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NBA Eastern Conference playoff race

Can The Indiana Pacers Break Through In The East?

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All season long in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, the story has been about either the Miami Heat or Chicago Bulls. The recent surge of the Boston Celtics has put them back on the public radar. But another team is riding high in this conference, and has won eight of nine games in April. The Indiana Pacers are 38-22, settling comfortably into the #3 seed and looking like a team that can at least make the favorites of this conference sweat it out in the postseason. TheSportsNotebook takes a closer look at the Pacers…

Indiana is a team very well-balanced, with only three players drawing over thirty minutes a game. Darren Collison at the point, Danny Granger at small forward and Roy Hibbert at center are an ideal core, with distributing, scoring, rebounding and defense all there in one three-man package. Then you start filling in the niche spots, starting with power forward David West and moving to shooting guards Paul George and Leandro Barbosa. There’s quality depth with George Hill spelling Collison and Tyler Hansbrough backing up West. The Pacers could ideally use a better three-point shooter—someone who at least 40 percent from behind the arc, but they have four players who connect in the high 30s, enough to make it worthwhile shooting the trey. The team ranks in offensive and defensive efficiency are 10th and 12th respectively, while their rebounding is the 8th best in the NBA.

The Pacers are playing right now like the team they always had a chance to be, although it looked for a while like they might have to go on the road to start the playoffs. Then Philadelphia and Orlando fell apart, Atlanta’s been sluggish and Indiana put it together at the right time. While they’ve been playing well for longer than the start of this month, the 8-1 stretch since April 1 represents a good sample size to examine and see what the common themes of success are, and whether it’s sustainable. Here’s a rundown of those nine games…

April 1: at Houston (104-102, OT): I shouldn’t pick nits with beating a playoff contender  (Houston is currently #8 in the West)on the road, but the poor play of the Indiana backcourt has to be pointed out here. They gave up a combined 44 points to Rocket guards Courtney Lee and Goran Dragic, and the best Houston guard in Kyle Lowry was in streetclothes with a  season-ending knee injury. Indiana also lost turnovers 15-8. But they won because they hit the glass hard, winning the battle 54-44, and Granger knocked down 32 points.

April 3: vs New York (112-104): Maybe Carmelo Anthony was inspired by the presence of Pacers president Larry Bird, but Indiana had to overcome a hot Melo, who knocked down 39 Granger scored 28 of his own and had a much better supporting cast to fall back on.

April 4: at Washington (109-96): This is the kind of game contenders have been losing this year in the compressed schedule where you have to pick some spots to take a breather. Indiana did, as they didn’t rebound, but good shooting bailed them out. Collision dished 11 assists, finding the open  men all night.

April 6: vs. Oklahoma City (103-98): After a day off, and presumably motivated by a big-time foe, Indiana again got after the glass, as Hibbert had 21 rebounds to match his 21 points. Kevin Durant followed in Melo’s path of putting on a show for the Indiana crowd with 44 points. But Granger stays steady, scores 26 and Indiana gets a big win.

April 7: vs. Boston (72-86): The one loss in this stretch is actually pretty understandable. Even at home, it was one night after the Thunder win and the Pacers struggled shooting the ball, hitting only 35 percent from the floor.

April 9: vs. Toronto (103-98): This was a poor defensive effort against a lousy team. Playing at home after a night off, and coming off a defeat, there’s no reason to let the Raptors shoot 48 percent from the floor and hit 10/20 threes. A balanced scoring offense saved the team from an embarrassing upset.

April 11: at Cleveland (104-98, OT): Hibbert had 11 rebounds, Granger scored 23, and West and Hill each had big games, as the Pacers escape Cleveland.

April 13: vs. Cleveland (102-83): Back at home, the defense turns up the heat with a clamp down performance. Cleveland shoots only 35 percent from the floor, the Pacers force 18 turnovers, Granger scores 18 and Hibbert again gets double-digits on the glass.

April 14: at Milwaukee (105-99): Hibbert dominates the post with a 23/14 night. Even though Milwaukee is small inside, the 7’2” Indiana center deserves high marks for focus. It would have been easy to let down on Saturday night, but he took advantage of the opportunity to dominate. Granger scored 21 to lead the offense.

The positives to take out of this stretch is how consistent Indiana’s key players are. Even in the games where I didn’t mention Hibbert or Granger, the former always rebounds and the latter always scores. The rebounding as a team is very consistent. The issue in the playoffs is going to be making certain the defense forces enough of those missed shots to let Hibbert be a difference-maker. I also found it concerning that Melo and Durant were both unstoppable in Pacer home games. If Indiana wants to advance deep into the playoffs (i.e. ,the conference finals) they won’t have any room for error at home and you don’t want to let LeBron or Derrick Rose steal a game from you with a singular performance.

