Indiana’s playoff hopes looked especially dim after a 15-30 start, but a stretch of inspired play in February and March had the team at 30-34 on March 12 after a seven-game winning streak. Paul George was set to come back and it looked like the Pacers were going to be the team no one wanted to draw in the first round. Since then, Indiana has lost eight of 10 including Monday’s crucial 111-106 setback in Brooklyn against the Nets. The Pacers
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
We don’t blame you if you haven’t been paying attention to the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff race. The West obviously has been far more interesting. While Golden State looks secure in the top spot, the next six teams are all playing better than .600 basketball and separated by just seven losses. And Oklahoma City, New Orleans and Phoenix – all vying for the eighth and final spot – are within two games of each other. The East? Well, the top
The NBA’s trade deadline is just a week away, and practically every team will be looking to improve its roster or its payroll over the All-Star break. Many of the media reports will come from the perspective of the teams and the executives in charge of making the trades, and few will detail how the players manage, cope and deal with being the subjects of these rumors and reports. Over the last few weeks, SheridanHoops spoke with nine NBA players on six different teams,
Is Paul George really out for the season? If the Pacers can make a playoff push in the weak Eastern Conference, it sounds like he might not be. In a video interview on Tuesday, team president Larry Bird did not rule out the star forward’s return this season despite his horrific leg injury suffered last August. “We’ll see where Paul’s at. Still have no idea whether he’s coming back or not, but it seems like every week, he’s getting better and better.
I had originally had another photo picked out for the day, but when I saw this picture I had to use it. Indiana Pacers forward Damjan Rudez had a little extra curricular activity going on on the bench against the Utah Jazz. By that, I mean he was going searching for something. Not on the bench or anything basketball related. He went digging for something much more valuable than that. [Read more…]
In today’s NBA, the formula for winning in recent years was simple: Accumulate as many maximum-salary stars as you can without breaking the bank. But when you start piling up eight-figure salaries against the luxury tax, the bank breaks pretty quickly. So teams fill out their rosters with minimum-salary veterans. And if you look at the top of the NBA standings right now, many teams are getting very productive seasons from veterans signed to minimum-salary deals. The Chicago Bulls added Pau Gasol to Jimmy
Every time someone summons up the nerve to ask, “What’s wrong with the Spurs?” the defending NBA champions have provided an emphatic response: Nothing. They did it in November, beating the Clippers and Warriors on the road on consecutive nights after losses to Houston and New Orleans. They did it again in December, beating the Clippers to end a four-game losing streak that included back-to-back excruciating triple-overtime losses. And they did it again last night, beating the Rockets for the first time