3 takeaways from the Indiana Pacers first half
Players trending in the right direction
During our last quarterly report, the shooting of Thaddeus Young and especially Darren Collison were reflected upon. They were shooting terribly. Bojan Bogdanovic, meanwhile, was leading the league in three-point shooting. In the second quarter of the season, all three player’s percentages have trended in the opposite directions.
Collison shot 43.9% from three over the season’s second quarter, the 14th best mark in the league. Fun tidbit, Myles Turner was second in the league over that stretch. Collison’s accuracy has been all the more remarkable because of how atrocious his three-point shooting was during the season’s first quarter. Collison made a total of 13 threes, shooting 31.7% from deep. It was a career-low by seismic proportions. Add it up and Collison shot 38% better from three than he did in the first half. This should be reassuring to Pacers fans that Collison’s season-opening slump was just that: a slump – which appears to be over. Another impressive aspect of Collision’s second quarter, he dished six assists for every one turnover. Not too shabby.
Young, like Collison, had almost a career-worst beginning to this season. He was averaging a sub-standard 9.7 points per game while missing 86% of his attempted threes. Young was still performing his usual glue-guy duties, making winning plays and such. He just couldn’t shoot.
That is not the case anymore. During the season’s second quarter, Thad Young averaged 15.1 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. His three-point shooting rocketed 181% from the first half to an above average 38.2% over that same stretch. Young also had a splendid four game stretch, from December 8 to December 14, where he averaged a double-double (21.3 points, 10.5 rebounds).
Bogdanovic’s first quarter was summed up a newly versatile offensive game and a firestorm from three-point range. 53% was his three-point percentage, best in the league by daylight. Bogdanovic’s second quarter saw his offensively versatility sustained but saw his three-point percentages fall off: it was 36.7%.
This isn’t all bad, the encouraging reading was that Bogdanovic was still tremendously effective from the field while not shooting a stellar rate from deep, a reality that seemed impossible before the season began. The assumption was that Bogdanovic’s brings space to the offense and little else. Not anymore, Bogdanovic is still dangerous even when his shot isn’t falling.