What the first 1/4th of the Indiana Pacers season revealed + what is key about the next quarter?

What the first 1/4th of the Indiana Pacers season revealed + what is key about the next quarter?

The Pacers season is 1/4 done. What have we learned about this Pacers team and what haven’t we learned? Derek Kramer from My Pacers and Pacers Recap Live joins me to talk about that and look ahead at the next quarter of this Pacers season on today’s Locked On Pacers podcast. You are Locked on Pacers, your daily Indiana Pacers podcast, part of the Locked Onet. your team every day. What’s up everybody? Happy Wednesday and welcome in to another edition of the Lockdown Pacers podcast where we of course talk about the Indiana Pacers as always. My name is Tony East. I cover the team for Forbes and Circle City Spin. And today the Pacers season is 1/4 done. It’s actually a little over that technically and we can take stock of the team. Perfect timing to do it. Derek Kramer has not joined us since media day. September is going to join us to talk about exactly that. What have we learned about this team so far? What have we not learned about this team so far? And some of that is stuff that the Pitchers hoped they would have learned about this team. Injuries is a huge factor, of course. We talk a little bit about who has and hasn’t exceeded expectations this season given the team’s general current 4-7 state. And then we look ahead to quarter two. What should the Pacers do? How should they handle it? What will they hope to learn in that period of the season? Really fun conversation. You’ll also hear me say that the Pacers crossed the one quarter mark after the first quarter against the Cavs. That’s wrong. It was the first half and it’s eating me up that I got it wrong. So, I’m correcting it right now. And now we talk with Derek Kmer. Let’s just get right to it. The Pacers are 1/4th of the way through their season. Technically, a little over it. They were a fourth of the way through after the first quarter of Pacers Cavs. And that’s a perfect time to take stock of what the hell just happened in the Pacers first 21 games. And I use the word hell on purpose because Derek Kramer is here with his background from the newly created Pacers Recap Live, which is evil now because of the palendrome that it creates. And evil Pacers Recap Live has hellish themes, including Tyreek Evans and he LeBron James in his background. Derek, hello. How are you? Um, I don’t think this quarter season went how either of us expected uh that it might. Yes. Um I they’re 1/4 of the way through the season and they’ve won 1/5if of their games. Uh yeah, I don’t neither of us were that low on the team. Um obviously didn’t expect there to have nights where they had 10 guys out with injuries and yeah, 23 total players on the roster. 22 have played, of course. Like it’s a bizarre bizarre season. Yes. I thought maybe the Pacers were trying to get me out of hell over the weekend, but uh then they played a good team and no, we’re still we’re still there. We’re still there. Well, I mean, honestly, last night was like the theme of their whole season. One stretch of just horrible play and then 36 to 40 minutes of like they’re as good as the other team, but you got to do 48 of those, not 36 of those, right? And that’s a So, in some ways, that is very frustrating if you are the Pacers because you’re like, “We can do this. We know we can do it.” But on the other hand, that’s kind of like a symptom of a lot of not as good teams, right? They obviously their their losses are more dramatic and that their runs are just like completely pathetic, but that’s not like such a shocking way to lose. What is shocking is that even this banged up, I would have assumed they would do a little better than four and 17 uh before we knew of any injuries besides Tyrus Hallebert in this season. My official prediction running through the schedule at this point in the season was 10 and 11 at this stage. Uh just a wee bit outside there for me. I uh I beamed a batter with that prediction because just some of it was the injuries obviously, right? C certain close games they lost. Minnesota for example, uh Dallas, maybe Milwaukee where they lose by two where it was really early in the season and they were so hurt and somebody was getting hurt in every game. They probably win maybe all those if they’re mostly healthy at that stage. Some of their games, including the road trip right after that Milwaukee game where they were losing by 30 every night. Some other games of late where they were healthier, they probably would have lost closer to healthy anyway. So, it’s not even just health. Their offense has been terrible. I think that’s my biggest takeaway from the first 21 games. Their defense is 20th. They’re not that far off of the range I thought they’d be, which was somewhere in that like 15 to 18 range. But I thought their offense could be about close to that, maybe 20thish, may you know, maybe a little above that. And they’re second to last. And only the Mavs are behind them and barely behind them. The Mavs just had a Nemhard carry them to a huge offensive night last night. So that is to me I don’t we have a lot of other ways we could go but the thing that I have learned