The Indiana Pacers had lofty ideas for new head coach Nate Bjorkgren when he arrived in the Circle City. However, though the season still isn’t over, things have already gone awry between him and the Pacers brass, with Bjorkgren reportedly on the hot seat as the team continues to tread high water in another tough, injury-marred season.
Standing at 9th in the Eastern Conference and just hanging by a thread to secure a play-in spot, this campaign has been a flat-out disappointment. Playoffs or not, the Pacers certainly don’t have the guns and the healthy bodies to compete with the much-improved teams in the East, more so with the heavyweights jockeying for conference supremacy.
The Indiana Pacers have not thrived under new coach Nate Bjorkgren
Bjorkgren’s championship experience from Toronto and shifty tactics were supposed to hoist the Indiana Pacers over the top, especially with the franchise ensnared in five straight first-round exits in the postseason. Unfortunately, the team is not even a shoe-in for the playoffs, lying outside the playoff picture for most of the season despite a steady start.
Even at 30-34, this team should not be on the outside looking in. With a great amount of talent in all positions, as well as depth and experience, the Pacers are, at least in theory, much more competitive that what their record entails.
With that being said, was hiring Nate Bjorkgren a mistake?
The Indiana Pacers are hounded by injuries, but Bjorkgren failed to adjust
In sports, context matters. Part and parcel of what made the Indiana Pacers underachieve in the season is the endless struggle with injuries. And for a team bannering continuity to carry itself into the year, the lack of health, especially for key players, has created a negative impact in both on-court production and off-court relationships.
TJ Warren is out for the season. Myles Turner is currently out indefinitely. Caris LeVert missed a lot of time due to a battle with cancer. Malcolm Brogdon and Domantas Sabonis still have their customary missed games in bunches. By this virtue alone, expecting a good record is difficult. And demanding it may be too much. But adjusting and adapting has done this team good in the past.
Winning is the easy fix-it-all, but the thing is, it has been hit-and-miss all season long. Compared to last year’s impressive regular season run that cultivated in a 4th-place finish, the team is dangling in the middle with no solution in sight, at least for this campaign.
Despite all the injuries, there is a valid precedent for fans still demanding more out of Bjorkgren. His predecessor, Nate McMillan, has similarly faced wretched bouts with lengthy injury reports, but he has done an admirable job at instilling a resilient culture that encourages a “next man up” mentality to be successful. His stoic and calm disposition resonated with the team, braving through adversary even in critical times to still be in the position to succeed.
In fact, in two injury-plagued seasons in 2018-2020, the Indiana Pacers finished 5th and 4th respectively, a remarkable feat for a team which missed its All-Stars in Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis for long, pivotal stretches. McMillan’s familiarity with the organization is an advantage, but Bjorkgren’s rawness does not absolve him from his faults, especially since most of the losses this season stems from the team blowing big leads, playing lackluster defense, and playing poorly in clutch situations.
Also, too often have we seen Bjorkgren overplay his injury-prone stars, even in blowout situations. In a compressed season like this campaign, his penchant for deploying players to play in the 40s at times is bizarre. For example, in last Saturday’s affair, he kept Sabonis in the game even though he was coming off a back injury and the Pacers were leading the Thunder by more than 50 in the third quarter, which leads us to the next point.
Coach Bjorkgren’s habits have been more puzzling and less genius
When the Indiana Pacers got off to a fast 6-2 start, a lot of people were impressed by his strategic game planning that varies in almost every possession. His late-game play calling raised eyebrows back then, and for good reason. Even players raved about his coaching, especially in tense clutch situations.
Now, that seems like a distant past. As soon as players succumbed to an assortment of injuries, the team started to fall down in the standings. Since late February, the Pacers were stuck below .500, losing a lot of winnable games and bowing down to superior teams in embarrassing fashion.
Questionable Minutes Management
One detrimental pattern is the minutes management. Two players from Indiana are in the top 20 in minutes per game, headed by Sabonis at 7th with 35.7 and with Brogdon tied for 19th with 34.5 per contest. In the team, six players play north of 30 minutes per game this season, compared to just three last year. For the year, these are the players who have registered more than 40 minutes in a contest donning the Navy and Gold:
- Sabonis: nine times
- Brogdon: five times
- J. Holiday: thrice
- Turner, McConnell, Brissett: twice
- LeVert: once
The lack of breathers for players in games is understated. Oftentimes, it leads to burnouts and droughts in both offense and defense. In fact, the Indiana Pacers have blown large leads on a lot of occasions while failing to convert baskets to stop the bleeding. This is the end result of a system that includes players running up and down the floor for 25 minutes straight (Brogdon), resting for less than two minutes in an entire game (McConnell), or for less than three minutes (Sabonis).
Massive Decline on Defense
Another noticeable trait from the Pacers this season is the drastic decline on defense, and the numbers speak for themselves. Indiana is 15th in defensive rating and a putrid 25th in opponents’ points per game. Last season, the team was 6th and 3rd in those categories. The season before that, they were an excellent 3rd and 1st in the same departments.
Nate McMillan has always prided himself on the less glamorous end of the floor, but even with his exit, the defense was projected to retain at least the same efficiency with the roster continuity. However, while the tweaks brought by Bjorkgren are innovative and true to his Toronto roots, they are mostly negated by a lack of schematic discipline.
The promised aggressiveness on defense is present with the team ranking 1st and 4th in blocks and steals per game, but these are not functional marks of a great point-preventing squad. Upon inspection, the Pacers are 29th in giving up points in the paint, 22nd in opponent fast break points, and dead-last in opponent second chance points per outing. To make matters worse, Indiana is still a bad rebounding team, ranking 26th in the league at 42.5 boards per game.
Sure, there are improvements, especially on offense. Indiana is the 8th-highest scoring team in the league, including a remarkable 4th in assists and 5th in made field goals per game. They are also letting it fly more from deep, at 16th in the season from last year’s 30th. But with injuries prompting adjustments and adaptability, scoring is less sustainable. Defense rarely betrays, and the Pacers have been outright bad on it this year.
What’s next for Bjorkgren and the Indiana Pacers
With the Indiana Pacers most likely ending up with a losing record and probably being a mere stepping stone for the higher seeds in the East at best if they qualify for the postseason, the future of coach Nate Bjorkgren is looking bleaker as the team continues to rack up losses. And with a reported less than ideal relationship with key players in the locker room, preventing a looming exit may be difficult.
Bjorkgren has work to do on relationships with key players in his locker room, sources tell ESPN, and has thus far shown a willingness within the organization to try to address those issues. https://t.co/uNeOdHMlnQ
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 5, 2021
In the spirit of comparison, Nate McMillan’s success with the Atlanta Hawks this season is making the front office’s decision to let him go as too sudden and a wasted opportunity to build on the team’s continuity, but moving forward is never retroactive. Thus, the Pacers can only afford to go on and avoid looking back.
Ultimately though, and given their long avoidance for big changes, the front office may still end up looking at this debacle as a mere aberration. However, doing so will mean that the franchise is satisfied with mere band-aid solutions in a blind pursuit of championship contention, which is not imminent for this team at all.
By all means and circumstances, the first season of Nate Bjorkgren manning the Indiana Pacers will count as a failure. And with this coaching hire not exuding positive spirits for the franchise and its fanbase, as well as the rapid rise of its competitors in the East, the team will be better taking bigger and bolder measures, be it in the form of replacing him, or being more active than usual in the offseason.