Pacers Report Cards: Grading every Pacers player's overall playoff performance
By Mueez Azfar
Final thoughts and grade
2024 Playoffs Stats: 8-9 Record, 113.9 PPG, 112.8 PAPG, 121.3 ORTG, 120.2 DRTG, 41.4 RPG (10.3 O and 31.1 D), 29.9 APG, 5.5 SPG, 4.8 BPG, 11.4 TOV, 20.5 FPG 50.7/37.2/74.6 Splits on 59.6% TS
It pretty much goes without saying how good the Indiana Pacers' 2024 playoff run was. A team with an average age of around 25 years old that was projected to win 38 games and make the Play-In Tournament went all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals and competed until the very end against the best team in the league. If that's not a successful season, then nothing is.
Nobody expected the Pacers to be here at the start of the season. If you asked Pacers fans, myself included, about their hopes going into the 2023-24 season, most of them would have been happy to just make the playoffs again, maybe even sneak up and win a series.
For the Pacers to not only avoid the Play-In after an injury to their best player and another key rotation piece having season-ending surgery but win two series against rival teams is just fantastic. This team is in just their third year of the post-Oladipo and Sabonis rebuild and has done something most rebuilding teams have not even done yet.
Despite the loss to Boston, it is clear the Pacers are just getting started. Most, if not all of their key players are returning next season with a full training camp and offseason to get to know each other and get better. Additionally, Tyrese Haliburton getting some key rest and recovery before and after his participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics may be the biggest factor going into next season.
If Haliburton performed this well with a nagging hamstring injury and Siakam played this well after only half a season of practicing with the team, imagine how they are going to look after a full summer together.
In an ideal world, we will look back at the 2024 Indiana Pacers as the start of something magical, and not a one-hit wonder like perhaps the 2021 Atlanta Hawks. Either way, it's always a plus when you can end a 10-year Conference Finals drought in your first playoff run in four years.
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