about this particular group is I I don’t know why they can’t make shots and it’s it’s it was the biggest thing about their first quarter season that and and they got a lot better of late like they’ve had a lot of very normal shot making games basically since Ben Matherin returned in Detroit but that was the story of their first quarter is their offense was just way way worse than expected and some of it was for the reasons that we could all see right in front of our faces. They were super banged up and some of it was just extremely perplexing stuff that they’ll hope in the second quarter is not a trend. Yeah. Like the obvious jump is to like push the Tyrese Hallebertton is the engine is the offense, but it like it doesn’t just shouldn’t change the fact that like guys are even missing wide open shots. Like it’s it’s just nuts. Like my co-host for the Evil Live show, Kyle Taylor, has put out graphics early in the year where like the Pacers effective field goal percentage is like historically bad. Not just bad this year, but in terms of like the history of the league, just off the charts terrible, especially to start the year. It has gotten better, but like you look at like some of those players that got hurt early in the year and haven’t returned yet. Like you look at Aaron Nmith’s numbers and that was like the entire team was shooting like that almost. So it’s like a bunch of guys that are shooting maybe 31% from three if they’re lucky. Like we’re still seeing that from Jarus outside of a few games recently where he’s finally found his stroke. We still seeing that from from Shep although maybe he’s starting to get out of it and making a few more recently. But just so many guys for whatever reason started the season on just incredibly cold shooting streaks and with all the injuries added to that, it’s just like it made it literally impossible for them to have a successful offense. Their effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, even with these last, again, I say since Mather return, that seems like a good cutoff. They’ve shot above 41.7% every game since, which isn’t good, but is like acceptable. Like you don’t walk away going like, “Oh, that’s horrible.” It’s amazing. This is the positive. They’re now shooting just below. This isn’t a positive. To be clear, they’ve done that. How many games in a row would that be? Seven, eight. They’ve done that eight games in a row. They still are last in the league in true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage. And the number they are for both of those stats would have been last last year, too. Right. Like they’re at a normal bad now. I don’t know offense, not historically. Yeah. Yeah, but like given some of their like their defense is credibleish and that they never turn it over. Like in theory that’s closer to wins. Uh their effective physical percentage would be last of any of the last three three seasons for both of those stats. I don’t need to be doing this for every single used to be like used to be like 15 seasons. So that’s progress. Yeah, they’re getting Oh, no. I’m I’m through 2022 23 and have yet to find a team lower on either set. There we go. The TW uh the 23 and 59 Detroit Pistons of 2021-22 are the last team I can find with a lower effective field goal percentage than this Pacers team just had through a quarter of their season. So that’s a huge part of this is that they were just Tyres Halbert, you’re right, is a massive massive massive reason for this obviously, but I don’t I I think it’s more than that. Like the guys who guys miss shots they can make and I always kept using the same guys as the face of it. guys who didn’t even have Halurn last year were worse. Like JRE was way worse than he was with New New Orleans. He was getting set up by Pelicans players and was making more shots. Garrison Matthews just had a breakout and even he was shooting 15% from three, albeit on 13 attempts, but like he played for a different team, too, and he made shots for the Hawks. Like it’s everybody. It’s just it was just generally poor malaise of offense, even on shots that they would like. That was something that I think I I almost would just I I’d put money where my mouth is on this like will be better in the next quarter of the season just by default like even if they’re injured again these guys will make better shots than this. Um that’s one thing that happened in the first quarter of the season but isn’t something that we learned and that’s my pivot to say what did we learn about this Pacers team through a 4 and 17 start to their season. What have we learned? Um, I will say I think the the positive that we’re learning right now is that Jay Huff looks like like a legit NBA player, which wasn’t a sure thing at the beginning of the year. Like, and like he’s making he’s making threes more consistently. He was like not making anything at all to start the year either. He’s getting into rhythm there. You wonder if the start of the year was just like he really needed to work up his conditioning to get used to like he hasn’t even he’s only playing like 18 minutes per game so far, but that’s still like a careerhigh by a ton. And then consider the Pacers typical pace of what they want to play at. Like it’s a big