INDIANAPOLIS — Back on January 23rd the Indiana Pacers beat the visiting Toronto Raptors 110-106 despite their franchise player and leading scorer, Victor Oladipo, rupturing his right squad tendon at the knee. When ole boy went down in the second quarter of that game everybody and their Uncle LeRoy thought the that Pacers’ season was over. Well…everybody but the folks inside that locker room.
At the time they were rolling with a 32-15 record after beating Toronto but nobody saw them finishing the season 48-35 battling for a the fourth seed late in the season with Boston. After losing the season head to head matchup 3-1 to the Celtics they finished with the fifth seed behind them and will visit Boston on Saturday to tip the postseason off.
Let’s keep it real or all the way 100 whichever comes 1st! Whatever happens in this postseason Nate McMillan and Co. has over achieved. They’ve literally gotten the very best out of a team nobody thought could survive without Victor Oladipo. Nobody!!!
When Vic went down the first thing I asked myself was where are they going to get the leadership from? Who’s going to be the leading scorer consistently? Who’s going to drive the car? This isn’t the new Telsa. It’s the Pacers. Now what?
Well playas…boyz immediately stepped up and took care of business. Bojan Bodganovic took over as the leading scorer dropping off 18 points per game. Not only did he lead the team in scoring but he did it darn near every night. Domantas Sabonis came through with rebounding expertise averaging 9 rebounds per game. Obviously, Darren Collison ran the offense as Thaddeus Young led the team in steals.
Myles Turner was a beast all season leading the entire league in blocks at 2.7 per game. Ole boy signed an extension just before the season started and he made sure there were no questions as to whether he earned it or not.
In my Puff Daddy voice, “It’s real in the field” now that the playoffs tip off this weekend. Sure, Boston beat them 3 games to 1 this season but the Pacers still have a shot to come out of this series alive. We just saw where Marcus Smart will be out 4-6 weeks with an oblique injury. He’s the attitude of the Celtics. He’ll surely be missed. So it’s not a wrap that the Celtics will walk out of this series alive.
It should be a good one but whatever happens the Pacers have done way more than fans around here expected for them to do after Vic went down. Stop me when I start lyin’!