Coaches: Nate McMillan v Brett Brown
Nate McMillan is a dark-horse candidate for being named Coach of the year. The Pacers were expected to win about 30 games by most estimates. They could feasibly wind up with 50 wins. A lot of this falls on improvement from Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis, but Nate has done many things well and deserves a portion of that credit. He does have some less than optimal substitution patterns (please stop playing all bench units entirely!!), but usually finds the right buttons to push to make sure the team rebounds and defends effectively.
Brett Brown has an ugly career record (121-283) and has spent his whole head coaching career in “The Process”. This is the first time he’s won more than 28 games in his career, and his playoff acumen is a total unknown. He has shown some creativity that prior Sixers teams couldn’t execute on and might be able to dust off some of that for a much better group of players, but he might also wind up looking like he’s in over his head.
Advantage: Pacers.