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Dahntay Jones

Game #59 Recap – That Was Fun

by Tim Donahue on February 28, 2010 at 11:20 am

We at 8p9s have made it a point to try to make “new age” NBA Advanced Statistics a part of the normal conversation.  Some might say that we – or, more accurately, I – might tend to get a little bit in the weeds.  That may be so, but we will continue to believe we’re on the side of the angels, there.  However, we’re not going to do numbers today.  Without wavering in our commitment to Advanced Stats, I’m just going to talk about the experience of the game last night

  • The Crowd – Though it’s true that there were plenty of Bulls fans there, it was still heartening to see the Fieldhouse pretty much full.  It was also nice to see a connection between the crowd and the players.   Bulls fans, though full-throated early, were pretty easily shouted down by the Pacer partisans.  The atmosphere was as energetic as I’ve felt this year.
  • The Movement – Backcuts, passing, alley-oops.  Last night was one of the few times that this team didn’t look like they’d met each other for the first time upon arriving at the arena.  Yes, there were plenty of turnovers, but few of them were of the mindless sort we’re so used to (and sick of) seeing.
  • The Players – Pretty much everybody that played contributed last night.  (Dunleavy only made one four-minute appearance, then did not return, but I’ll not borrow that trouble right now.)  Watson was aggressive early and often.  Hibbert was a presence in the paint and in the high post.  Dahntay, T.J., and Luther all were active and played with a purpose.  Murphy hit shots, Brandon stayed active.
  • The Team – The Pacers have been hard to get a handle on this year.  I don’t have access to the locker room, or anyone’s innermost thoughts (perhaps not even my own), so I have no clue as to the mental state of this unit.  However, last night, they were a team.  Roy and Troy were cheering for each other.  They were talking and supportive and excited.  I think they probably tend to get too high after success and too low after failures, but last night was just right.   It’s good to see these guys still be able to pull for each other this late in a brutal season.
  • The Man – Danny has quietly begun to find his game.  Post All Star break, he’s averaging 26.5 points and 6.8 rebounds a night.  More importantly, his eFG% is .561, a full 8 points above his pre-break average (I had to give a little taste, but just a little one.)  I missed the Houston game, so I don’t know if he’s put a full game together yet or not, but this is the Danny this team needs.
  • The Company – I got to watch the game with my brother last night, which is always an under-appreciated pleasure.  It’s both refreshing and comforting to fall into the old patterns while watching a game.  Plus, it’s great to draw on his decades and decades (and decades and decades) of experience playing and watching basketball.  At halftime, I had a great chat with BillS and DukeDynamite of Pacers Digest fame.  BillS thought that he saw some impact from the premiere of Winning Time. Several of the players were in attendance at Friday night’s showing, and Bill thought he saw the Pacers being more physical when the Bulls penetrated the paint.  God knows it couldn’t hurt.
  • The Future – Ehhh…this will come uninvited soon enough.  The Pacers face four winning teams this week on a tough Western swing.  The core issues are still there, and there is a whole lotta work to be done before last night’s performance will be the norm.  This is like a warm day in the dead of winter.  You take it for what it is, and squeeze as much as you can out of it.  You know it won’t last.

54

Feel the sunshine while you can.  It is all too rare an occurrence these days.

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Game #57 Recap: Defensive Meltdown & Not Enough Points

by Jared Wade on February 25, 2010 at 3:03 pm

Apologies for the lack of recaps/previews since the break. But after games like this and the one against Dallas, what is there to say really? The Pacers were characteristically comatose from the jump last night and the defense was nonexistent. Even though ht the threes started coming and the deficit was nearly erased by the half, Indy just didn’t have enough wherewithal on the other end to stop Chicago.

Other than that, all I got is this brief game write up I did for the Daily Dime this morning.

