Breaking Down the Pacers Offensive Improvement in February

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The month of February has been cold, ruthless in its pursuit to make everyone in central Indiana miserable. Well, everyone except the Indiana Pacers.

Right now, Indy is hot like August. Before last night’s loss to the Thunder, the Pacers had the third-best offensive rating of any team in the league, with a true shooting percentage of 57.8%, second only to the white-hot Cleveland Cavaliers.

This chart, from NBA.com’s John Schuhmann, shows just how much Indiana has been abled to improve offensively since the beginning of the year. Since January, the Pacers have managed the fourth best positive difference in terms of offensive rating in the league, behind only Detroit, Golden State, and Houston, all of which are good company from an offensive standpoint.

So, how exactly have they accomplished such a feat?

Simply put, they have been shooting better as a collective. Some of this is due to the return of George Hill and how he has impacted the offense that, unlike last season, is free from ball stoppers.

But, George Hill alone cannot account for a field-goal percentage that jumped from 42.8% shooting in the month of January to the 48.5% the Pacers posted in their first seven games in February.

Take Rodney Stuckey for example.

In the five games before the Thunder loss, he averaged 21.8 points per game on an eFG% of 66.2%. Those kinds of numbers certainly don’t hurt a team that hasn’t exactly been struggling.

Another part of the equation here is that, while the Pacers aren’t taking more 3s, they are making more of the ones that they take. In fact, from the month of January to February, the Pacers are averaging .4 less 3-point attempts per game, while they are making over 2.5 more of them.

Along with making more of their 3s, they’re making more of their shots in general while managing to attempt about two less per game while making about four more per game. It’s simple math — make the shots you take and don’t take the one’s you’ll miss.

Indy has been doing a great job of both.

Again, we can refer to NBA stats page to see that through this seven-game stretch, Indy are in front in terms of offensive efficiency. They are third in the league in February in terms of their overall assist ratio, and sit flat 2nd place in efficient field goal percentage, and have somehow managed to win six of their seven so far.

Yes, the Pacers lost last night to the Oklahoma City Thunder, whic lead the league in February offensive efficiency. And the poor Pacers shooting in defeat may suggest that a regression to the mean is in order.

But the Indiana Pacers offense has been a much-improved one since the calendar flipped to 2015, and the February stats are positively special. For the rest of the year, we can expect the team to cool down some from its current torrid shooting. But we should also assume that this isn’t entirely a blip on the radar.

The Pacers are unlikely to have an elite offense for the rest of the year, as they have throughout February. But the improvement should be real and lasting enough that — combined with high-level defense — this team has an excellent shot to make the playoffs. And even put a scare into whoever they play in the first round.

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