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Hardwood Paroxysm Presents: NBA Midseason Super-Overreactionizer

By HP Basketball Network

Jan 9, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (13) works on his dribbling during warmups before the game against the Boston Celtics at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 9, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (13) works on his dribbling during warmups before the game against the Boston Celtics at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports /
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Jan 9, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (13) works on his dribbling during warmups before the game against the Boston Celtics at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 9, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (13) works on his dribbling during warmups before the game against the Boston Celtics at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports /

The Indiana Pacers Are Headed To The Finals

By Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh) — Nylon Calculus

Your world is about to be shaken. The natural order of basketball things which has emerged since the end of October is about to be disrupted. Everything you thought you knew is wrong. We are entering a stage of chaotic change—human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

Paul George is returning.

On Friday, he spoke with reporters and marked March 1st as the day he’d like to return to practice, guesstimating that he’d need another two weeks to get himself back into game shape. Draw a big fat circle around March 14th. On that day, the Indiana Pacers will play the Boston Celtics. And on the day Paul George will play NBA basketball again. On that day he will begin exacting his revenge on a league that has forgotten about him and on the careless dabbling of The Fates that cost him more than five months of basketball.

Assuming the Pacers play .500 ball until that point (they’ve won six of their last ten), and assuming they win all of their 18 remaining games after George’s return (which seems entirely reasonable, I mean he’s the best two-way player in the league), they would finish the season at 44-38. That should be good enough for the fifth or sixth seed in the Eastern Conference, but really the playoff matchups are irrelevant. The four man unit of Roy Hibbert—George Hill—David West—Paul George was +6.9 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs last season. And that was before the Pacers discovered that Hill was actually a dynamic scoring threat if freed from the masquerade of being a point guard, and without the accumulated goodwill of the universe that the Pacers earned by suffering through George’s absence and the resulting “Stuckey Experiment.”

The Pacers have luck and talent on their side. And for the first time in what feels like forever, they’re going to have Paul George on their side as well. Watch out Eastern Conference. Basketball is back, in Indiana.

Next: Sam Hinkie Needs To Up His Tank Game

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