The Indiana Pacers have the ninth-best record in the NBA. From a wins and losses perspective, they are better than the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, Phoenix Suns and defending champion Golden State Warriors. In head coach Rick Carlisle’s second season, and young star point guard Tyrese Haliburton’s first full campaign with the team, the Pacers have developed an exciting, under-noticed style—they are near the top of the league in both pace and three-point volume, relying on Halliburton’s control of the machine but also on their considerable armada of shooters.
Beyond Haliburton, Carlisle, and the team’s three veteran mainstays in Buddy Hield, Myles Turner and T.J. McConnell, the Pacers are made up of faces that few NBA fans could identify in a crowd: Isaiah Jackson, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Chris Duarte, Jalen Smith, Oshae Brissett and Rookie of the Year candidate Bennedict Mathurin. It’s mid-January, now, so it’s safe to say this probably isn’t just a Mystery Box case of a team of unknowns sneaking up on unprepared foes—unlike the Utah Jazz, who began the season at 10-3 on such terms and have since gone 11-20, the Pacers have gotten to their sixth seed in the Eastern Conference steadily.
They’re playing their best basketball right now, actually: 8-2 over their last 10, they’ve collected high-quality wins against the Clippers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and Heat. It hasn’t been an easy stretch. Haliburton has been a 50/40/90 shooter in these games, averaging more than nine assists—a statistic in which he leads the league this season. He has become a no-brainer All-Star in his third season, at 22 years old, and probably most important for the Pacers in this development is his airtight mind-meld with Carlisle, who may have begged the Mavericks front office to trade up for him in the 2020 NBA Draft. A coach’s imprint on what actually happens on the floor can be high-variance, depending on a roster’s buy-in or how hegemonic its main players’ styles are, but that is not the case in Indiana. Just look at this.
