Two years ago, the Indiana Pacers’ season hung in the balance. They kicked with double figures at the stop against LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7 of their first-round series, and they had to make ground fast.
They got some stops and some transition points to close the hole. At halftime, Cavaliers kicked Victor Oladipo, but the All-Star guard shook loose for 14 points in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth, finishing with 30 points on 10-for-21 shots, 12 rebounds, six assists and three steals in 41 minutes.
But it was not enough. Cleveland went on a run to start the final frame, and Indiana went home with a 105-101 loss.
Saturday, the Pacers’ season hung in the balance again. At halftime, they trapped 74-56 in the game and 2-0 in their first-round series against the Miami Heat.
Indiana fought back by getting stops and running. At half-time, the Heat alternate between 1 and 5 – playing Bam Adebayo at “center” is a luxury – but goalkeeper Malcolm Brogdon repeatedly found mismatches and made plays. Brogdon scored 21 points on shots 8 for 10 with seven assists in the second half, and finished with 34 points and 14 assists in 43 minutes.
It felt familiar. The Pacers were within two points early in the fourth quarter, but Miami shifted its lead back to double figures and held on for a 124-115 win.
Indiana was the underdog in this series, and it misses All-Star center Domantas Sabonis, who is sidelined with plantar fasciitis. If Sabonis were active, he would free shooters with screens, roll hard to the edge, find elbow cutters and punish penalties in the post. The Pacers did not expect to be down 3-0, effectively ending their season, but is it not surprising that it was Brodgon who almost saved it?
Oladipo had, by the way, 20 points on 8-for-21 shots in 34 minutes, and dropped out after shooting 2-for-9 in the second half. He barely played in Game 1 due to an eye injury, and he had 22 points on shots 5-for-14, four assists and six innings in Game 2. He was 20 months to the day removed from breaking his quad-tendon, and he is eligible for a contract extension this summer. Tinzen, Russ?
Brogdon arrived in Indiana in a sign-and-trade deal with the Milwaukee Bucks on a four-year, $ 85 million contract, which was widely seen as an overpayment. The Bucks agreed: “He’s great, but for that amount of money, we thought we could have spent those dollars better somewhere else.” co-owner Marc Lasry said.)
In his first 22 games, Brogdon averaged 19.5 points, 7.7 assists and 4.7 rebounds, and an All-Star key seems possible. With the ball in his hands, he was not the 50-40-90 man he was in Milwaukee, but it looked like the Pacers had taken down a heist, just as they did when they got Oladipo and Sabonis at first unpopular Paul George trade. Earlier in the season, Sabonis told me he saw a parallel between Brogdon’s role change in Indiana and his own.
“I think he benefits from the freedom and plays to his skill set,” Sabonis said. “I feel like he’s a player who has a lot more things to his game than he did in Milwaukee. And here he finally has a chance to show it.”
As a second-round pick who went on to win Rookie of the Year, Brogdon had already shown he was better than people thought. In its fourth season, at 27 years old, history was often repeated in all sorts of ways. Indiana did not dominate, but without Oladipo it was at Christmas 21-10, which exceeded expectations about the strength of Brogdon and Sabonis’ chemistry. And with Brogdon running the show, fellow newcomers TJ Warren and Jeremy Lamb fit in, as the front office could have hoped.
“He’s a great point guard,” Indiana wing Doug McDermott said in December. “I know a lot of people did not think he was a point guard here, but he shows that he is a great point guard.”
McDermott also said Brogdon “kind of runs everything.” He had expected Brogdon to be quiet, a sentiment shared by the great man Myles Turner, but the 27-year-old appeared to enjoy his leadership role, joking about planes and at restaurants and seriously turning up at game time. The question, then, was how things would change when Oladipo returned. Turner said opponents began to test Brogdon and catch him more, and “once you have another player there, it takes a lot of the pressure off of him.” The less optimistic perspective was that integrating Oladipo could disrupt Indiana’s rhythm.
However, health problems raged brass with the Pacers’ rhythm for much of the season. Brogdon suffered a back injury and a hamstring injury and was sidelined with a quad injury when the season ended in March. Lamb tore his ACL in February. Oladipo returned in late January, but his shooting was shaky and he did not log 30 minutes into a game for the hiatus.
In Orlando, Oladipo’s will-he-or-will-he situation made things strange before games even began. The team has a completely different feel with Sabonis emerging from the picture and Warren. Indiana finished 45-28 after the seeding games, a credit to coach Nate McMillan and the team’s adaptability, but it’s unclear what’s next.
After that loss to the Cavaliers in 2018, the Pacers looked like an emerging team that needed more fireworks around Oladipo, their new franchise player. Most observers assumed that they would eventually trade Turner as Sabonis for another perimeter player. Now they have an abundance of players handling the ball, and the picture is much more complicated.
They could still move one of the bigs, but they also need to evaluate how Brogdon and Oladipo, who shared the court a total of 449 minutes (including scrimmage games and the playoffs), fit side by side. Sabonis has become the hub of her hemisphere crime, and Warren’s play in the bubble suggests he’s ready for a bigger role.
Ideally, each team wants to have multiple makers on the court, especially come playoff time. As the Pacers’ second-half comeback on Saturday revealed, it’s hard to hide weak one-on-one defenders (in this case: Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson and Goran Dragic) when you face off for a bump boys who can play plays make the dribble off. However, there would be a risk in offering Oladipo an expansion starting at $ 25 million per season, as he did not consistently show the same burst as he had pre-injury, when he easily pick-and-rolls split and in the rim in zoomed transition.
Brogdon, Oladipo, Warren, Sabonis and Turner have played just six games together, barely enough of a sample to draw meaningful conclusions. Indiana boldly stepped out of three-fifths of its starting lineup last offseason and somehow managed to maintain its identity as a tough, defensive-first, overly accomplished performer. Soon, despite incomplete information, the Pacers will face a difficult decision: Are they making major changes again?