adjustment for him. And the defense especially like the Pacers defense like is really good with Jay Huff on the floor typically and just not good when he’s off the floor. his cleaning the glass stats like he’s in the hundth percentile in like the difference of his on and off for effective first first first in the entire league. That’s the best. And it like in terms of teams shooting worse when he’s on the floor compared to when he’s when he’s off the floor. He’s in the 99th percentile. So nearly first in terms of just how many points per possession they’re allowing compared to when he’s on and off. So, like the Pacers defense, they’ve figured out how to work with Jay Huff. Like, I think they’ve adjusted it some to try to keep him closer to the rim more often, running more zone, probably running him more in kind of more drop coverage than they would in the past, more keeping their bigs at the level instead. Um, and he’s leading the league in blocks and doing so in only 18 minutes. And his block percentage is like off the charts historically good at like 11.6%. like only Manoot Bowl and Wimby have had block percentages above 10 for an entire season. So, and like he’s above them by like almost a full percentage point. So, like he’s been very good. Uh he’s been a beacon of of hope along with Pascal uh lately. And yeah, that that’s been my what what have we learned so far? Juff like could be a potential at least a rotation big in the future. Maybe a starter. We’ll see. But I’m very hopeful about Jay Huff right now. Yeah, I think this would be what they hope the trade could be. Is a good player who can clearly be on the court for 15, 20 minutes a night, whatever. I don’t I don’t know that he’s shown me enough to be like, yeah, he’s a for sure starter. I don’t think anyone would say that, but he definitely could be rotation quality and he’s making the minimum the next two seasons with a team option the third year. Like that is what the hope of this trade was is that yeah you gave up a draft pick a granted a second runner for that that’s very valuable if you have a rotation player who’s very cheap for a long time especially in this like his contract overlaps with Sakams to a te that’s great that’s that’s what you’re looking for everybody quick break so we can talk about game time the world cup is coming back to North America for the first time since 1994 with 48 teams for the first time ever it’s going to be huge but getting tickets is the hardest part that’s why the game time app is clutch finally giving fans a real advantage when it comes to snagging seats. 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Again, download the app, make an account, use the code lockdown NBA for $20 off on Game Time. Swipe, tap, ticket, go game time. Don be the other guy that I would point to as clear positive if you wanted to do learning from the front. is that like I I don’t know that worry would be the right word, but fans certainly keep like thinking about like will there be decline? He’s over 30, right? That’s just a natural thought. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. The decline for really good players is later than it used to be, but it still happens at some point. Uh no signs of that to me. He looks awesome. If they had if they if they were even like eight and 13 or seven and 14 or something, he’d be getting like legit all-star looks. His stats have been unbelievable. uh he hasn’t been awesome enough to lead them to wins. I’m not even going to really ding him for that necessarily, but that’d be the other learned thing that was good from the start of this season. But I think the other flip side of all this is some of this was the the quantity of injuries. But I do think they learned that a lot of the roles they had players in last season was near what their peak usage should be. And I’m not that is maybe a little too reactionary to how many injuries they had. Like if you gave Aaron Newmith more responsibilities, but the players around him were last year’s team, it would look better than it has this year. But like his usage went way up and his percentages dipped. And that’s a natural trade-off that happens to most NBA players and is happening to several Pacers this season in a way that again I’m not even like saying this is a massive negative because the roles they were in last year were really good but it is something that is important to have learned or to learn about your team and a lot of guys with more responsibilities are not turning it into the same efficiency or like very clear and obvious improvements and that could change like this season is still in some ways about development. 