NBA Season Preview 2018-19: Every team’s biggest question

Indiana Pacers: Can they continue to cut against the grain?

The Pacers’ unforeseen success in 2018 was most notable for the unique blueprint they used to achieve it. As the NBA grows increasingly oriented toward pace-and-space, the Pacers thrived by pushing back against those principles. Indiana jacked the most mid-range jumpers in the NBA by a wide margin, operated at one of the slowest paces in the league and rarely played fewer than two big men at a time. Where so many teams have become reliant on switching on defense, Indy played a more traditional scheme.

That formula produced undeniably positive results last year; the Pacers won 48 games and pushed Cleveland to the brink in the first round of the playoffs. They shot 42.2 percent from the mid-range, the fourth-best mark in the NBA, and nearly every regular frontcourt combination was a net positive. Whether their model is a tenable one moving forward, however, remains to be seen. Victor Oladipo’s emergence provided a massive lift last year, but another leap of that size feels unlikely, and Indiana won’t have the element of surprise in 2019. Merely playing hard and relying on Oladipo might prove less sustainable now that teams have a better sense of how to combat those two forces. The team’s tidy mark from the mid-range feels bound for regression, as does cold opponent 3-point shooting.

Even with tweaks their style, the Pacers can still improve upon last season. Most rotation players are capable, if slightly reluctant 3-point shooters that can make opponents pay when weaponized. Splendid as Oladipo is on both ends of the floor, he wasn’t used as a primary ball-handler or on-ball defender as often as most players of his caliber are. Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis still have upside to explore, and getting more from those two – as well as effectively deploying them together – will also be key to unlocking the Pacers’ highest range of outcomes.