Yes, the Pacers’ season is over. But what a season it has been. We get a last look at how true fans were to the team. This one right here used a flamingo to taunt LeBron James after he missed an easy dunk.

Enjoy the rest of the playoffs.

There’s that word again.  The last time I used that word, I said the Pacers should win 42 games and have a special end of the year.  Oh, well.  Not the first time I’ve been wrong, and it certainly won’t be the last.

However, if this time is one of them, then the problems will run far, far deeper than my apparent cluelessness.

It’s been almost five years since the Indiana Pacers have played a playoff game.  In fact, it’s been almost five years since the Pacers sat 8th or higher in the East this late in the season.  As of this morning, the Pacers are 3 full games ahead of Charlotte and Milwaukee for the final playoff spot.   The Blue and Yellow Menace (as @Mark_J_Boyle calls them) took care of their end of things by fairly crushing the Bobkitties.  Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Bucks show just how big of a threat they were by losing  – at home – to the Sacramento Kings.

Looking at the remaining schedules for the three teams shows the Pacers have a huge – and likely insurmountable – advantage over their Eastern Conference brethren who are chasing them.

As you can see, the Pacers have the easiest schedule by virtually every metric.  They have the fewest remaining games (10 vs. 12 each).  They have the fewest road games (3) and the most home games (7, along with Charlotte).  Charlotte plays one more “cupcake” (teams with SoSHR under .300) game, but the Pacers still have four, the .428 is more favorable then either of the other two.

In fact, the schedule maker has been unbelievably kind to Indiana.  The above chart is a Rolling 10-game SoSHR for the season, and the Pacers are currently going through just about the easiest portion of the year to finish.  And, in my opinion, the schedule is actually easier than it looks.

Of the last 10 games, there will probably only be five of them where the opponent will be playing for anything meaningful.   One of them is the Bucks, who will bring a .273 road winning percentage on April Fool’s day.  The Celtics and their pursuit of the #1 seed visit Conseco next Monday, and the Pacers will visit a New Orleans team currently positioned to finish anywhere from 5th to out of the playoffs in the West on April 3rd.  Atlanta is currently suffering through a 4-8 March, and may be feeling heat for that 5th seed when they visit on 4/8 from Philly.  But, really, the Boston visit and the trip to NOLA are the only two “expected” losses of the last 10.

Which brings us to the fifth team that will be playing for something – the Knicks.

Can the Knicks Be Caught?

The Pacers home finale is against the Knicks on April 10th, and it could be chock full o’ nuts.  Less than two weeks ago, Indiana ventured into MSG for a Sunday evening tilt between two teams apparently headed in opposite directions.  New York had won three of their previous four games, including road wins at Atlanta and Memphis.  The Blue-and-Gold were on a 6-game losing streak as embarrassing and deflating as any stretch I can ever recall.

Then the scripts were flipped.  The Pacers won two straight against New York and five of the next seven overall.  The Knicks have now lost six of their last seven, and what was a seven-game lead on March 13th has dwindled to 3-1/2 games.

Looking at the Pacers schedule above, I think you can for sure pencil in five wins:  the four “cupcakes” in green and the Knicks game.  As noted earlier, I see two clear losses – Boston & New Orleans.  The other three games – @ Detroit, vs. Atlanta, @ Orlando – are questionable.   I don’t see the Pacers either winning all three or losing all three, so that means one or two wins to finish the final 10 games either 38-44 or 39-43.

The Knicks currently have 35 wins.  They’ve played the Pacers three times – losing twice – and my projection of a Pacer win on April 10th would clinch the tie-breaker for Indiana.  In the current scenarios, the Knicks will have to finish with 39 or 40 wins – or get at least 4 or 5 of their last 11.  Unfortunately for the Pacers, that looks pretty doable, but only if they take advantage of the next two weeks.