60 games left, but I don’t know that really anyone has taken on a may actually Matherin def Matherin has taken on more responsibilities and has stabilized his usage. That’s good to know for the Pacers. If you need him to do more or have the ball more next season, great. That that would be fine for your team. But basically, everybody else who’s kind of ratcheted up the usage has seen the tradeoff of what that does to your efficiency or the challenges that come with that for your shot. And maybe they get better throughout the season. Maybe as the team gets healthier and they have better talent around them, they just look a little better. As shots have gone in of late, a lot of guys have just looked better, right? But that is something that is is telling is like a lot of their guys last year were in at their optimal role or at least pretty close to it. That’s not a bad thing to know for sure, but it is, you know, it’s it’s not fun to think that some of your guys can maybe take on a little bit more and you’re a little more versatile as a team when Tyrese Halburn does come back. And so far, they haven’t really I don’t think there’s any warm and fuzzy like, oh, great. We have so many new alignments that we can go to when he comes back. Like maybe one or two things. So, that that’s been tough. Yeah. Yeah, I think the biggest disappointment to start this year is that nobody’s kind of leaped in an exceptional way to the giant hole of opportunity that’s been available to them. Um, Matine is probably the closest for sure. Started off this season with his first few games just unbelievably hot from the floor. um still like like what I’ve seen from him this year, but it’s um but you look down the line other than Ben and it’s like well Jarus was good as an eighthman last year, but anytime he’s been in the starting lineup, it’s just been really rough of a watch. Um Shep obviously he’s been putting a lot of like where he’s had to play point guard and I think everybody knows he’s not a point guard. Um but like he just can’t consistently make shots still. Um there’s just so many guys down the line where you just like would hope that somebody would kind of pop with the extra opportunity like you see it around the league like with guys like Ryan Rollins just like going off for the Bucks. Obviously they’re losing a lot of games right now, but at least they feel like they found somebody at the guard that can help them in the future. Um, so like there’s you just that’s the kind of thing that you want to see in a season like this is for somebody to take advantage of that opportunity and run with it like Paul George when Danny Granger was out and then Paul George kind of became last night Pacers Cavs Jaylen Tyson like clearly Jaylen Tyson the Cavs are like sweet this is a guy. Yeah, and it feels like the Cavs have found like a few of those guys like that. Like Tomlin has had like moments with that too. And know maybe some of these guys that are hurt like would have taken better advantage. Maybe Johnny Fury would have shown like he hasn’t even had a rotation spot yet. So we don’t even know if like he can contribute in a rotation role. So that could be a advance and role that we could see from Johnny Fury once he’s healthy, which I think he’s getting close since he’s practicing with the boom um occasionally lately. Um like Quenton Jackson had that amazing game in Golden State, like maybe you could see him jumping into the role, but he’s been out for for so long now. It’s the only Pacer with a positive net rating, by the way, Quinton Jackson. Crunchtime Q, baby. He was great in their first win. It’s a shame that he got hurt in the very next game and we haven’t seen him since. That’s been the other. So, so I first of all I agree with all that. Matherin right now usage rate careerhigh uh up to 26. He had never been above 24 and a half and true shooting careerhigh and assist percentage careerhigh. These are like all incremental jumps. But that’s still in the context we were just talking about significant is that even with more he can be roughly the same even more efficient. That’s good to know. Like they they can ask him to do more next year and feel totally comfortable with that experience. Um we’ll see what he’s played 10 games. Like that’s true of a lot of these guys is put the the low games caveat on it cuz he this is a bad time to talk Matherin. He just had his worst game and he had had some awesome games right before that. So, he’s when one guy who has been kind of, you know, out of that bigger role leading to struggles. And that’s where I would end my what have we learned thing is just like what you just said. The two young guys who have been healthy enough to play, Shepard and Walker, they’re they were certainly in the group of like guys that the Pacers would hope take a step forward. They’ve had bigger roles and like, yeah, okay, that’s good. You want to learn that, but like they have not been awesome in those roles. Like Shepard is getting to the cup and passing more sometimes. not very well. Uh, and you know, being asked to defend huge players and stuff and like sometimes it looks good and sometimes it looks just completely terrible and he can’t make anything. And Jarus finally broke out of his slump these last couple games, but then was really rough against Cleveland again and like that was among his worst games in a while. Like they’ve been so up and down and like yeah, that’s how young players work. But they would have hoped for more ups with more consistent responsibility for both of them. And like all the rest of the young guys, that’s been the most frustrating part if you’re a Pacers executive or coach is like all the rest of the guys you hope to could this be a guy for our next good team. Q Fury Cam do we there’s way more than that but that’s just for some reason the three who