Luol Deng and the Bulls bum-rushed the Pacers off the tip Wednesday night. Chicago outscored Indiana 37-18 in the first quarter, seemingly putting the game away before it ever started. But it wasn’t entirely over. On the strength of long-range shooting from Brandon Rush and Danny Granger, Indiana’s offense awoke from its coma to knock down six 3-pointers in the second quarter, turning what was once a 23-point deficit into a manageable four-point hole at the half.

Might we have a ballgame on our hands? No. Not really.

Indy’s offense went right back to sleep, and Chicago began scoring just as easily as it had to start the evening. Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich got hot from the outside, and with no Pacers’ defense to speak of, the Bulls cruised to another 37-point quarter. After that, the rest was academic.

Indiana coach Jim O’Brien’s calling card has always been his team’s reliance on the 3-point shot, and while that is what — momentarily — got them back in this game, such accuracy has been a rare sight this year. For the season, Indiana takes 22.4 3s per night (fourth-most in the NBA) but connects on only 33.1 percent of its long-range attempts (fourth-worst in the NBA).

So while Rush, a second-year guard, knocked down five 3s, his puzzling unreliability showed up in other areas — specifically his 2-for-8 performance inside the arc, which included a head-scratching missed layup on a follow attempt in transition.

Granger’s night was much the same. He shot 4-for-8 from long range, yet only 1-for-6 on 2-point attempts. Dahntay Jones was much more aggressive, letting the others handle the 3s and getting to the line 10 times. But his 2-for-7 shooting from the field soured what was otherwise a nice offensive night for the defensive specialist.

All told, the Pacers were able to connect on only 40.9 percent of their shots. And particularly on a night when they couldn’t guard anybody, that was the ballgame.

Oh well.

Milwaukee tonight.

On to the next one.

UPDATE: Tim had the following to add…

I’ve started to listen to Mark & Slick while I watch the game. They’re among the best in the business, and they’re usually good for a few good comments a game.

When AJ Price came into the game last night, there was this little exchange:

Mark:  “AJ Price in the game for the first time, replacing Earl Watson. He’ll join TJ in the back court.”
Slick:  “But they’re playing him at shooting guard.”

(The play continues for a few seconds, before Derrick Rose scores and is fouled. Mark does all of the play-by-play and Slick is silent. Then, during the pause as the line up for the free throw:)

Slick (in a very slow, deliberate voice):  “AJ Price is not a shooting guard. He. Is. A. Point. Guard. He sees the floor better than anybody on the team.
Mark: “Yeah, but at this point, I’m just happy to see him out there at all.”
Slick: “He’s out there (mumble, mumble, mumble)”

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Going Small?

by Jared Wade on January 26, 2010 at 10:39 pm

These days, it’s usually more of a news story when the Paces keep the same starters two games in a row than it is when they try a new starting lineup. So why should the 17th new starting lineup of the year be any more newsworthy than the 16th?

Well, the “small ball” starting lineup employed yesterday (Earl Watson, Luther Head, Brandon Rush, Danny Granger and Troy Murphy) feels a little more significant for two reasons. The first is that it was effective in the sense that the Pacers won and, thus, we will probably see if more often. The second is that with the Lakers (Bynum and Gasol) and the Cavs (Shaq, Big Z, Varejao, Hickson) both coming to town this week, Coach O’Brien might not be able to lean on it as much as he would otherwise like to in the next two games.

Regardless of the short-term realities, it seems that the Coach is smitten. Tom Lewis of Indy Cornrows breaks it down.

Not only did JOB start small, he stayed “small” all game long, never playing Roy Hibbert and Troy Murphy at the same time and utilizing the extra wing player for all 48 minutes. The end result was net positive as the Pacers overcame a slow start and early 11-point deficit to continue attacking in the second half and notch a second-straight road win, 109-98. With the win to build on, the small lineup appears here to stay.

“In regards to small vs. big lineup the margin is over +320 (favoring small) for the year. We’ll go with it for as many games as we can, as long as we can because that’s our best lineup,” JOB told reporters after the game.

