The Indiana Pacers Are Just Embarrassing Themselves

The Indiana Pacers are no longer mediocre or disappointing or underachieving — they are embarrassing.

Coming out of the All-Star break, the Indiana Pacers beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in Oklahoma. Then they beat the San Antonio Spurs. They outdid Washington Wizards in the capital and blasted the Dallas Mavericks in the state you’re not supposed to mess with.

Paul George was shaking off a two-and-a-half-month-long shooting slump and seemed to have fresh legs that would propel the team out of its mediocrity and into a plane where it would be a tough out in the playoffs while getting a middle-of-the-table seed. They even looked like they could threaten to earn home-court advantage.

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Everything was going great.

Then it all changed. They leveled off and started playing like a middling team again. That was unfortunate, but not shocking.

The Indiana Pacers have been an above-average basketball team on the balance this season. So losses should be expected. Even some unexpected losses to inferior teams.

But that’s not what has been happening for the past week, during the most-critical junction in what feels like a critical season for this franchise.

No, right now we aren’t watching a mediocre team struggle.

We are watching the Indiana Pacers embarrass themselves.

It started with a loss to the Brooklyn Nets. That happened on a Saturday night, and since I had better things to do with my day off than watch the Brooklyn Nets play basketball, I didn’t catch that one. So I can’t tell you about the specifics. But they don’t matter. The Pacers lost to the Nets.

That is embarrassing.

Then the Pacers played host to the Chicago Bulls. Now, the Bulls are a talented, if highly flawed of oft-injured, team. So, again, losing isn’t necessarily reason to lambast Indiana.

But look how they lost.

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There are two factors at play. The first was the Pacers scoring just 6 points over the final 8 minutes of the game. See their shot chart during that stretch above, where they made just 3-of-15 shots.

That’s embarrassing.

But it gets worse. During this same 8 minutes, their defense was actually great. They got stop after stop against the Bulls, which in fairness weren’t firing at their top level, managing just 5 points in those 8 minutes.

What great defense it was. Remarkable.

Unfortunately, when the game mattered most, the Pacers stuck with their season-long trend of simultaneously vomiting on themselves while pooping their pants.

You can’t even script the ways they are managing to choke anymore. It used to be awful shots late in games. Or turnovers. But this time, two of the better defenders the team has seen in a decade — including one of the top few perimeter defenders in the whole league — just plum forgot how to communicate and decided that neither of them should defend an All-Star who was about to take a game-winning shot like 6 feet away from the hoop.

It was embarrassing.

Two days later, the Pacers had an easy game.

On two days rest — which they were able to spend in their own houses — they welcomed the 31-43 Orlando Magic to The Fieldhouse. It should have been a methodical victory.

The lost by 20.

That margin says it all really. But there was more than a general lack of scoring and defense at play. The Pacers, which knew they badly needed a win as the team they just lost to, the Bulls, are right behind them in the race for the 8th and final playoff seed.

They simply did not compete and were dominated in all facets of basketball. These two clips best sum up their utter disregard for winning the game.

Two plays. Two missed shots. Two Magic players anywhere near the rim during the the sequences compared to a combined seven Pacers.

The Magic got both rebounds and scored 4 points.

The Pacers Are Now Just Embarrassing Themselves

By Jared Wade | Apr 2, 2016

The Indiana Pacers are no longer mediocre or disappointing or underachieving — they are embarrassing.

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