By Liam McKeone
Nobody around the NBA really thought that the Pacers could come out on top when they were matched with the Cavs for the opening round of the playoffs. Sure, the Pacers were this year’s surprise team, with sudden star Victor Oladipo, a practical guarantee for Most Improved Player of the year, leading them to 48 wins on the season. Depending on the match-up, maybe Indiana could sneak into the second round.
Then, the Cavs ended up falling to the fourth seed and got paired with the Pacers. This ended the chances (in everyone outside of Indiana’s mind) that the Pacers would be anything more than a remarkable young team in the way of Playoff LeBron. But after a dominating Game 1 performance that saw the Cavs lose by nearly 20, questions naturally started to arise: do the Pacers actually have a chance to pull off this upset?
As was the case all year, Oladipo has to continue to be spectacular. He is the engine that runs this team, and he showed it with a 32/6/6 line, with four steals to boot. He shot 11-19, which seems unsustainable, but he can still do what he wants with a Cavs defense that has looked atrocious all year. Throwing LeBron on Oladipo would certainly slow him down, but it would create size mismatches elsewhere, and if the Cavs can scrape by without LeBron having to guard the other team’s best player until the Finals, they’ll do it. It’ll take a concentrated team defensive effort to slow down the electric Oladipo, and Clevleand hasn’t shown signs of life on that end of the floor all season.
Defensively, the Pacers lack what every team that managed to beat LeBron in the recent past had: a true defensive stopper that can stick with the King for the entire game. Of course, these types of defenders aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, so the Pacers make do by creating a lineup of big, quick players who could stick with LeBron for a possession or two if they absolutely had to.
Myles Turner is the key to this puzzle. He’s been inconsistent all year, but has the measurables and the past stats to show that he can be an elite rim defender. He had a good showing in Game One, but he’ll have to elevate his play to the next level if the Pacers want a good chance of pulling this defensive scheme off. Having someone as good as Turner in the paint to challenge every single LeBron drive is how the Pacers originally almost beat LeBron back in the Heat days, where Roy Hibbert was the wall that stood between LeBron and his next title.
Ultimately, the Pacers could play to perfection and still lose if the Cavaliers suddenly remember they’ve been to the Finals for three years straight. LeBron is entirely capable of going Super Saiyan and dropping 40-point triple doubles for every game the rest of the series, and his teammates just need to be average for them to advance if he does.
The Pacers already handed LeBron his first first-round playoff loss in three years. They may just do what no team has ever done before: defeat LeBron James in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