So what took so long?

Dahntay Jones, who had what was arguably his best game since November last night, might be asking that same question and he seems to be a fan of how going small helps the team run and create match-up problems.

“We can cause matchup problems with our small lineup,” Dahntay Jones said. “The tempo changes when we have the small lineup. Everybody runs. Then they have to find out who they’re going go guard. Who’s their big man going to guard? And we take advantage of that. It’s been a weapon of ours in the past, and I’m glad we got back to it.”

Troy couldn’t argue with the results either, although he sounds a little more skeptical of whether or not it will always work — or perhaps he just has no interest in trying to bang with Bynum and Shaq over the next two games?

“It works against a team like that,” Troy Murphy said. “They’re a team that runs up and down. Against some of the bigger teams, we may struggle. We may do well. It worked well for us tonight.”

We’ll see tomorrow whether or not Jim is enamored enough with wee ball to see if it can work against the big, long champs. But expect to see more of it in the weeks to come.

Space Jam Monstars

Michael Jordan isn’t walking through that door, but the Coach thinks going small might be the most effective way for this Pacers roster to win.

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Dahntay Jones Teaches Offense

by Jared Wade on January 24, 2010 at 12:25 am

Because most of you reading this are good Hoosiers, you presumably love fundamentals and are always trying to improve your core basketball skills. You know the B.E.E.F. rules of shooting (Balance, Eyes on the rim, Elbow in, Follow-through). You can foot-fire for the duration of an entire Oscars broadcast. You can stutter-step crossover past any orange cone or folding chair. You can run the three-man weave in your sleep — and often do alongside a 1992 Kathy Ireland and Daisy Fuentes in your dreams. (Or maybe that’s just me?)

Thus, I imagine you are all saving up to buy the entire 47-DVD set of Better Basketball instructional videos. Well, it looks like now you can save that money for bike pegs and bubble gum, boys and girls.

Because Dahntay Jones is here to teach you offense.

Yes, it’s true. The defensive specialist is here to share the following lessons:

1. JUMPSHOT: Square up to the hoop. Get balanced. Knees shoulder width apart. Jump straight up, and land where you started. Eyes on the rim.

2. DRIVING TO THE RIM: Stay under control. Use an attack move. Prepare for help defenders. Make good decisions.

But that’s not all.

Head over to The Blowtorch to find out the three other components of any good scoring attack. The last one is obviously the most important — and the key to Dahntay’s success.

90299639IB026_PACERS_HEAT

(Photo by Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images)

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Game #24 Recap: Mauled

by Tim Donahue on December 19, 2009 at 1:03 pm

Pacers @ Grizzlies
94 Score 107
9 Largest Lead 18
97.9 Offensive Efficiency 111.5
42.4% eFG% 51.7%
40.7% (35/86) FG% 47.2% (42/89)
14.3% (3/21) 3PT% 57.1% (8/14)
77.8% (21/27) FT% 71.4% (15/21)
42 (14) Rebounds (Off.) 48 (14)
13 (18) Turnovers (Points Led To) 16 (19)
44 Points in the Paint 52
16 Fast Break Pts 17
15 Assists 23
7 Steals 7
1 Blocks 5

Post-Game Essentials: Box Score | PM Game Flow | Play-By-Play | Shot Chart | Behind the Boxscore | Indy Star Recap | Cornrows Recap | AP Recap | Pacer’s Digest Post Game

In the summer of 1975, the movie “Jaws” hit the theaters to huge box office success.  It was no longer safe to go in the water.  Since this is a “me, too!” society, the natural result was a flurry of copycat Man-vs.-Beast flicks, mostly varying degrees of schlock.

As a skittish 9-year old, the flurry of commercials not only made me afraid of the water, the woods, and basically any living thing that inhabited them, they also made me deathly afraid of commercials.  I learned the opening tones of all the commercials, instinctively bolting from the room, diving under the covers, or screwing my eyes shut as tightly as I could.

