybe suggest any sort of change in how he was shooting was that he had more open looks after the Dec. 10 mark.

That may simply be that he’s more healthy now that he was then, or that his teammates are helping free him up more now that the injury-riddled rotations that began the season. Dealing with the assorted injuries Miles had and working himself into the Pacers lineup were factors, and occasionally players just hit a cold streak that they’ll eventually come out of.

Miles is a career 41.7% shooter, slightly below where he is shooting now. When the Pacers signed Miles, they expected him to play like this, not the injured, ineffective versison that began the season. That 17.1 points per a game number will most likely come down closer to his career average of 9 points a game or the 10.6 per a game he had in Cleveland. He started this revolution, evolution, or whatever you want to call it in December, but even if his numbers normalize to his career averages, Miles roughest stretch as a Pacers is most likely behind him.

Even if his numbers do drop, he’s a proven spark off the bench over the last month and that’s something Indiana needs when Roy Hibbert was slumping, or George Hill and C.J. Watson are injured. What Indiana is getting out of him now is just gravy. They wanted a reliable bench player that could score and open up the floor and he’s been doing just that.

Right now Indiana’s has the 3rd highest scoring bench in the league at 40.8 points per a game with Miles as the 2nd unit leader. If George Hill can get the starters playing a little bit better, Pacers fans will be talking less about all these close games.

Tonight’s Betting Line Versus the Los Angeles Lakers

Indiana is a -1 favorite on the road with a 201.5 over/under. They cleared the over last time, and I think the Pacers will win again.