came to my head just haven’t been available at all and like you’re hoping to learn more about Nith and a big girl and Nemard playing point guard and in some ways you have like Nehard’s played 13 of the 21 games and his passing has been good but his shotmaking has been you know 41.6%’s not great. You know, a lot of Isaiah Jackson’s another one that had some good games and some bad ones. A lot of these guys that are young and you’re hoping to learn from have been in and out or have not shown progress and it’s like dang, they you know, it’s really been just been in in a little bit of that way because that was what this would have been about if we knew they’d been bad is like what young guys take a step forward. A lot of them have been heard, a lot of them haven’t, and they have 60 more games. But that that is honestly along with the four and 17, the part of the start of the season that’s just like, dang, that that’s what we’ve learned as the Pacers. That’s not not very fun. It’s not very fun. You could maybe say Pascal just because like he’s had to do so much more and he’s delivered. It’s just he just doesn’t have enough around him that have also raised their level for it to make Can Can I ask you and the listeners of this podcast to hold me accountable? I’m for sure going to say next summer at some point. Well, they got to be careful and keep an eye on Pascal Seakum potentially declining. Can we just stop saying that until he actually shows any sign of it like at all? Like is it even does it even have to be a talking point if he just keeps getting better and working hard on his game and being a very good player? I don’t know. He’s incredible. I think the the only concern I have for them this year is just like overuse. Five minutes a game. Yeah. It’s just the overuse because he’s so good and you could like see it last night against the Cavs like he was exhausted. Yeah. at certain points like there was one where like he probably got fouled or at least he he thought he got fouled and he just laid on the floor like and no loan but he was just like he had already scored like I think the last the previous two possessions maybe off his own rebounds like it was like not easy possessions for him to get his buckets and then yeah the next play he’s on the floor and yeah you can just you can see his exhaustion you can see his frustration a lot more this year um so yeah that’s that’s my only concern with Pascal I was just like I overusing him this year when we know it’s a bit of a loss season. I also wonder if like part of the slow start like obviously there’s all these injuries but like are the Pacers like hungry for wins this year just in terms of like in terms of in relation to other teams like they’re coming off a season where they just got to the finals. So, is this just like the the typical finals hangover combined with a nightmarish start to the cuz like every other team like Pascal’s talked about this like they don’t care that we’re injured. Like we beat them last year, they they want to beat us this year and like it I don’t know. It’s like the even just subconsciously if the team’s like, “Well, we know we don’t have Tai. Our ceiling isn’t as high. Of course, we want to win, but like is it just a natural like is that why they’re having these like six minute stretches of poor play where they struggle to get out of it cuz they’re just it’s just harder knowing what they know. One more break here, y’all. We got to talk about Robin Hood. 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Like you you understand why you’re bad and you’re like, “Hey, we know we know we’ll be good next year.” Like really good, right? So it’s s like it sucks. It absolutely sucks. These guys their whole lives have won everything they’ve done and they can’t. They can’t right now. On the other hand though, like I did this before the season over 10 players in this team are extension eligible in the summer. Like they should want a ball somewhat, right? Like that’s the thing, you know, and and show something especially in the part of the season that is actually competitive or like they’re still sort of, you know, going for and all of the things of that nature. So the those are certainly competing factors in is like brain fog and malaise versus money like getting paid to play basketball and being quite good at it. And these dudes have pride man like I do I do think what you’re saying is probably true where like if they get hit hard the like last year they responded every time they won a million games where they were down 15. Like are they really like oh we got to get off the mat immediately you know and and they didn’t like ever they didn’t have anything. Yeah. like they’re getting close. It’s just like they don’t get off the mat fast enough that like they just they let those runs instead of it being a minute now it’s six or a whole quarter and then it’s really hard to come back from those. I agree. Uh just generically I I have this on the side as who didn’t didn’t meet expectations in the first quarter of the season. I’m not talking about like P maybe Pascal would count as an exceed. He’s a bad example. I’m trying to think of the perfect guy for this. Um, like Isaiah Jackson was probably like pretty close to