How the Indiana Pacers can shift their offense to the next level
The Indiana Pacers have been one of the better Eastern Conference teams over the past couple of years. A lot of the credit goes to the front office’s smart acquisitions of Victor Oladipo, and Domantas Sabonis along with head coach Nate McMillan.
The young Pacers have been ferociously competitive; over the past two seasons, they have had a top-6 defensive rating in the league. This team simply puts emphasis on making games a grind for their opponents.
The Pacers offense, especially this year has been a different story, however. Over the past two years, Indiana has been in the middle of the pack in offensive rating, which isn’t ideal for a league consistently trending towards offense.
In the 3-point happy modern NBA, the Pacers have gone against the trend. This year’s Pacers are last in the league in 3-point attempts, and second-to-last in 3-point makes in the league. They also rank 24th in the league for the pace of play.
This all goes to posing the question, can a team built on defense actually win a championship in the modern NBA?
Historically teams like the 2004 Detroit Pistons, the 1994 New York Knicks, and the 2000s San Antonio Spurs teams are examples of slow-paced, defensive-minded teams that have made the NBA Finals.
More recently, however, it has been teams with an excellent offense and a good defense that have been Finals contenders. The Golden State Warriors are the benchmark for this style, but also teams like the 2014 Spurs, the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, and the current defending champions Toronto Raptors have all had top-10 offenses in the league.
The Pacers’ style works in the NBA for getting into the playoffs but unless their defense becomes historically great, it doesn’t appear to be a title-winning formula.
So what can the Pacers do to actually transition to be more of a contender?