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Roy Hibbert Pacers

The Indiana Pacers At The All-Star Break

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The Indiana Pacers play their final game before the All-Star break tonight when the host the Dallas Mavericks. The Pacers come into the game riding high at 40-11, 3 ½ games ahead of the Miami Heat for the #1 seed in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, and percentage points of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the league’s best record overall. TheSportsNotebook takes a closer look at how the Pacers are doing it as we get set for the weekend festivities in New Orleans.

Indiana’s success in recent years has been built on tough defense and cleaning up the glass, and this year’s team is no different. The Pacers are the best team in the league when it comes to defensive efficiency—which is points allowed, adjusted for the tempo play—and they are tops in rebounding.


The problem—at least if there is going to be a problem before all is said and done—lies on the offensive side. The Pacers are only 18th in offensive efficiency. A subpar offense combined with great defense and rebounding is fine if you want to just win a couple of playoff rounds before losing to the league’s elite. But this year’s Indiana team wants more.

Roy Hibbert is this team in a nutshell. A terrific shotblocker and solid rebounder, he’s a true center in an era where a lot of teams have to dress up power forwards and play them at the 5-spot. But Hibbert can also be inconsistent offensively. He’s only averaging 12 ppg, in spite of having a good enough turnaround jumper to go higher.

Last season, in the Eastern Conference Finals, against Miami, Hibbert brought his offensive game with consistency and the Pacers stretched the Heat to a seven-game series. If Hibbert does the same this year, Indiana would beat what is a Miami team that’s not quite what they were in 2013. That’s an issue to talk about when we start previewing playoff series here at TheSportsNotebook, but you’d like to see Hibbert develop the mindset of demanding the ball now.


Hibbert might be the Pacers in a microcosm, but Paul George is the best player. The small forward is knocking down 22 ppg, and is a reasonably consistent shooter—44 percent from the floor, and 38 percent behind the arc, even as he attempts six treys a game. George will likely finish in the top three of the MVP voting, behind Kevin Durant and LeBron James.

David West continues to be one of the league’s quiet and steady power forwards, averaging 14 points/7 rebounds. Indiana made a nice veteran pickup in Luis Scola to back him up and give more rebounding help off the bench. And finally, the Pacers rolled the dice and signed temperamental and oft-injured center Andrew Bynum to further augment the front line.

Bynum’s addition is a risk to what appears to be excellent team chemistry—Bynum has been hated in every locker room he’s been in. But I think it was worth the risk for the Pacers. Bynum also has two championship rings, as a starter with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009-10, so clearly it’s at least manageable. If he’s interested in playing, he’s a force. And if nothing else, at the very least, the Pacers kept him away from Miami, who might have used Bynum to mitigate Hibbert’s effect in a playoff series.


Indiana ultimately lost to Miami lost year because they were inferior in the backcourt. The Pacers are still not as deep as the Heat, but George Hill and Lance Stephenson are each having good years, particularly Stephenson who averages 14 points/7 rebounds/5 assists per game. Stephenson has steadily progressed over the last couple years, and when you’re two-guard grabs seven boards a game, it’s not hard to see why the team does so well in this category.

The Pacers were the team I liked to win the NBA championship at the start of the year. I liked them straight-up at a time when the Las Vegas odds still said it was a 14-1 shot. Those odds are now down 11-5. They’re no longer good value at the betting window, but if you just want a team that looks ready to win a championship on the basketball court, Indiana seems to have the eye of the tiger and all the pieces in place.

 

NBA Playoffs: The San Antonio Symphony Hits All The Right Notes

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The San Antonio Spurs look like a team on a mission, the Memphis Grizzlies showed some heart and the Indiana Pacers showed their back in form in Wednesday night’s NBA playoff games. TheSportsNotebook recaps the three games and looks ahead to two more tonight…

San Antonio 114 Utah 83: I know beating the 8th-seeded Jazz is nothing to get all crazy about, but how can you not be impressed with the way the Spurs have just systemically demolished their opponent in this series, as they now head to Salt Lake for the middle two games. Last night was an offensive symphony. As a team they shot 57 percent from the floor and nailed 10/22 from behind the arc. But its how all the component parts of the symphony blend together that really make San Antonio a special team. While nobody scored 20 points, seven players were in the 10-18 range. And that did not come at the expense of having a clear go-to player. As has been the case throughout the year, Tony Parker led the way with 18 points, and Tim Duncan hauled down 13 rebounds. Then the role players, be they starters or coming off the bench, just filled in their niches. Last night was big for Kawhi Leonard, who hit 3 of 4 from trey range and scored 17 points. The Utah starting frontline was non-existent, with all three starters getting 14 rebounds, barely edging Duncan as a group.

Memphis 105 LA Clippers 98: The Clippers played as well as you can play in terms of offensive rhythm, hitting 57 percent of their shots and converting 9/16 from three-point land. Chris Paul scored 29 and Blake Griffin had 22. So what went wrong? Turnovers to start with. Paul, uncharacteristically sloppy, had five on his own and Memphis forced 20 turnovers on the night. Then there’s rebounding, where the Grizzlies held a 37-28 advantage. Finally we come to the free throw line, where it was a 31-13 scoring margin for the home team. That home cookin’ in Memphis must be awfully tasty. But that aside, the effort Memphis put into the rebounding area—something they did not do in Game 1, is to be applauded and they got balanced production throughout the lineup. Conversely, Los Angeles has to find someone else besides Paul and Griffin who can do something offensively. The injury to Caron Butler is a killer here, and it’s like two-guard Randy Foye who’s going to have to step up and hit some shots from the perimeter, which Paul can create through his dribble penetration.

Indiana 97 Orlando 74: This is the Pacer team I was expecting to see in the playoffs and this is the Roy Hibbert I’ve been waiting for. The Indiana center took full advantage of the Howard-less Magic with an 18 points/10 rebounds night and small forward Danny Granger acted like a leading man on offense should, in putting up 26 points. It’s important to note that Indiana shot 47 percent in this game, meaning that it’s not as though this was just a game where everything went right for them. They won because they controlled the interior and defensively the contained the Orlando backcourt. Jason Richardson, Jameer Nelson and J.J. Redick combined for just 28 points and that’s not going to be nearly enough for the Magic to win a series. With homecourt advantage back in hand, Indiana looks like a heavy favorite to advance again. The question is whether they can do it in less than seven games—meaning one more road win, either Game 4 or Game 6—and be rested for an anticipated second-round battle with Miami.

It’s a TNT doubleheader in the playoffs tonight, just like a regular NBA Thursday…

*Miami-NY Knicks:  How badly does Miami want the fast knockout punch? Given how many minutes LeBron logged during the regular season, I can see the case that the Heat want to get this over with ASAP—ideally sweep two in MSG, but at least pick up one and close it out back home in five.

*Oklahoma City-Dallas: A lot of intrigue surrounds this one, as Dallas’ near-misses in each of the first two games make it realistic they can defend their home floor the next two games and make this a series again. I suspect the Mavs come out like champions for Game 3, with the ultimate fate of the series resting on whether OkC can steal a win in Game 4.