The Indiana Pacers suffered one of the worst losses in franchise history against the Raptors and the rest of their season could change because of it.
Last night was the moment. In a potential playoff matchup, the Indiana Pacers decided to hand deliver one of the worst performances in franchise history: a 127-81 scoreline that matched the second most lopsided loss in team history. It is time to adjust expectations.
There are bad losses and there are season-changing bad losses. Last night pointed more toward the latter. Not a single player on the roster showed up, as evident by the 63-32 halftime score and the team shooting 32.6 percent from the field on the night. The Pacers never held a lead and never brought it within 20 after halftime.
It can be pointed out that Victor Oladipo sat out the contest after leaving early Friday with a sore back, but this team went 30-17 prior to his debut. All those normal pieces were out there. T.J. Warren, Myles Turner, and Malcolm Brogdon all played at least 28 minutes and all failed to break into double figures. Domantas Sabonis and Aaron Holiday each scored 14 to lead the team, but were minus-28 and minus-35 in plus/minus respectively. Turner’s minus-26 was the best among the starters.
This was a debacle.
To make matters worse, Jeremy Lamb left early in the second quarter after an awkward knee injury. He has been the Oladipo security blanker all season and looked to be the face of Indiana’s second unit moving forward. He will now be out for the year with a torn ACL, torn meniscus, and fractured left knee leaving more on the shoulders of Oladipo and Brogdon moving forward and a reintroduction of Aaron Holiday into the everyday rotation.
Following another trade deadline without action, this is the team Indiana is now stuck with. The big fish are eating up all the best buyout players so there is little chance the Pacers improve the roster from an outside source. These 17 guys have to figure it out.
Where there was optimism Oladipo would seamlessly merge into the team’s ecosystem, now there’s a anxious sense of urgency. Nothing has gone the way it was envisioned. Oladipo’s bricks are coming more often than Russell Westbrook‘s, only three two-man lineups featuring Oladipo have a positive net rating, plus the guard holding an effective field goal percentage that would be dead last in the league if he qualified.
All of this needs to turn around, and in a hurry, if the Pacers want to build anything positive going into the playoffs. Twenty-five games remain, but the final eight weeks always comes and goes in a blink. Taking even half that time would leave only a dozen or so games for the team to see what it feels like when every is actually clicking before the games that truly matter begin.
At this point, it doesn’t matter how good this team was before January 29. It matters how good they are until April 15 and then the weeks following. If last night was any sort of indicator, the future may not be the same as it used to be.
Against a team that has shown it came into this season truly intending to defend its title, the Pacers phoned it in. Good teams don’t lose by 46. Most bad teams don’t lose by 46. Only teams that are in shambles lose by 46. The Pacers have one day off and they have to be back at it. The problem is, now moral is low and expectations…
Even lower.
*An earlier edition noted the Jeremy Lamb injury, but it has now been updated with the severity.