If you’re wondering why I’m babbling on about this, there are a couple of reasons.  First,  the longer I talk about this, the longer I can delay talking about the game.  Second, one of the copycat movies was a particularly large turd called “Grizzly.”

As I watching the end of the second quarter last night, I was reminded of  that movie, those commercials, and that sudden urge to hide my eyes and plug my ears.  The signs were there.  The Pacers, on the verge of taking control of the game, started to make those little mistakes that are equivalent of the opening strains of the commercials’ theme.

Dahntay Jones steps to the line to take two free throws that would have given the Pacers their first double digit lead.   It would have represented a 22-point turnaround in a little less than 18 minutes of game time.   After falling behind 19-8, the Pacers had outscored the Griz 48-28.  The momentum was theirs, and they had a chance to get a stronger grip.

Instead, for the second time in as many games, Dahntay misses both and leaves the Pacers exposed.  Sixty six seconds and two putrid offensive possessions later, Indiana heads to the locker room up only five and looking decidedly shaky.

My inner 9-year old was telling me to cower under the covers, but the infinitely more delusional inner Pacer fan kept me with it.  Any of the linked recaps above will detail what happened next.  Brand new nightmares were created as the Pacers opened the third by basically puking all over their shoes.  Mike Dunleavy missing three straight free throws was the gratuitous “jump out of the shadows” scare, but the real gore was at the 5:48 mark.

Exhibiting a voyeuristic bent, nine NBA players (5 Grizzlies and 4 Pacers) stared with the same slack-jawed, glassy-eyed expression evident of a horror movie patron as Jeff Foster received the ball above the top of the key.  The Pacers offense seemed frozen, like so many victims of movie monsters, (though honestly, it could be argued that the Pacer Offense’s natural state is frozen) leaving Jeff to desperately heave a 20-foot jumper before he was eaten by the shot clock.   The results were predictably tragic – a mother and her two small children in the first row were maimed by the errant projectile.

It was at that point, with the Pacers down 12, that my inner 9-year old had finally bludgeoned the starry-eyed Pacer fan into submission and took control of the remote.

The 9-year old switched to something much more cheery and less gruesome:  the second season of “Dexter” on DVD.

So, I’d love to deconstruct what happened the rest of the game, but I only watched glimpses after that.  I tracked it on the box score for a while, then foolishly returned to see Buckaroo Banzai hit three freebies to cut it to six.  Naturally, the monster was not really dead, and the delusional Pacer fan in me died screaming as Zach Randolph blocked Buckaroo’s shots not once, but twice on the same possession.

In any case, the game was informative in terms of warning signs, so I’ll give you a few, so you can watch for these in future games:

  • Pacer players making “iffy” shots – Both Dahntay Jones and T.J. Ford were getting buckets last night, but they were the type that any defense would will live with them taking.  Ford was making challenged pull ups, just a couple feet outside of his comfort zones.  Dahtnay dropping J’s from just inside the arc.  Defenses will win in the long run, if that’s how the Pacers are scoring.
  • Low assist total – In the first half, the Pacers were assisting on fewer than half of their makes, and T.J. Ford had none.  For the game, they had only 15 assists on 35 FG’s, and Ford finished with only one in 23 minutes.
  • No Joy for Troy – Over the last four games, T-Murda has shot just over 60% from the floor, including 10-21 from three.  Last night, Troy got collared on five shots.  With Troy, his bad shooting nights are almost always mechanical.  It’s true with both his three’s and his free throws.  His timing gets off, and he ends up putting too much wrist into the shot, making it flat and short.  In other words, you an usually tell early when he’s going to have a bad night.
  • High number of “Oh, man” plays -  These are those plays where success for the Pacers is tantalizingly close, then just slips away.  The dagger three that rims in-and-out.  The great defensive possession that ends in a cheap foul or somebody making an impossible shot.  The crazy bounces on the loose balls that always go to the opponent.  There were a ton of these in the second quarter last night.
  • That “nagging” feeling – Yeah, it’s nebulous, but you know it.  It’s the sense that the Pacers should be leading by much more than they really are…or, you can’t figure out why they aren’t down by more.  That’s a sure sign that they aren’t getting enough mileage out of their play.  It almost never turns out well.

