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Doyel: Pacers running out of gas. Is there anything left in the tank for playoffs?

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  • #1

    Doyel: Pacers running out of gas. Is there anything left in the tank for playoffs?

    Doyel: Pacers running out of gas. Is there anything left in the tank for playoffs?

    https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...on/3393570002/

    Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star Published 9:28 p.m. ET April 7, 2019

    INDIANAPOLIS – It’s barely 90 seconds into this game, this disaster on Sunday, and already Indiana Pacers coach Nate McMillan is calling a timeout. He’s standing there on the court as his starters walk past, and he’s seething. It’s early, but it gets late fast: After scoring the game’s first nine points, the Brooklyn Nets spend the next two hours picking on the Pacers, punking them on the boards and everywhere else, and when it’s over the final score is 108-96.

    And Nate McMillan is still seething.

    “That start was really bad,” he says to start his postgame news conference. “Just no energy at the start of this game.”

    McMillan is shaking his head. Now he’s giggling, but not from pleasure. He’s giggling out of disgust.

    “I think we gave up 12 offensive rebounds in the first half,” he says, tossing a quick look at the stat sheet in front of him and realizing, no, it was worse than that. “Thirteen (offensive rebounds) in the first half. That’s too many for the entire game. It just showed we brought no fight into this contest tonight.”

    Indiana Pacers' Aaron Holiday (3) and Brooklyn Nets' D'Angelo Russell (1) go for a loose ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, April 7, 2019, in Indianapolis.
    Indiana Pacers' Aaron Holiday (3) and Brooklyn Nets' D'Angelo Russell (1) go for a loose ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, April 7, 2019, in Indianapolis. (Photo: Darron Cummings, AP)

    How bad was it? Put it like this: After 24 minutes of basketball, the Pacers’ leading rebounder was the sideline boundary. You’ve heard of a “team rebound,” right? When the other team shoots, and the missed shot bounces out of bounds? That’s a team rebound. In the first half, the Pacers’ leading rebounder was, literally, nobody. Their leader on the glass was “team rebound,” with five.

    To that point the Nets had 37 rebounds, the Pacers had 17, and this would have been embarrassing any day of the week, but it was twice as embarrassing on Sunday, because Sunday was the Pacers’ regular-season home finale, what they billed as Fan Appreciation Day, and they thanked their fans by being manhandled on the …

    Sorry, Nate McMillan has more to say. Still seething, looks like.

    “We just had nothing at the beginning of this game,” he said.

    This has been a unified team most of the season, it’s greatest strength before Victor Oladipo suffered a season-ending knee injury in January, and even more afterward as the star-less Pacers came together to make a run at fourth place in the Eastern Conference before fading to fifth in the final month.

    And after limping toward the finish line of this season, the locker room isn’t unified anymore. Not in one way where unity would be helpful: They can’t agree, after losing nine of their past 12 and being humiliated in their final two home games, on what’s wrong. Or if anything is wrong.

    For example: Veteran point guard Cory Joseph was asked if he was concerned.

    “No,” he said.

    Why not?

    “Why would we be?” he said, perhaps forgetting the last two games, both losses, both at home, starting with that helpless 117-97 beating by Boston on Friday night with homecourt advantage on the line, and then this somehow uglier loss to the Nets. “I don’t know. I’m just not concerned. We’ve played well, and obviously it starts with Victor being out, and we’ve played well without him before, in big games, and we’ve just got to get back to that basketball.”

    Because it’s that easy, apparently.

    Myles Turner wasn’t agreeing with Joseph. He wasn’t arguing with him — Turner spoke earlier, and was long gone before Joseph met with the media — but Turner was saying something different: that the Nets wanted this game more, and that that was a concern.

    Wesley Matthews wasn’t agreeing with Turner. On the bright side, he was agreeing with Cory Joseph.

    “I don’t scare very easy,” Matthews said, relaxed smile on his face, “so I’m not concerned. We’ve got to get it together. The biggest thing is health right now. Get everybody as healthy as possible, as rested as possible, get our stuff together. Mind, body, soul and everything.”

    Thaddeus Young wasn’t agreeing with Matthews. Health? That’s not the biggest thing right now.

    “I think the biggest thing,” he said, “is locking into things we need to do defensively.”

    Young went on to agree, when asked, that the Pacers seemed to have lost their edge – their “mojo,” as it was put to him.

    “Yeah,” he said. “You could say that. We haven’t been winning many games down the stretch. The biggest way to get it back is for us to believe in what we do on the defensive end, because the defense is what’s gotten us to this point. It’s as simple as that. Defense wins games and we all know that.”

    More defense would help, yes. And energy, which is another word for effort. And the Pacers didn’t have it Sunday, as evidenced by the beating they took on the boards — the final tally was 52-33, though Domantas Sabonis (12 boards) wrested the Pacers’ lead from Team Rebound (eight) — and by their inability to get to the foul line. The Pacers attempted just seven free throws and made just four — both season lows.

    The biggest question after this game, this disaster on Sunday, is the one we won’t know until the playoffs begin this weekend in Boston: Are the Pacers simply out of gas? They’ve been sprinting since Oladipo went out in January, doing more than anyone — well, anyone outside the locker room — thought possible. They were in third place in the East when Oladipo went down, and 2½ months later they had dropped exactly one spot, into a tie for fourth with Boston. That 20-point loss on Friday relegated them to fifth. And now this, this dispirited loss to the Brooklyn Nets.

    Nate McMillan was asked: Is your roster out of gas? He smiled, and I want you to see this smile the way you heard his giggle a few minutes ago: Without any pretense of pleasure.

