The Value of the Indiana Pacers Getting the 6th Seed
If the Indiana Pacers gets into the playoffs with the 7th or 8th seed, it will be nice for fans. The team will get a few extra games in the heated playoff environment and that will be fun. But in that scenario, all evidence points to the Pacers getting bounced in five or six games by the Atlanta Hawks or Cleveland Cavaliers.
If they get the 6th seed, however, the second round could be possible.
One of Toronto, Chicago, or Washington will get the 3 seed and match up with the 6 seed in the first round. The Pacers would certainly be an underdog against any of those teams. But winning a 7-game series against any of them is not out of the question. It is infinitely possible in a way that beating the Cavs and Hawks most certainly is not.
But can they catch Milwaukee? Is this realistic or just a pipe dream?
They are currently 4.5 games back and that is a ton of ground to make up in 20 games. For more perspective, here is where each team stands currently.
That doesn’t tell us much, so the next step to seeing if it’s realistic is to look at who each team has to play for the rest of the year.
Below is the remaining strength of schedule for the teams contending for the 6, 7, and 8 seeds. The column of note here is “ROWP,” remaining opponent winning percentage, and you will see that there isn’t much difference among the teams with the best chances to finish this musical chairs game in spots 7 and 8.
The Pacers have a slightly more difficult remaining schedule, but just by a few percentage points. We’re not talking about a meaningful difference in strength of schedule.
Here is a further drill down of just Indiana and Milwaukee.
The upside is that Indiana has one more game (20) than Milwaukee (19) to control its own destiny. The downside is that it’s a road game. But the Pacers do have a slightly more favorable home opponent sheet left, in terms of W/L percentage, while the Bucks have a much easier road schedule remaining. Each team has four back to backs.
Just looking at these numbers, it would seem like the Bucks should coast into the sixth seed. But this isn’t the whole story.
The following five reasons show why Indiana could surpass Milwaukee.
Next: The Bucks' Struggle