The Pacers are not a very good team.  They still don’t have anyone who can protect the rim defensively, and without Danny Granger, they are down one of the few guys who can actually hit shots on a semi-regular basis.  Mike Dunleavy has played well, but you can see the conditioning is still not there yet.

For as long as these facts are true, they will remain a team walking through a league full of carnivores wearing uniforms made out of pork chops.  They’ve got to learn that their only hope of survival is to keep moving.

Grizzly2

The Pacer offense has turned many games this season into gory horror flicks.  Until they figure out to keep the motion constant, we should probably expect more sequels.

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Game #10 Recap: Defense and Danny’s Big Plays Can’t Outweigh a Late Offensive Drought

by Jared Wade on November 21, 2009 at 10:55 am

Cleveland Cavaliers 105, Indiana Pacers 95


On paper, the Pacers are not supposed to beat the Cavs. But last night, inside my TV set, they almost did. And they probably should have.

Once again a winnable game was lost, primary because an inept offense could not score when the team needed points. Down 91-88 with 5:40 to play, Indiana spent most of the final minutes missing difficult shots and failing to convert open jumpers. Unlike other dry spells the team has gone through this season, the ball did move around the perimeter freely and there was penetration into the lane. It just didn’t result in points.

LeBron, meanwhile, spent the late minutes rediscovering the spark that allowed him to start off the game shooting 8/8 and putting up 20 points, 5 assists and 4 rebounds in the first half. (He finished with 40 points on 13/25 with 9 boards, 7 assists and just 2 turnovers.) Despite LeBron’s best efforts, however, the defense gave the team a chance to win.

As has become the norm, the highlight of the late minutes came on the defensive end, when Danny Granger thwarted a sure bucket from JJ Hickson. LeBron destroyed the entire team defense with dribble penetration fromthe perimeter and got into the middle of the paint, where multiple defenders were forced to merge into his path to prevent a sure dunk. LeBron stopped short and found a wide-open, cutting JJ Hickson for what appeared to be an uncontested dunk. Not to Danny. He raised up and swatted the athletic big man’s flush attempt and the Pacers looked charged to capitalize on the momentum and crowd energy of Granger’s big block with some points.

They didn’t.

Instead, an Anthony Parker baseline jumper on the Cavs next possession would soon extend Indy’s deficit, and although a Troy Muphy jumper would allow the Pacers to, well, keep pace, a stunning, spinning drive by LeBron would extend the Cleveland lead to six. (He may have traveled by dragging the foot on his sweeping spin move, but they for some reason never showed a replay.)

Despite falling down even further, another nice defensive play by Granger — this time, he impressively ripped the ball directly out of LeBron’s giant hands — would continue to keep the Pacers hopes alive. But, again, a big defensive play wasn’t even enough to get Danny’s — or anyone else’s — scoring going. Usually, it isn’t uncommon to see a struggling shooter make a defensive play and translate that momentum into points. Didn’t happen.

Danny’s good D continued soon after as he forced LeBron into another tough fadeaway from the elbow area, but when he received the ball on a kick out towards the end of the next possession down, Granger chose to pump-fake, take a dribble left, and pull-up for the long two-pointer instead of just shooting the three right after the catch, which is a much more efficient shot statistically and one that he looked like he could have released without too much difficulty. Perhaps, ironically, it was a decision that looked all too much like the decision-making that has characterized Brandon Rush’s offensive struggles throughout much of the the year — this, on a night where Brandon Rush was one of the offense’s highlights, scoring 16 points on 10 shots and even putting up 3 assists while generally looking comfortable and making good passes around the perimeter.

