Indiana’s win in New York on Saturday night epitomized the current trajectory of the team’s season. It was a slow and ugly start, but the team persevered through strong defense and playoff-tested experience.
The team’s slow and ugly start began actually began nearly eight months earlier, on a sultry Friday July evening in Las Vegas with Paul George’s horrendously gruesome leg injury. The bad luck and misery continued when rotation stalwarts David West, George Hill and C.J. Watson missed the beginning of the season with injuries of their own.
Ironically, Indiana’s season also hit rock bottom on a Friday night in an exotic locale six months after George’s horrific night. A two-point loss in Miami on Jan. 23 dropped the Pacers to 15-30 with the playoffs seemingly out of reach, even in the lowly Eastern Conference.
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guided by team president Larry Bird and coach Frank Vogel, the team never wavered from its vision: Get the players healthy, set consistent lineups and rotations and play its other-worldly brand of defense that propelled it to consecutive Eastern Conference finals appearances.
“We were at 15 games under .500, we’re all scratching our heads not really believing that we’re far back, but we always had the mindset that we want to weather the storm and stay close enough,” Vogel said. “Stay within reach and try to get better each month. If we got fully healthy and the new guys came in and gelled the way we thought they could, that we could go on a run late in the season.”
The Indiana Pacers are now on that run.
Despite shooting just 38 percent from the field Saturday night and trailing the league-worst Knicks going into the fourth quarter, their defense held up for a 92-86 victory with a late run.
“We had a tough shooting night, and we talked about that throughout the game – these are games you have to find a way to win,” Vogel said. “Win with your defense. Shots aren’t always going to go, but your defense can be consistent.”
“No matter if we’re making shots or not, find a way to win,” Hill said.
It was Indiana’s 13th win in 17 games since hitting rock bottom. The Pacers are currently seventh in the East, which seemed absolutely inconceivable just eight weeks ago.
“We’ve just sort of had to fight off anything in terms of thinking of giving in,” West said. “Guys have been steady workers and even when we were on losing streaks we never really lost confidence. We just had to figure out how to make an adjustment, how to start winning basketball games.”
When the Pacers were down on their luck, opportunistic teams looked to pick at their core. According to a source, Indiana had an offer on the table to send Hill to Denver for point guard Ty Lawson. Many contending teams were interested in West, but trading either player would have deviated from the franchise’s vision.
“I was going to stick with this group and just ride this thing out,” West said, adding that he never thought about going to a different team.
After a quiet trade deadline, West, Hill and Roy Hibbert remain the linchpins of a defense that represent the team’s foundation.
“We’re trying to re-establish a defense that really led us the last couple of years,” Vogel said. “Not to try to be a top-10 defense but to try to be the best defense in the league the last two months down the stretch. We’re taking steps in that direction.”
Indiana currently ranks third in scoring defense and seventh in defensive rating despite losing West for 15 games and Hill for 41. No player on the team averages more than 30 minutes per game, and the defensive depth has been crucial to the team’s ascent over the last two months.
“Our rotations have been the same over the last month so obviously getting George [Hill] back in the starting lineup, getting guys in that second group comfortable,” West said. “The team we thought we would have at the start of the season, we have now.”
Vogel said he has been paying attention to the standings a lot of late, and things are finally falling into place for Indiana, just as the coach had hoped. The Pacers stayed close enough in the race, got healthy, achieved the continuity it lacked over the first 45 games and have gotten better each month.
“As the year’s worn on, the confidence and the belief has grown,” Vogel said. “We’ve gelled a little bit better, the new parts that we have is coming together and it’s worked out for us.”
And the best news of all? All-Star Paul George could come back soon for the stretch run and the postseason if Indiana continues to play well.
“Some of those teams in there now aren’t as experienced as we are,” West said, knowing that George would be back for the playoffs. “That’s our goal is to just get in there. We can’t worry about the other two or three teams we’re fighting. We just have to keep handling our business.”
With the team’s patented defense, improved depth and a healthy Paul George in the fold, the Pacers may prove to be the Eastern Conference foe nobody wants to face come playoff time.
Shlomo Sprung is a national columnist for SheridanHoops who focuses on analytics, profiles and features. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. You should follow him on Twitter.