4 Reasons Why the Indiana Pacers Can Surpass the Bucks for the 6th Seed

The Indiana Pacers are currently in 7th place in the Eastern Conference. But this doesn’t mean much. The order of the seven teams that have a realistic shot at finishing in the final three playoff slots keeps changing day by day.

Here is where they all stand as of today.

Of these seven squads, only the Milwaukee Bucks look like a sure thing to make the postseason. And the Detroit Pistons seem to be nearly out of contention, barring some miraculous late-season turnaround. (If only they had another Josh Smith to waive …)

So, really, we’re talking about five teams (Indiana, Miami, Charlotte, Brooklyn, and Boston) battling for the final two spots.

In my view, the Pacers are a lock.

They are the only one of these teams playing high-level basketball right now. I cannot foresee Indiana continuing its current pace of winning — they’ve won 11 of their past 13 — but I also can’t see them winning any less than 10 of their final 20 games.

They are healthy, hitting on all cylinders, and have simply looked like a different — good — team since George Hill returned to the starting lineup. For awhile, this success could have been an illusion, but it has been going on for five weeks now and included too many wins over good teams for them to completely unravel now.

I am convinced that the Pacers will be — at worst — a .500 team going forward and perhaps more like .600.

They are simply better, right now, than the Miami Heat and Charlotte Hornets. The Heat have lost Chris Bosh for the season, have not gotten as much of a Goran Dragic boost as expected (party due to injury), and are sitting by idly while big man wunderkind Hassan Whiteside keeps getting ejected from games.

The Hornets have been playing well of late, but they scored 23 points in the entire second half last night at home in a loss to the Wizards. Plus they have a five-game road trip coming up and play four of their final six games of the year away from home. And those late-season road games will be difficult: at Miami, at Atlanta, at Detroit, and at Toronto. Given the season they’ve had and their struggles to score, I simply do not trust Charlotte to get crucial wins in big games away from home against quality opponents.

So, sure, I may be overly optimistic here, and Pacers fans know better than anyone how quickly regular season success can disappear. But I think Indy is in.

And while we’re being optimistic, let’s just ask: Can the Pacers catch the Bucks for the 6th seed?

Let’s break it down in depth.

Next: Pacers vs. Bucks Overview