The Pacers are in a spot no team in the Eastern Conference has wanted to be in for the last decade: playing LeBron James in the first round.
For James, the first round almost always feels like a warmup for what’s to come. Last year, for instance, he and the Cavaliers swept the Pistons in a series that was physical and feisty for all four games. It wasn’t close, but it set the tone for Cleveland’s title run. All time, James is 40-7 in the first round and his teams have won 17 straight first round games. That’s over four years without a single first round loss.
This is where Paul George and Pacers find themselves — as potential cannon fodder for James and Cleveland, a footnote in the story of the 2016-17 Cavaliers. And it’s hard to see Indiana playing that role well. George will be at James and force him to engage on defense in a way he has only done selectively all season. Ex-Cavalier C.J. Miles seems to always go off against Cleveland. Myles Turner could make a name for himself with a big series where Indiana’s opponent only has one good post defender. That player — Tristan Thompson — enters the postseason with an injured hand. Lance Stephenson’s presence — remember when he blew on LeBron’s face during his first time with Indiana and just recently irked the Raptors? — adds an interesting wrinkle, as does the thrilling game Cleveland and Indiana recently played.
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But how much of a chance do the Pacers have to pull an upset? FiveThirtyEight’s model gives them a 41 percent chance of advancing to the conference semifinals. Frankly, that feels a bit high. Unless something is actually broken with these Cavaliers and they can’t flip the switch, it’s hard to see how Indiana beats the Cavaliers. Across the board, they are just more talented, more seasoned and more prepared for this.
Sure, the Cavaliers may be backing into the playoff on their longest losing streak of the season. But the Pacers had to win on the final day of the season to clinch and it took George dragging them there to clinch.
More so than any one Pacer, this series will impact George. To no fault of his own, he is playing in the LeBron era in LeBron’s conference and is graded on the LeBron scale. He’s been here before — when he was first breaking out with Indiana, those Pacer teams were the biggest challenge James’ Heat teams faced in the East. Now, he must try and do it again with a team that isn’t as equipped to push the Cavaliers to the depths those other Pacer teams pushed James for two straight years.
George, though, comes into this series playing his best basketball at a level that maybe gives the Pacers some hope. In April, playing just under 40 minutes per game like he will against the Cavaliers, George averaged 32.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists while shooting 54.8 percent from the field and 42.4 percent from the perimeter. Zoom in more on the last five games of the regular season where the Pacers’ playoff hopes rested almost entirely on his shoulders, George shot 56.9 percent from the field and 44.2 percent from the perimeter. He averaged 30.8 points per game, eight rebounds and 3.6 assists. In short: When Indiana needed him, he responded to the highest degree.
The Pacers need that George for seven games, and even more so, against the Cavaliers — particularly so if Jeff Teague is at all hindered by his injured ankle. And they might need George to outplay James. Which, considering James has a legitimate case for MVP and is shooting better than he has at any point during his second stint in Cleveland, is a tall order to matter how good George has been.
Indiana needs several other things to break right, too. Turner may need to be the best post player in the series. Teague has to do enough on offense to make up Kyrie Irving’s output, which hasn’t exactly gone well the last two years when Teague played for the Hawks and Atlanta won a whopping zero games against Cleveland. Go further down the roster and you see the little matchups — Miles and Monta Ellis against J.R. Smith and Kyle Korver, Thad Young against Kevin Love, Nate McMillan against Tyronn Lue — that have to break Indiana’s way for them to have a chance. It’s hard to see that happening unless the Cavaliers are actually doomed. And it’s possible that even if the Pacers play great and George goes crazy, it won’t matter.
So, what does this mean for Indiana? On one hand, it gives them a sense of freedom from expectations of success. But in all likelihood, their playoff appearance and first round exit loss to the Cavaliers leads them to an uncomfortable summer. Maybe Paul George’s March and April play will net him All-NBA honors and Larry Bird can extend a massive extension George can’t turn down. But his comments this year don’t indicate someone who will be happy with a first round exit or staying around in a situation that will be hard to overhaul or improve meaningfully in the summer. A win here, against LeBron, would go a long way to lessening’s some of George’s concerns.
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For the Pacers, the best case seems to be throwing the East into chaos by doing what no East team has been able to do: Beat James and stave off a challenging summer.