Why the Pacers Can’t Win Close Games

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For most of the 2014-15 season, the story of the Indiana Pacers has been how close they could play good teams, while still coming up short. Even against teams they should be able to beat, they’ve struggled, especially in the final minutes. On this road trip the Pacers let the Lakers comeback and win and had to hold off the Jazz, surviving and getting the victory. The reason for this is Indiana is struggling to score late in games, and they know it.

Here is how Roy Hibbert put it, via Candace Buckner of the Indy Star:

"“Considering the season that we’re having, who’s been in and who’s been out, we haven’t really learned how to win,” said Roy Hibbert who scored 22 points but had to watch the final 55.7 seconds of the game on the bench after fouling out. “Either we win games big or sometimes we get blown out … and we had to fight back but we’ve rarely been in situations where a team has been on our heels in the fourth quarter. So, I think we should take a lot of pride in this win because we did finish the game.”"

Strange to hear from a team that went to the Eastern Conference finals the past two years, but Roy did point out a number of variables that have changed and that they’re having an effect on how Indiana handles the crunch-time minutes of games.

Last season the Indiana Pacers had 37 games decided by five points or less in the final five minutes, posting the league’s second best win percentage (70.1%) in that situation with a 26-11 record.

Often Indiana had no problem handing the ball off to Paul George in such situations, and PG shot 38.6% from the field while going 29-of-32 from the free-throw line and positing a +/- of 92. Indiana often used pick-and-rolls to free up George knowing he just needed a little space for these clutch-time shots.

But even when it wasn’t George shooting, George Hill, Lance Stephenson and David West all shot above 40% in those situations, meaning Indiana had plenty of options and defenses had to cover almost everyone.

George may have been who Indiana wanted to go to in the clutch, but they had plenty of possibilities to work with.

Though Indiana was often in good shape as long as they were close, George and Indiana were only 5-9 in 5-point games with under a minute to play — a winning percentage that was the bottom half of the league. Of course they were behind in 11 of those games, so take that with a grain of salt as the odds are simply against you in that situation.

The reason I bring that up is to put some context around Indiana’s record in similar situations this seasons.

Indiana’s record this year with 1 minute left this year is 5-12, and 3-12 when they’re trailing, so most of the results are somewhat expected when you know the odds of the situation. but when you expand that back out to the 5-minute range, you begin to see the problem.

Where Indiana won over 70% of those close games last season, the Pacers are already is 9-13 in those situations this season. Without Paul George (or George Hill for most the season so far, or West for nearly half of it), things have gotten much easier for opposing defenses in the final minutes as Indiana doesn’t have a go-to guy.

Right now, if you look at the numbers, it appears Donald Sloan has been the statistical leader for Indiana in those situations. He has shoot 9-of-18. But after that, it gets ugly quickly.

West is 2-of-17 (11.8%). Chris Copeland is 4-of-14 (28.6%). Rodney Stuckey and C.J. Miles are both 4-of-13 (30.8%). None of those players have been to the free-throw line very often in these 5-point/5-minute scenarios either. Defenders don’t have to worry about playing help defense, they just have to keep a hand in the face of their assignment and hope the odds play out in their favor. Worse of all, no one on Indiana’s roster has a positive +/- in this scenario as Indiana gives up points on defense and can’t score any of their own.

It hasn’t helped that injuries have taken away Indiana’s first and second choices for point guard for a significant part of the year. Without having stability it has been hard for the Pacers to create the chemistry needed to have a well-oiled machine. On top of that, not having George Hill or Paul George takes away two players that, if nothing else, could create their own shots in the final minutes. West and Hibbert have to have the ball passed to them and be set up to be scorers, and Solomon Hill is still learning on the job and hasn’t been a big factor in late game situations with the exception of one fluke play.

Perhaps the most obvious evidence of this is the fact Hibbert has been forced into taking two buzzer-beater shots this season, and in both situation it was brutally obvious that something had gone terribly wrong. But Hibbert had to do something before the clock expired.

Against Washington the hope was Hibbert’s screen would set up Copeland for a corner 3-point attempt. But Nene closed off Sloan’s passing lane and Hibbert was  open. There may have been room to find a cutting Copeland or kick it back out to LaVoy Allen, but it was the 7’2″ center who took a 3-pointer.

It happened again just this week.

After shooting poorly in the final minutes, the Pacers tried to bounce back from letting Kobe Bryant hit what would become the eventually game winner, but once again the lack of closers was apparent. Miles was unable to create space for himself after West’s screen and was jammed at the top of the key.

Miles passed the ball back out to Hibbert, and the results weren’t pretty.

It is fun to pick on these two plays, but they clearly illustrate the limited options the Pacers have in the final minutes.

A blowhard commentator would add something here about heart or attitude or not having what it takes or some other line of BS to try to explain why the Indiana Pacers have struggled in the game’s final minutes. But that wouldn’t be the truth.

The truth, or the best theory I can come up with, is that Indiana may have capable scorers like Miles (15.6 ppg over the last 15 games) in the lineup, but they were meant to be role players, the sixth man, or something other than the Pacers crunch-time line up. Miles should be the sixth man: a shoot-first, ask-questions-later sort of player he’s shown he is capable of being. Copeland should be a 3-point specialist used in certain situations.

Instead, they’ve played a significant portion of Indiana’s minutes, and have been expected to play key roles late in games thanks to all of Indiana’s injuries. The Pacers don’t have players on the court in the final minutes who can be relied on for grinding out their own shots or force the defense into fouling them. And the team-wide execution of sets remains shoddy at best. That’s less about heart and more about familiarity with teammates and repetitions running sets. And because of all the injuries that have changed the rotation about twice a week so far this year, this team lacks familiarity and reps.

Unless Solomon Hill can develop into a closer before the season’s end or before George Hill’s return, the Pacers will likely continue struggling to learn how to win.