Indiana’s 11-2 record in November raised expectations, but fans shouldn’t forget how few thought the Pacers would even finish above .500 this season.
The Indiana Pacers finished the regular season with a 45-37 record. That was good for second in the Central Division and a 7th seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
This may not sound like much, but if you remember where things were at when the season began, this is better than most Pacers fans expected — and much better than the bulk of the media expected Indiana to do.
Simply put, the Indiana Pacers exceeded expectations this season. Well, maybe not our overly optimistic expectations, but at least the national media’s.
Let’s take a quick look at what some the predictions for the Pacers were before the season began.
Basketball Insiders: 4th in Central
NBA.com’s Steve Aschburner: Miss Playoffs
NylonCalculus: Low 30s win total
CBS Sports Experts: 29, 30, 31, 39 win total
You can see that on average, most in the media saw the Pacers missing out on the playoffs and finishing with a losing record. They exceeded just about every expert’s prediction. While we can give the media all the grief we want, they were right to expect Indiana to struggle.
Paul George was still recovering from his broken leg when last season ended, there had been major roster turnover and a change in philosophy in Indiana’s playing style. Stability had been one of the Pacers’ strengths in recent years, but the offseason had changed so many of the variables. Only two of Indiana’s starters from their back-to-back runs to the Eastern Conference Finals remained with the team, as well as some of the reserves, and the big-man rotation looked weak — at best.
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Through the first three games, the Pacers looked like an abject disaster. It was only three games, but with a 92.8 offensive rating and a 103.7 defensive rating combining for a pitiful -10.8 net rating, it looked like a very long season was ahead for the Pacers.
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But as October gave way to November, the Pacers finally started to look like a real basketball team. Not only did they start playing better, but they flipped those awful ratings on their heads and looked like one of the NBA’s best teams. Paul George played at an MVP level, averaging 29.5 points a game and winning the NBA’s November Player of the Month award, while C.J. Miles and George Hill were raining down 3-pointers from all over the floor. Was this Indiana Pacers team actually better than the ones we had seen over the last few seasons?
No.
Of course, they weren’t. November created a set of unrealistically high expectations for the Pacers. The shooting cooled, the offense and defense declined, but the Pacers were still a decent team.
Indiana’s biggest problem, however, was consistency.
They beat the San Antonio Spurs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, a LeBron-less Cleveland Cavaliers team this season, but they also had dropped games to the Brooklyn Nets and struggled against the New York Knicks. The Pacers weren’t bad, but they showed they weren’t great either by being so inconsistent.
November obscured the fact that this is really a rebuilding year for Indiana. Larry Bird wants the team to get faster and smaller, and while they tried that at times, the roster isn’t where it needs to be to run and gun.
On the bright side, some unexpected things have happened while the roster is being tinkered with. We’ve seen Ian Mahinmi step up and become a reliable starter, Monta display veteran leadership, George Hill knock down 3-pointers consistently, and Paul George continue to be an All-Star.
While this team isn’t a title contender, it never was going to be this season. The 11-2 record in November was an anomaly, but also told us this team can play basketball very well. Not to put a silver lining on a dark cloud, but if you take out the 5-minutes of hell against the Golden State Warriors, Indiana actually played well against the now 73-win team. Of course, those 5 minutes were devastating as the Warriors went on a 22-0 run, but it also tells you the team isn’t a complete train wreck either by the way they played the other 43 minutes.
That game might be the epitome of the Pacers’ season. They can keep up with — and even play better than — some of the NBA’s best teams, but they just aren’t good enough to do that consistently. That’s perhaps why some fans are frustrated with the team, as on any given night they can either be a disaster or poetry in motion, particularly late in games as the gave away win after win by failing to close out fourth-quarter leads.
Next: 8p9s Roundtable: Will the Pacers Beat the Raptors?
The Pacers aren’t going to win a championship this season, but considering that they are a playoff team, they’ve already exceeded expectations.