How George Hill and the Pacers Offense Are Benefitting from the Lack of Ball Stoppers

If you are a fan of uptempo, offensive-minded basketball, you wouldn’t particularly choose to watch the Indiana Pacers. In the Frank Vogel era, the Pacers’ offense has been a stagnant blend of David West and Roy Hibbert battling down low, George Hill care-taking the ball, and Paul George and Lance Stephenson playing isolation all over the floor.

They had great defense and enough talent on offense to win a lot of games, but they certainly didn’t win many shootouts. But as the Spurs showed us last season and the Hawks are showing us right now, constant ball and player movement is the ideal way to run an offense, no matter how individually talented a certain player may be.

When Stephenson left in free agency, some lost hope in Indiana contending this season. While he made the offensive much more dynamic in many ways — especially last season — he was also a primary ball handler who made plenty of bad decisions with the ball. If he couldn’t shake up his defender a little bit, he’d settle for a 3 or mid-range jumper without even considering a pass to one of his teammates. Worst of all, he held the ball for 4, 5, 6, 7 seconds at a time, and that led to a lot of wasted possession.

So perhaps the offseason loss of Stephenson could be a blessing in disguise.

But then Paul George went down.

If he was healthy, the team may have improved its ball movement without Stephenson, but the offense would have certainly still run through George, who is also prone to forcing drives and shots. Would that be an issue? Nope. You’d love to have someone like George who could get you 20+ points a night no matter how many of his isolation possessions killed the offense. But, they’ve had to live without that this season, and since Hill’s return, the Pacers have played remarkably better.

The stats aren’t everything (this is for you Charles Barkley), but these alone show how much of an impact Hill has made on the Pacers.

Hill has brought exactly what Indiana has needed all season: playmaking.

With no ball-dominant wings beside him, Hill now has the ability to handle the ball much more than past seasons, and he can really show off.

Aggressiveness has been Hill’s biggest issue since arriving in Indiana, taking a backseat to both Stephenson and George, letting them make the plays while he sat on the perimeter waiting to take a spot-up 3 from a swing pass. He has shown what he can do while aggressive in the past, like last season’s 37-point, 9-rebound, 8-assist outing against Damian Lillard and the Blazers. Game’s like those were unfortunately a rare sighting in the past for Hill, but he is very capable of having games like that at least every once and a while. He never gave himself much of a chance to have those games in the past, but now being the primary ball handler, maybe he will take advantage of his talent.

Since returning from injury on December 23, Hill is averaging 14 points, 4.5 assists, and 3.3 rebounds in 23.1 minutes per game. He has only started five of the 10 games he has been back for and has been on a strict minutes restriction, so his numbers will surely improve once he gets more starts under his belt and now that the limit has been removed.

Before we move on from numbers, it is worth mentioning that the Pacers rank 7th in offensive rating since Hill’s return from injury, scoring 106.1 points per 100 possession in their past 10 games. In this stretch, they also rank 6th in effective field-goal percentage, 4th in assist rate, and 9th in assist-to-turnover ratio. As bad as we all know the Pacers offense’ can be, those numbers show that Indiana has actually been a good offensive team with Hill on the floor.

A lot of this is due to Hill taking charge out there.

The plays below show this aggressiveness.

Here is just hellbent on getting to the rim.

The clip above shows Hill passing up a drive-and-kick opportunity. Instead of dishing to the corner shooter, Hill fakes the pass and gets Iman Shumpert’s hands up long enough to get past him and score.

Hill has also run the pick-and-roll much better than anyone else on the team this season. In doing so in this clip. you can see how he has been doing a good job mixing his aggressive streak with the calm, collected, play-runner that can help get good mid-range shots for David West, who is shooting 51 percent from 16 feet out this season.

This isn’t just a few video clips either. Hill and West together are outscoring opponents by 9.2 points per 100 possessions in 288 minutes together this season.

What the stats won’t tell you is how much more effort Hill’s teammates are putting forth since his return, as they looked rather bored with him out. When Indiana lost 10 of 13 games back in January, the veterans didn’t seem to care as they continued to fall further from the 8th seed. However, with Hill back and the team almost completely healthy, the heart and effort is back.

It is no coincidence that David West set a season-high with 13 rebounds in Hill’s second start back. And then West went out three days later and bettered that with an 18-rebound performance.

Everyone is happy Hill is back, and nobody is glad to have his running mate back more than Mr. West.

Hill clearly is better when he has the ball in his hands and can make plays rather than being a weakside spacer. He can play without the ball, being a very good cutter and catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter (51.6% this year), but Hill thrives when he can take the ball up, set up the offense, and make plays for himself and his teammates.

Without a go-to guy like Paul George or a ball-dominator like Lance Stephenson, Indiana’s role players have been asked to do much more than they ever had to before. It has been ugly to watch, but this growing process can only help their growth and confidence as a player.

Whenever George does return, whether it be this season or next, the offense around him will be much different.

George Hill has seemingly re-found the confidence, decisiveness, and aggression that made him such a potent threat earlier in his career. David West has, perhaps due to necessity, become more of a facilitator and less of a bully ball player inside who creates shots for himself. And the role players that PG will share the court with move the ball much more than he is used to. He will still certainly be that go-to guy again, but his shots should come much easier and in places he is comfortable in.

With the possibility of George coming back this season, along with hopefully a clean bill of health, the Pacers still have a good shot at making the playoffs. The defense is still there, and the offense is coming around.

Put George in the mix and you might have yourself a very dangerous 7th or 8th seed come playoff time.

Next: Indiana Pacers Midseason Awards

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