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Are the Indiana Pacers still a top 10 team?

By Ben Gibson

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - DECEMBER 18th: Myles Turner #33 of the Indiana Pacers shoots the ball against the Boston Celtics on December 18, 2017 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - DECEMBER 18th: Myles Turner #33 of the Indiana Pacers shoots the ball against the Boston Celtics on December 18, 2017 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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The Indiana Pacers are still a top 10 team according to the experts as we gather this week’s power rankings.

It’s hard to say how the Indiana Pacers loss to the Boston Celtics will affect them in the power rankings next week. If there’s any good news for them, it’s that most of the media saw them as a top 10 before Sunday.

The Pacers were flying as high as 7th place a week ago, but a pair of losses to the Detroit Pistons and Oklahoma City Thunder slowed their momentum, but taking care of business against the Brooklyn Nets kept them from losing too much ground.

They may be on the edge of the top 10 in the NBA, but a more important question is: Where exactly do they fall in the Eastern Conference?

While they’ve beaten the Cleveland Cavaliers twice, they’ve lost to the Celtics twice. They’ve split with some of the East’s playoff teams (at the moment), including the New York Knicks and Toronto Raptors, but they’ve yet to take on the Washington Wizards or Milwaukee Bucks.

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The Pacers were ranked as high as 4th in the East as recently as five days ago, but currently, they are ranked 7th as a cluster of teams jockey for position.

The question of just how good the Pacers are is still hard to answer. No team, other than the Houston Rockets, can stop them from rallying late to make games close. If Bojan Bogdanovic holds on to the ball, we might have been talking about them as a top four team, but things didn’t turn out that way.

Despite their current position in the rankings, I believe this team can fight for the third or fourth spot in the Eastern Conference. As long as Victor Oladipo can summon his greatness, this team is certainly dangerous. They stopped a streaking Cavaliers team and pushed the Celtics to the brink. They may be better than Indiana, but they probably don’t want to deal with them in a seven game series unless they have to.

Enough worrying about the future, let’s look at what the experts said this week.

10th. Okay, so they came crashing back down to Earth with back-to-back losses. That was inevitable. But! In a week where the Pacers faced two of the league’s better offenses, they posted one of the week’s better defensive ratings at 104.1. As long as Indiana continues to handle its business on that end, Victor Oladipo and Myles Turner don’t look to be slowing down their bucket-getting ways anytime soon. (Last Week: 8th) — <a href=. @KennyDucey. Sports Illustrated. KENNY DUCEY

13th. In Wednesday’s loss against the Pacers, Victor Oladipo missed 17 shots, tied for second most in a game in his career. He was 1-for-7 from the floor and had two turnovers with former Pacer Paul George as his primary defender. — Jose De Leon(Last Week: 9th) — <a href=. @ESPNNBA. ESPN. ESPN

CHRIS BARNEWALL. 10th. The season of Victor Oladipo continues. Whether it’s a burst of scoring, a highlight dunk, or doing push-ups in the game interview, Oladipo and the Pacers have become must-watch television at this point. (Last Week: 7th)— <a href=. @ChrisBarnewall. CBS Sports

JOHN SCHUHMANN. 7th. The Pacers know how to take care of business. With Sunday’s win in Brooklyn, they remain the only undefeated team (8-0) against the league’s 12 worst (those currently at least two games under .500). But their recent string of late-game success came to an end as ended their six-game homestand by losing close games to Oklahoma City and Detroit, with Thaddeus Young (a solid free throw shooter early in his career and a pretty bad one of late) missing a critical free throw in each game. After hosting the Celtics on Monday, the Pacers will play four of their next five games against those bottom 12 teams. And with little travel (just four, one-game road trips) over the next four weeks, they can really solidify their spot as a top-five team in the East. (Last Week: 7th) — <a href=. @johnschuhmann. NBA

Suffice it to say it wasn’t the best follow-up for the Indiana Pacers after we declared they were proving themselves in last week’s power rankings.<br />Victor Oladipo continues to knock down clutch 3s and put up All-Star numbers like it’s his day job, but the Pacers dropped Paul George’s return to Bankers Life Fieldhouse despite an ugly shooting night for their former superstar, fell to the spiraling Pistons and choked away a commendable comeback effort against the Celtics in dramatic fashion. (Last Week: 8th) — <a style=. @GeraldBourguet. Hoops Habit. GERALD BOURGUET. 10th

Next: Victor Oladipo and Myles Turner join The Starters

After losing a close one to the Boston Celtics, the Indiana Pacers face the Atlanta Hawks tonight, and then return home to host the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday.

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