How Well Do the Indiana Pacers Matchup With the Cleveland Cavaliers?

The Benches

The Cavaliers bench is composed of guys who like to shoot without dribbling and Iman Shumpert. Shump is a “defensive specialist” who shot the 3 reasonably this year (36%), but posted a Defensive Rating of 112.

The rest of the key guys on Cleveland’s bench — Kyle Korver, Channing Fry, Deron Williams — are all long in tooth, and known for scoring, especially from deep. Any all bench unit the Cavs throw out will likely be a defensive sieve, but any of those three guys is capable of lighting teams up in an instant (Pacers fans are all too familiar with the Kyle Korver “I can’t miss” games.). Deron Williams has stabilized the bench units some, and there’s still a productive player in there. However: If the Cavs bench isn’t hitting 3’s, they’re a net negative.

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The Pacers bench has been, well, interesting this year. In constant flux, no one outside of the org even knows what the bench rotation will be after 82 games. As far as is public, Monta Ellis will continue to start at the 2. Lance Stephenson, C.J. Miles, Aaron Brooks, and Kevin Seraphin have rounded out those bench units of late, and the bench has actually hummed since Lance got there.

Al Jefferson recently returned from injury, but hasn’t seen the court since being available again. Glenn Robinson III is still out with a strained calf, and the original expected timetable has since passed without updates. Getting GRIII back would be a boon for the Pacers bench, but it’s hard to count on that at this point. The Pacers have tinkered with all of their bigs getting minutes this year — Al Jefferson, Lavoy Allen, Rakeem Christmas, and Kevin Seraphin — and it wouldn’t be surprising to see any of the 4 gets minutes against the backup Cleveland bigs.

When the benches clash — and it will probably be mixed units, for the most part, as most of the starters are going to be playing 35+ minutes — the Pacers have a real opportunity. The Cavs bench can score, and will eviscerate porous defense, but their bench is very short on defense. Aaron Brooks will struggle to guard Deron Williams’, um, heft, but the rest of Cleveland’s bench can be stopped with speed and discipline. Frye is really no more than a catch and shoot guy anymore, and Korver is in the same boat. Williams can bully in the post and whip smart passes, but his dribble drive should be containable. If the Pacers bench can guard the 3 point line, and Lance’s magic doesn’t run out, the Pacers bench should (gulp) come out ahead when there are direct matchups.

Final Prediction

I can’t bet against the Fightin’ Paul Georges.

Next: Kevin Seraphin: Better Late Than Never

I predict these two teams will play basketball at least 5 times, and one of them will make the conference semis.