The Indiana Pacers Need Miles of Spacing
By William Furr
The Indiana Pacers have the size and speed of a modern-era “pace and space” team, but few shooters outside of Paul George and C.J. Miles.
The Indiana Pacers have made a good number of moves coming into this year. Gone are George Hill, Ian Mahinmi, Jordan Hill, Solomon Hill, Ty Lawson, and Shayne Whittington. They’ve replaced that huge outflow of human capital with Jeff Teague, Thaddeus Young, Al Jefferson, Aaron Brooks, Georges Niang, and Jeremy Evans.
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The parts have changed, and the team does look better, on paper at least. However, the issue of spacing — which also plagued the Pacers last year — will be just as prevalent this year, if not more so.
The Pacers lost their best 3-point shooter (George Hill, 40.8% last season), and added middling shooters in Jeff Teague (35.5% career) and Thad Young (31.9% career). Even if Teague can match his 2015-16 shooting (a career aberration at 40%), the Pacers are going to be desperate for shooting and short on actual shooters. We know Paul George is going to do his thing from deep at a big volume, but there’s another player the Pacers need to come through on a consistent basis from deep.
The Importance of C.J. Miles
If the Pacers want to contend this year, they’re going to need C.J. Miles to stretch the defense. He’s not the most important player for the Pacers — probably not in the top five when it comes to that — but he served as a good benchmark for the team last year.
C.J. shot better than 39% from deep during three separate months of last year’s season, and the Pacers finished with 25 wins and 13 losses, even counting October, when they went 0-3 and Paul George was still getting his NBA legs under him. In all other months, the Pacers were 20-24.
Miles started last year hot, shooting 40% in October, 43.7% in an 11-2 December, and 37.5% against a murderer’s row of opponents in December. Miles followed that 3 month streak of shooting exactly 40% from deep by shooting 24.7% for the months of January and February.
C.J. has always been considered a streaky shooter, but he was over 38% from deep in his final two years in Cleveland before joining Indiana (2012-13 and 2013-14). He spent the first few months of last season playing big minutes as a nominal small-ball power forward, despite being woefully undersized, and developed nagging injuring in his lower back, shoulder, and calf throughout the season. He never looked fully healthy after New Year’s 2016, and didn’t rediscover his shooting stroke until March and April. Coincidentally, the Pacers were not good in January-February, and returned to being over .500 in March before finishing scorchingly hot in April.
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Again, C.J. Miles isn’t the most important Pacer, by any means. That’s not to say C.J.’s shooting carried the team to wins. There is certainly some coincidence at play here. But it goes to show that last year’s team played a lot better when it was hitting from range and it only had a few reliable shooters.
And now Miles is one of only three Pacers in the rotation who can be considered a “good” 3-point shooter (Miles, PG, Aaron Brooks). It remains in the Pacers best interest to keep him healthy (read: not play him as a power forward), and to keep him involved.
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If Miles can return to his Cleveland form from deep — the same form he showed last year when Indiana was doing most of its winning — the Pacers will be a better team for it. If he struggles throughout the season, the Pacers will be missing an important component from their already tight spacing.