Something foul has been a factor in the Indiana Pacers' slow start to the 2025-26 season.
Through the first 20 games, Indiana sent opponents to the free-throw line more often than any team since the first decade of the 2000s.
Pacers opponents have shot 30 free throws per game, even factoring in a season-low 16 free throw attempts allowed in the home win against the Chicago Bulls on Nov. 29.
That’s the most since the 2008-09 Milwaukee Bucks gave up 30.2 free throws per outing en route to a 34-48 record.
This is part of a league-wide trend
Indiana isn’t alone in allowing more free throws than in recent years. NBA teams were shooting 25.2 free throws per game through the end of November. That’s the most since 2007, when NBA teams went to the line 26.1 times per game as the league was still adjusting to the elimination of legal hand-checking.
What’s happened this year? Blame a combination of factors.
The 2024-25 season actually featured the lowest free-throw ratio ever, so more foul calls this season represent more of a return to the norm. Combine that with faster-paced games – meaning more opportunities for fouls - plus teams copying the aggressive defenses that got the Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder to the NBA Finals last year, and you’ve got a recipe for a parade to the free throw line.
How big of a problem is this for the Pacers?
Allowing lots of free throws can be overcome. Indiana also yielded more free throws than any team in the league in 2023-24, but that didn’t stop the Pacers from reaching the Eastern Conference Finals.
The team just barely ahead of Indiana in most free throws allowed this season? The Detroit Pistons, who are doing just fine at 16-4, despite allowing their opponents to shoot more than 29 free throws per game.
However, the still-shorthanded Pacers need every edge they can get to stay competitive. If Indiana allowed opponents to shoot free throws at a rate closer to the league average, that would save three or four points per game (and probably would have resulted in three or four more wins already this year).
This isn’t something the Pacers can blame on Tyrese Haliburton’s absence alone, as Haliburton was never known as a lockdown defender. The rash of additional injuries at the start of the season surely didn’t help, as players need time together to develop defensive cohesion just as much as they need time together for offensive chemistry.
And, not to pick on the guys trying to replace Myles Turner in the middle, but Tony Bradley and Jay Huff are picking up markedly more fouls per 36 minutes than they (or Turner) did last year (6.7 FPG for Bradley and 4.8 FPG for Huff). Isaiah Jackson’s foul ratio is unchanged from last year (6 FPG), but that ratio is double what Turner’s was, and he’s now playing heavy minutes.
Should fixing this be a point of emphasis?
The Pacers see the same numbers we see. They’ve surely made a point of addressing this foul development.
It’s surely not a coincidence that Indiana allowed just 20 free throws against the Washington Wizards on Black Friday. That matched the season low at the time – until they yielded just 16 free throws one night later against Chicago.
And it’s definitely not a coincidence that Indiana won both games for its first back-to-back victories of the season.