Indiana will have a pretty easy schedule the rest of the way. Five of the last six games are at home, and with the team up 2.5 games on Boston for the #3 seed, they can pretty well rest starters—the Celtics will do the same and the difference between the 3 and 4 seeds is negligible anyway. The Pacers’ season finale is against the Bulls, though I can’t imagine anyone of significance will play. The bottom line? We’ve likely learned all we’re going to about the 2012 Indiana Pacers. There’s a lot to like, but I would have preferred to see better defense.

The New York Knicks & Milwaukee Bucks Race For The Playoffs

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The New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks have been circling each other for several weeks in the joust for the Eastern Conference’s last playoff spot. After New York’s loss in Chicago last night, the Knicks are just one game up and they pay a visit to Milwaukee tonight (8 PM ET, ESPN). TheSportsNotebook takes a look at both teams with an eye toward the remaining big picture, as the end of the regular season is just two weeks out.

New York is built around its frontcourt, especially now that Jeremy Lin is out for the year. The point guard situation is a mess, with Baron Davis and Toney Douglas handling duties. Davis, who hits just 26 percent from three-point range needs to be permanently barred from ever launching a shot from behind the arc. Douglas is even worse, although he doesn’t push his luck as much as Davis. The two-guard slot isn’t quite as bad, but it’s still a blatant liability. Iman Shumpert is the best of a group that includes Landry Fields and J.R. Smith, but Shumpert is also four inches shorter than either guard and his presence on the floor creates matchup problems on the defensive end.

Milwaukee is not a team that can exploit height problems in an opposing guard, though the backcourt is clearly a strength, with Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis being an explosive tandem that was put together at the trade deadline when Milwaukee shipped out center Andrew Bogut  to Golden State in order to get Ellis. The Jennings-Ellis combo averages nearly 40 ppg, almost evenly split, so you can’t key on either player. They each pass the ball well, combining for 12 assists. If this were the NCAA Tournament, with the emphasis on guard play, the Bucks would be a live darkhorse.

Unfortunately for Scott Skiles’ team, life in the pros is often about muscle and it’s always about star power, and that’s where the New York frontcourt comes in. Carmelo Anthony is averaging 22 ppg, and there’s hope that his 43-point outburst and game-winning trey over Chicago on Sunday (the teams played a home-and-home on consecutive days) is a sign that Melo is finally ready to take the bull by the horns. What Anthony needs to do more of is rebound, as he leaves much of the dirty work to Amare Stoudamire and Tyson Chandler. Milwaukee won’t have to deal with Stoudamire, who’s still injured. But the power forward, who had been expected to miss the rest of the regular season, is starting to make noises about a  return, enough so that I would expect to see him take the floor soon, even if it’s not tonight. Chandler is a big difference-maker down low, getting double-digit rebounds on a nightly basis and being a shotblocking presence. New York’s top forward off the bench is Steve Novak. He won’t get his hands dirty down low, but nor is that his job. What the 6’10” Novak does do astonishingly well for a  big man is drain the trey—46 percent to be precise and any team defending the Knicks has to be conscious of him in the 20-25 minutes or so he’s on the floor.

Milwaukee’s frontcourt is as bad as New York’s backcourt. While the Bogut trade was a good one, it did create the short-term problem of making the Bucks a donut team with a hole in the middle. Drew Gooden is decent at power forward, with Mike Dunleavy and Ersan Ilyasova have nice shooting touches from the perimeter, but this team cannot get a rebound when it has to, as their #27 ranking in this category attests, nor do they have anyone they can dump the ball down low to for a basket or a kick-out.

One thing to remember about New York is that this is a defensive-oriented team, and not just since Mike Woodson stepped in as the interim head coach for Mike D’Antoni. New York’s up-and-down style of play had a way of obscuring that, but this is a team that ranks sixth in the league in defensive efficiency, which measures defensive ability after adjusting for tempo. And those stats are compiled over the course of the entire year, the bulk of which came with D’Antoni at the helm. Conversely, the Knicks are just 22nd in offensive efficiency, even with the games played during the Lin-Sanity craze. So let’s repeat our conclusion one more team for emphasis—New York is a defensive-oriented team.

The big X-factor in the New York-Milwaukee race for the last playoff spot is the complete collapse of Philadelphia, from runaway Atlantic leader, to borderline playoff team. The 76ers are only plus a game on the Knicks and plus two on the Bucks. It’s entirely possible that both New York and Milwaukee can make it in regardless of what happens tonight. The Knicks and Bucks come out of here to take on non-contending teams on Friday, Washington and Detroit respectively. The weekend is tough, with Milwaukee hosting Indiana on Saturday and New York having a big Madison Square Garden date with Miami on Sunday (1 PM ET, ABC). The Knicks then have a Tuesday home date with Boston. After that they finish with four of five games on the road, but with three of those trips being to New Jersey, Cleveland and Charlotte, it’s not a schedule New York shouldn’t manage. Milwaukee will have a little bit tougher road down the stretch with road trips to Indiana and Boston still ahead.

I think there’s a great chance both of tonight’s combatants will be playing basketball in early May, but there’s no denying that from talent to schedule, the Knicks are getting themselves in a good situation.