You already know how this will end, Pacers fans

Once Victor Oladipo went down with his knee injury, the Indiana Pacers knew unless they played perfectly, their first-round exit was all but guaranteed.

When Victor Oladipo’s knee decided it had enough, the Indiana Pacers’ season all but ended. Not because there weren’t talented players left on the roster — there are plenty — but they lost not only their heart and soul but their playmaker.

Bojan Bogdanovic is trying his damnedest, but he just can’t replicate what Oladipo does. If you remember, the Pacers won their first matchup this season with the Boston Celtics on a glorious Oladipo 3-pointer with 3.4 seconds left. It’s not that Bogdanovic doesn’t have clutch moments, it’s just that ability to create his own shot.

What Oladipo gave Indiana — and hopefully will give again — is someone who can breakdown defenders on his own, someone who can smoothly pull-up for a game-winning shot right after blowing by a defender.

We knew it earlier in the season when it was clear Indiana didn’t have a player who could consistently create in isolation or take a pull-up jumper to catch defenses off guard. It’s just been more obvious in the playoffs when the Boston Celtics are shutting down anything close to an easy bucket for the Pacers.

Oladipo helped the Pacers avoid long scoring droughts by simply stepping up at times and ending them by attacking the rim or launching a 3-pointer. Even if he wasn’t the one shooting, he would break down defenses and find the open man for the Pacers.

But without him, it’s been rough, to say the least.

The Pacers miss Victor Oladipo dearly

The Pacers became a painfully average team after Oladipo’s knee gave out. Before then, they were the 4th best team in the NBA as far as net rating is concerned, and that was without Oladipo playing at the same level as he did a season ago.

Oladipo still got an All-Star nod this season, but he was scoring four fewer points and with a less dominating effect defensively. His shooting percentages were down, his steals and blocks were down, and by some advanced metrics, it was shaping up to be his least effective season since his rookie campaign with the Orlando Magic.

Still, Oladipo was Oladipo.

Even with his on-court play, the infectious personality he brought to the Pacers still powered them. There was a certain swagger to Indiana with him around. There was a confidence that no matter what was happening, Oladipo and the power of positivity would see the Pacers through.

But then it happened, and his rehab began in Miami while the team soldiered on without him.

Surviving

Indiana survived without Oladipo with a 23-23 record. With Oladipo that mark was 25-11. The schedule got tougher no doubt, but they were winning nearly 70% of their games with him.

The cracks in the Pacers were exposed. They didn’t have a consistent playmaker to paper over their offensive issues. Guys stepped up, of course, but it wasn’t the same.

For most of the game it wasn’t an issue, but when push came to shove — when the clutch times came — Indiana was no longer the most clutch team in the NBA, they were merely surviving.
Oladipo couldn’t bail them out. They needed to play nearly perfect basketball to grind out wins in close games. The margin of error became precariously slim.

Striving for perfection isn’t sustainable

It isn’t as though Indiana can’t beat good teams. They’ve shown in this series how they can keep pace with the Celtics, who are considered by some to be contenders in the Eastern Conference.

It’s just that when a scoring drought comes, there’s no cheat code to break out of it. The Celtics defense shades off of Thaddeus Young and tries to keep the ball out of Bogdanovic’s hands. They aren’t afraid of Darren Collison, either. Outside of Myles Turner reluctantly taking shots and Bojan and Wesley Matthews occasionally being too willing to shoot, Boston is willing to live with the results of others beating them.

It’s all down to the offense, really. Their defense remains one of the best in the NBA thanks to Myles protecting the rim and Thaddeus covering many of the holes. Their defensive rating in the playoffs is 101.4, better than all but Boston, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Toronto Raptors, and the Houston Rockets. But the offense is woefully bad at a 91.9 net rating.

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Put those two together, and you have a Pacers team being outscored by nearly 10 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs. Indiana outplays the Celtics in first halves but gets hammered painfully in the second half when Boston clamps down on Indiana’s offense. If Bogdanovic is your best player, then winning playoff games won’t be easy.

Unless they play perfectly defensively, they’re susceptible to Boston closing the gap in the second half. And they are far from perfection when they’ve spent over five minutes of each game in a scoring drought.

It highlights a need for more consistent playmakers going forward, but there’s little Indiana can do now to get themselves out of the hole they’ve dug.

How it ends

We knew how it was going to end since the end of January. That doesn’t mean the Pacers should roll over or that they can’t win, but expecting perfection from the defense and anything more than mediocrity isn’t a recipe for success.

Going .500 without Oladipo and nearly gaining homecourt advantage in the playoffs hardly feels like something worth celebrating, but there was simply a limit to what these Pacers could do without him.

You already know how this will end.