With the Cavs up six and only a minute to go, it would be up to the defense to keep any chances that the Pacers had remaining alive. And Dahntay Jones looked up to the task. LeBron commanded the ball back on the other end, dribbling above the top of the key in front on Dahntay, who had been taking the lion-share of a tandem look against LeBron all night along with Granger and looked to relish this final challenge. He stayed low in his stance and dug in, waiting for the best player in the world to take it to him.

Instead, LeBron dribbled until the shot clock got low and quickly rose up for a 26-foot, straitaway jumper. Nothing but twine. Cleveland up 7 with 0:52 to play. Ball game.

The outcome was the one that Pacers fans should have expected. A middling-at-best squad isn’t supposed to beat a championship contender, even on its home floor and probably particularly when their head coach gets sent to the showers midway through the first quarter after picking up two technical fouls for sticking up for his point guard. But even though the Cavs defense is good and even though LeBron did some unstoppable LeBron stuff late, Danny made not just a couple of big defensive plays late that should have led to more points. But the offense just was not capable of getting buckets late, which is a shame, because during a 15-0 third quarter run and through a first quarter where the team put up 38 points on 682% shooting (15/22 shooting), the offense looked potent. It looked well-oiled. It looked explosive.

Then the team scored 13 fourth quarter points. On 22% shooting. (4/18 from the field)

With Murphy back, Rush proving that he hasn’t completely flatlined, Dahntay looking more and more like his production might be more than a fluke and Roy Hibbert unlikely to put up too many more complete no-shows like he did last night (4 points on 2/4 shooting, 2 boards, 0 blocks in 16 foul-riddled minutes), there is hope that better scoring days are ahead.

Based upon the first ten games of the season, honestly, it is starting to feel unlikely that the team will ever become truly reliably offensive unit. But if the defense can continue to be as close to as good as it has been early, and the offense can continue improving towards becoming at least a middle-of-the-pack NBA squad, then this .500 record can definitely hold.

Until then, let’s just chalk this one up to an elite team beating one that surely isn’t.

lebron dahntay jones

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Game #7 Recap: Making the Most of the Moment

by Tim Donahue on November 16, 2009 at 12:46 am

We’ve been here before.  Indy Cornrow’s spstevenson nicely outlines the parallels between the 4-3 starts for this year and last.  However, he feels something different, and so do I:

So it feels the same as last year, right? Nah, I don’t think so. As I am screaming at the TV waiting patiently for the Pacers to hold on in the final minutes last night, I got the feeling that this wasn’t just luck. Maybe this team is different from last year.

NBA regular season games are just like days. They begin, and they end. In between, time passes and a series of events occur. Most of these events are repetitive, and sometimes they can create a monotonous rhythm that make it difficult to tell one game from another.

Within each game, there are moments. Flashes of something memorable — perhaps even special. They bring fans out of their seats or leave them cradling their heads in despair. As a recent NBA commercial noted, they are at once inspiring and demoralizing.

One of those moments occurred last night with the clock clicking through the 10 minute mark of the fourth quarter. After a shaky first half left the Pacers trailing by nine, the team responded with a dominant third quarter. A Brandon Rush three with 0:01 on the clock gave the Pacers a 5-point lead entering the final stanza. The Celtics, being the championship caliber team that they are, opened the fourth quarter with a 7-2 run to tie the game and set up our moment.

Pacer rookie Tyler Hansbrough tried to make a series of post moves — or he had a seizure, it’s difficult to tell — before putting up what could generously be described as a weak fadeaway. It was erased, with extreme prejudice, by Shelden Williams, who then beat Bro Hands down the floor to receive an alley-oop from Ray Allen and give the Cs an 88-86 lead. The relatively sizable contingent of Boston fans in Conseco went nuts, and the Pacers were forced to take a time out.