There are four “cupcakes” on their schedule, and they happen in the next six games.  New York is reeling, but Milwaukee, New Jersey, Cleveland, and Toronto are – for all appearances – complete train wrecks.  It’s not hard to see the ‘Bockers winning all four of those, and notching Saturday’s game at Charlotte to make this discussion moot.

However, if the Knicks do not take advantage of the next six games, then the 7th seed is in play.  They finish with four of five on the road – against Philly, New Jersey, Indy, and Boston.  Worse, their final two games will be a back-to-back hosting Chicago, then traveling to Boston – while both teams will likely be fighting for homecourt advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs.

If I were to make a prediction now, I would say that the Knicks will hold onto the 7th seed.  It’s just too big of a hole to fill in too little time.  I will say this, though.  If – if – the Knicks haven’t wrapped it up by the April 10th showdown, then the Pacers will catch them.

But even if they don’t, the skein of non-playoff seasons is coming to an end.

Well, at least it should be.

Game Notes

Easy win for the Pacers last night.  Indiana basically controlled the game from the middle of the third quarter on, and the only real excitement after that came when Tyrus Thomas threatened self-immolation during a brief stretch late in the third.

Danny Granger was dominant with 33 points on only 19 shots.  He’s had a few really strong performances over the last couple of months, but this was as close to the vintage 2009 All Star as I’ve seen since, well, 2009.  Roy Hibbert was solid with 13 points and 14 rebounds, and Tyler Hansbrough dropped a half dozen more mid-range jumpers on his way to 24 points.

The win drops the magic number over Charlotte to 8, but really, it ended Charlotte.  @StacyPaetz reported last night that Stephen Jackson would likely “shut it down” if the Bobcats lost last night.  Jackson was clearly hobbled by the hamstring, and a team whose second best player is probably D.J. Augustin just isn’t going to be competitive enough to put together the 9-3 or 10-2 finish needed to make them a realistic threat.

Ahhh…the heady days of wild-eyed optimism.

After being battered from pillar to post on their own floor twice by the NBA elite, your Indiana Pacers fell 15 games below .500 with 35 games to go.  They now stand 8 full games behind Chicago and Charlotte, who are tied for the 7th/8th spot in the playoffs.

But, despite a recent bout of wishful thinking by the Pacers themselves, most observers had written off any faint playoff hopes sometime during their eight-game losing streak to end December.  Now the question becomes something of a perversion.  How bad will they be?

How Low Can You Go?

Right now, the Pacers are on a pace to win only 28 games.  For some perspective, they haven’t had this low of a winning percentage this late in the season since 1989.  That team won — wait for it — 28 games.

At this point, they have the seventh worst record in the league and only 11 teams in the league have losing records.

Since I think we can all agree that the Pacers won’t be finishing at or above (or anywhere near) .500, I think the graph above pretty much captures the range in which they’ll finish.  Further, I think it’s safe to assume that neither New Jersey nor Minnesota will be able to catch up to the Pacers.  Therefore, we’re looking at the team finishing with somewhere between the 3rd & the 11th worst record.

And, after you see my analysis below, I think you’ll agree that they’re unlikely to finish above the bottom eight.

Red Skies in Morning

Pacers take warning.

The Pacers have been in this position before under Jim O’Brien.  Last year, the Pacers stood 11 games below .500 on January 1, but played the last 49 games at 25-24 to finish at 36-46.  In 2008, the Pacers fell 16 games under .500 before finishing 11-5.

The 2009 performance was the result of a relatively competitive team figuring out how to win some games and play to its “.500 or slightly better” potential.  In 2008, it was simply a favorable schedule.  All 11 wins during that final stretch came against losing teams, and only two of them were against teams that were fighting for a playoff spot.

So, is it possible that either one of these scenarios to occur this year?

No.

First, this isn’t a competitive team.  Last year’s Pacers lost by 10 points or more 15 times.  Twenty of the this year’s 36 losses have been by double digits, including six by 20 or more.  There are a lot of adjectives that can be used to describe this team, but competitive isn’t one of them.