    “You think about that,” he said about his overachieving team having nothing left in the tank after 2½ months without Oladipo. “I really felt guys have given extra since Victor’s been out. We’ve had to ask for probably a little bit more from this group — and they’ve given it to me.

    “I won’t say that we don’t have anything, but we’ve squeezed them. We’ve squeezed our guys a lot to get to this point, and is there anything left? Yeah. I think it is. We’re in the playoffs, and we’ll try to get ourselves prepared for that.”

    They have less than a week, with a stop first Wednesday in Atlanta for the 82nd and final game of a remarkable regular season that is reaching an ugly end.
    Not usually a fan of Doyel but this sums up my thoughts. Getting here without Vic took more out of this team emotionally and physically than I think a lot of people paid attention to. Will they rejuvenate for the playoffs?

    BillS

    A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
    Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...
    Tags: None
    • 1 like
  • #2
    Terrible column by Doyle. I think he is way off base to suggest the team isn't unified because different players gave different explanations of why they are losing.



    Pacers will rejuvnate for the playoffs - now whether that is enough to beat this Celtics team. I doubt it.

    I hope Bogey, Cojo, Thad, Myles and Domas all sit out the Hawks game .

    Question about Domas - seems to me he was great back in October, November and into December but has since tailed off. Not really talking about stats, but seems like he was much better early on. Teams are defending him differently now, plus maybe we were all so surprised at how great he looked to start the season, but now we are used to it.
    Last edited by Unclebuck; 04-08-2019, 10:29 AM.

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    • #3
      I liked the article. It's interesting to hear the different responses after a game. I'm sure Nate spoke to them before allowing the media in so theoretically they should all be on the same page. They're only 3-9 in their last 12 games were blown out several times in that span. That's a record closer to the level of the Grizzlies or Pelicans than a 5th-seeded playoffs team.

      To respond to Unclebuck, I think this team is essentially done. They've fought hard for as long as they can but the rest of the league has figured out how to stop them and they don't have enough All-Star level players that can impose his will on a game in the Playoffs. I'm proud of the way they fought and tried to go after HCA, though and will still cheer them on but I'm expecting a short 5-game series. Hopefully they can stretch it to a game 6 but that may be too much to ask.

      Also, Domas' struggles are partly related to the struggles that the Pacers point guards have been having dealing with the increased pressure teams have been putting on them. He's still had games where he was the only one putting forth maximum effort. Domas is the Pacers best all-around player based on real-plus minus. If anything, Nate doesn't play him enough minutes or run the offense through him enough.
      Last edited by naptownmenace; 04-08-2019, 01:52 PM.
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      • #4
        The simple explanation for this is that we are not out of gas, it's just our schedule got a lot tougher towards the end of the season. Even after Oladip got hurt we weren't beating them very good teams were beating up on the bad teams and winning against some of the average teams.

        I agree with Unclebuck It's almost like Doyel is trying to create an story about this team falling apart because we are not on the same page. There can be more than one reason for a loss and every player can feel different about what happened on the floor.

        What scares me about this team is that we don't have many players that can create a shot for themselves and with Victor being out I think any good playoff coach will be able to dial into what we are doing offensively. Marcus smart will be all over bogey and the Celtics have some size so they will be able to switch on the picks. I'm hoping we put up a good fight in the series.
        • 6 likes

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        • #5
          Originally posted by LilSean320 View Post
          The simple explanation for this is that we are not out of gas, it's just our schedule got a lot tougher towards the end of the season. Even after Oladip got hurt we weren't beating them very good teams were beating up on the bad teams and winning against some of the average teams.

          I agree with Unclebuck It's almost like Doyel is trying to create an story about this team falling apart because we are not on the same page. There can be more than one reason for a loss and every player can feel different about what happened on the floor.

          What scares me about this team is that we don't have many players that can create a shot for themselves and with Victor being out I think any good playoff coach will be able to dial into what we are doing offensively. Marcus smart will be all over bogey and the Celtics have some size so they will be able to switch on the picks. I'm hoping we put up a good fight in the series.
          This post very much says what I feel. If I could thank it x1000 I would.


          Basketball isn't played with computers, spreadsheets, and simulations. ChicagoJ 4/21/13
          • 1 like

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post
            Question about Domas - seems to me he was great back in October, November and into December but has since tailed off. Not really talking about stats, but seems like he was much better early on. Teams are defending him differently now, plus maybe we were all so surprised at how great he looked to start the season, but now we are used to it.
            I think it is mostly just getting used to it. By +/- February was his best month at +12.6 with October being next at +9.8. As Naptownmenace said, I think some of his struggles have had less to do with him, and more to do with injuries disrupting the rotation. Sabonis has struggled some when Holiday has been the back-up PG. Simply, Holiday hasn't been as good at getting him the ball in the right spots as CoJo and Evans have been. This was especially true when both Holiday and Sumner were getting significant minutes. The bench was just kind of a mess during that brief period, but it was almost fixed overnight with the signing of Mathews. There is one valid argument for continuing to play Evans, and that is he is better at getting the ball to Sabonis to score (even if it is just because he missed a layup) than Holiday is.
            • 2 likes

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            • #7
              Players don't all have to agree after the game - although I agree with Thad Young's interpretation - but both the point about the emotional and physical strain due to Oladipo being out and the schedule difficulty are valid, IMO. If we're rested and recoup some of the mojo and defense, it could go six, maybe even seven, but if I were putting money on it it would be Boston in 5. Bottom line, as it has been since the injury against good teams, we can't match the talent level so we have to play nearly perfect basketball to succeed.
              I'd rather die standing up than live on my knees.

              -Emiliano Zapata
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