So, why in the world am I highlighting a moment that is so clearly inspirational for the Celtics and demoralizing for the Pacers? Because while a moment is over in an instant, its meaning is not yet defined. With the exception buzzer beaters, moments are defined by what happens after them. Moments become what the people involved can make of them.

Indiana made that moment the spot that they would make their stand. Less than a minute of game time after the time out, the Pacers had scored five points and grabbed a lead they would not relinquish. Instead of shrinking, they attacked, recapturing the intensity and pressure that they had brought to bear during their impressive third quarter. It was not the young Pacers who wilted, but the proud Celtics. It was not the Pacers who lost their composure, but the Celtics.

As the game started to slip away, the Celtics became chippier and more plaintive. Kendrick Perkins and Doc Rivers earned technicals that helped push the lead from one to four. The attack continued as O’Brien repeatedly called for Dahntay Jones (12 points, 2 assists, and 8 FTAs in the fourth) to isolate and exploit an injured Paul Pierce. The lead reached 11. And though the Celtics cut it to 6 a couple of times, the Pacers grip on the game seemed only to get stronger.

Attack, Attack, Attack

It is still important to keep things in perspective. The Indiana Pacers have not suddenly established themselves as a contender. They still will have a long, tough struggle to even make the playoffs. However, less than two weeks ago, things were very shaky. They had started the season 0-3. Worse yet, they had not been even vaguely competitive in their two home games. The team was chippy, and their starting backcourt (Ford and Rush) was horrible.

Even their three-game winning streak coming into last night’s game was viewed with a good deal of skepticism. The teams they defeated (Knicks, Wizards and Warriors) were far from a murderer’s row, and the offense had still been very spotty.

But, last night was different. It was a glimpse into what could be. The third quarter last night was as perfect as this Pacers team is likely to get. For the quarter, they posted an offensive rating of 149 and a defensive rating of 83.9. More importantly, the second half illustrated how successful the aggressive philosophy being preached by Coach Jim O’Brien can be. The question is always sustainability. Can they keep it up?

Last season, the only Pacer that really had the attack mentality that is so valuable in such a system was Jarrett Jack. His loss is a quality loss, but the new faces may make up for it with quantity. Luther Head, Earl Watson and Tyler Hansbrough each bring a great deal of intensity and a willingness to battle. Each has made good contributions so far. However, Dahntay Jones is clearly the most glowing example of this new attitude.

These guys all attack, attack, attack. The great part is that it’s clearly having a positive influence on some important Pacers. Roy Hibbert is becoming more confident and, subsequently, a far more effective and important piece of this team. T.J. Ford has become more comfortable with his role and is working better with his teammates. Brandon Rush has relaxed and become more aggressive defensively and on the boards and, as a result, become more confident with his shooting.

Perhaps most importantly, Danny Granger is growing to trust these new faces. He is no longer forcing the action, and he’s regained his shooting touch (50% overall and from three the last two games). He’s playing a more complete game, grabbing 16 boards against the Warriors and adding 4 assists, 3 steals and 1 block to his 29 points and 6 boards last night.

What Will the Pacers Make of This Moment?

Perhaps we are seeing the coalescing of a playoff team. Maybe, just maybe, this year’s core is establishing itself in unexpected places. The Pacers have a very favorable early schedule. This week brings them a back-to-back against the currently winless Nets and the currently incompetent Knicks. This will be a good test of their focus and ability to beat bad teams.

Next Friday, they’ll get to test themselves against the elite again, as LeBron James and the Cavaliers come to town. That will mark the first 10 games of the season, and it will be a nice place for a progress report.

They say you can’t win championships (or make the playoffs) in November and December, but you sure can lose them. The 2009 Pacers finished 10 games under .500 and three games out of the playoffs. They left December 2008 sitting 11 games under .500.

This week is important.

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