Second, there’s no help coming from Mr. Schedule-Maker Guy.

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter

I broke down the remaining 35 games along two, pretty basic lines.  First is “home vs. road” and second is “quality of opponent.”  The former is self-explanatory. The Pacers have 18 home games left, and 17 on the road.  To this point, they’ve been only 10-13 at home, and a gawdawful 6-18 on the road.  Five of the six road wins have come against teams with worse records (including two against New Jersey), and the sixth win came against the Knicks, who were something like 1-9 at the time.

The latter I put into 4 categories: Elite, Winning, Losing, and Worse.

“Elite” are any teams with a winning percentage of .650 or better.  “Worse” are any teams with records currently worse than the Pacers.  “Winning” and “Losing” would be teams between .500 and either Elite or Worse, respectively.  (All based on current record.)

• Elite (8 games remaining) – To date, the Pacers have played 12 games against “Elite” competition, losing 10 of them.  Their only wins came at home over Boston in November and Orlando in January.  They’ve lost all four road games against these teams, and six of the eight home games.  The 10 losses have come by an average of 13 points, and the closest final margin was an 8-point loss at Orlando.  The Pacers have managed only 102 points per 100 possessions, while allowing almost 112.  Of the eight games left against these teams, seven are on the road.  Had the home/road schedule been more balanced, I might have been more likely to believe the Pacers could steal one of these games, but honestly, there’s no reason to believe they’ll win any.  Projection:  0-8.

• Winning (15 games remaining ) – Nine of these 15 games will be at home, which would normally be hopeful.  However, Indy is only 3-4 against these teams at Conseco, and the wins are not confidence inspiring.  Two of these wins were back-to-back comeback wins against Toronto and Phoenix, featuring 20+ point first-half deficits.  The third was against Charlotte, who was 1-10 on the road at the time.  Even at home, the offense can only generate 101 points per 100 possessions, while the defense allows almost 107.  This was still better than their 0-9 performance on the road, where the offense was apparently lost with the luggage.  The Pacers scored 96 per 100 while allowing almost 112.  Only the game in San Antonio was close enough to believe they actually had a shot at winning.  I don’t think they can take any of the games on the road, and winning a third of the home games is probably optimistic. Projection:  2-13

• Losing (5 games remaining) – The Pacers have played some of their worst basketball against the teams between .340 and .500, winning only 2 of 7 tries.  The low point of the season was probably the 43-point loss to the Knicks.  They’ve posted an offensive efficiency of less than 93, which ruined an overall good defensive efficiency of less than 100.  Still, I think they’ll win two of their three remaining home games, and split their visits to Milwaukee.  Projection: 3-2

• Worse (7 games remaining)  – Nine of the Pacers’ 16 wins this season have come against these teams.  They’ve lost on the road to Golden State and Minny, and at home to Philly.  As noted above, five of the six road wins came against these teams.  The Pacers have been able to score well (109 per 100 possessions) and shut down these guys (103.6).   Five of these seven games are at home.  At this point, I’m only going to project a loss at Detroit.  Winning six of these games is probably optimistic, but I’m probably a little on the pessimistic side in some of the earlier categories.  Detroit and Philly could either be better or worse than the Pacers, depending on wind direction, while New Jersey is clearly worse.  Washington has some talent, but also problems, so it’s a shot in the dark (see what I did there?) as to whether they’ll be able to pull anything together.  I’ll spread a little sunshine in this category.  Projection:  6-1.

So, in 35 games, I’m only comfortable projecting 11 more wins, leaving your Blue and Gold with a final record of 27-55.  If I were to guess, I’d say that would leave them with either the 4th or 5th worst record in the league.  The tankers will be happy, but it’s going to be a long year for the rest of us.

The rest of the year could be even more brutal than the first 47 games.  Close your eyes, and think of England. (nod to @missbumptious for the assist)