what I expected he’d be. You know, I don’t want to talk a lot about him. Is there anybody really drastically in either direction to you? How many How many players are very drastically in the well below or well above expectation? I think I had a little bit higher expectations for Drew. Like I think it’s just I did too. his task is just so tough like for him to be what he is defensively and to run the show without having often another like ball handler that can capably capably like run things when they’re forcing you to have pressure. Um so like I don’t think it’s like crazy low like he’s still having a good season and it’s still like yeah you’re still like Andrew Nimhard I’m very excited about you in the future. Um, but it’s not like most improved player type of hype that I think a lot of people thought he would be on that kind of radar with the the opportunity that was in front of him. Um, I thought he’d be a little better than this, but hang on. Hang on. Numbers on Andrew Neard that well actually blew my mind when I looked this up before we started. Career-high usage by 8%. That’s obvious why. And in that second best true shooting percentage, career-high assist percentage, uh, career low turnover percentage. It doesn’t feel like that watching him, does it? You know, so like in some ways he is playing better than he has. In other ways, I think his expectations have been set from just absurdly good playoffs and not his regular season numbers. And his defense is his thing and that’s been a little neutralized because of his offensive ask. So he’s not felt as or he has I would also have him in the same category as you to be clear but numerically it’s not like so crazy like I’m like okay this I guess makes sense but I agree with you that he’s he’s not I’ve been very high on him for forever and I thought he would look a little better in this. Yeah. Like if you just look at his numbers like they look incredible compared to his previous regular seasons but we like no like Pacer fan thinks of Andrew Nimhard by his regular season stats. So I think that’s part of it. And then yeah, everybody’s expectations were so high that I probably am a little lower on him than I should be this year. He’s still been very good. I’m still very excited about him. Um, but yeah, I don’t I don’t know if there’s a ton of people that I’m like super way higher than I thought I would be or way lower. I think the lower end is like is Jarus and Shephard. Yeah. Um, those are the those are the most concerning ones. And like I’m still like trying to be patient with both of those guys because like we’ve seen them like we talked about at the beginning, we’ve seen them be good in smaller roles for a team that was like very good obviously in the playoffs and they were contributing to those wins. So that’s like a there’s still a valuable player there. It’s just like like you don’t want them to like lose all their confidence in this year when they’re trying to have bigger roles and they’re just like failing at it essentially. I would put Matherin in my slightly above. He’s had he’s had like a sharp pass every game of late. It’s only one, but it’s like, okay, look at that. Like, that hasn’t been that’s a thing that they would hope to have seen from him. He had a lefty lob the other night that I was like, whoa, look at you, Ben Matherin. Um, Seakim Above, obviously, we talked about him. I agree. Jarrison Shep are the well, I mean, well below, honestly, guys. Like, Jar is shooting 33 and a half% from the field, and that’s the better of these two players. like they have not and know you know Shep’s passing better and you know like doing honestly quite a lot better. He’s definitely rebounding at career high his turnovers are still relatively low per game and then Jarus every game it’s just one or two passes you’re like what was that? What were you even hoping to do there in some G? Like that’s the problem is I used to think I could tell what he was doing and he just executed poorly. In this case he uh and sometimes recently I’m like what were you even trying to do on that one? They have been well below what I think they honestly would have hoped they could be cuz they’re very clearly extension eligible next year. But you’re right that like both of them played well last year in bigger important moments. But you’d hope that taking on more responsibility if they if these guys step up like in theory that helps your spending outlook you can figure out you know if they could step up if somebody leaves your team like you want to know that still and they have not given you any warm and fuzzy uh about that. Most other guys I would put close to meets. Tony Bradley is exceeding in that he is on the team and like a consistent useful player at times. They haven’t needed him at all uh recently, which is that means that Isaiah and and Jay Huff are playing well, so that’s a good thing. Um Robinson exceeded my own expectations of you’re a hardship player, you aren’t going to do anything. Oh, you’re actually like kind of decent. That’s about it. I don’t I think everyone else who meets or has been below. I think Jay Huff is at least a little above with this with this last stretch. I think Yeah. His start like his first 15 games are like, “Oh god.” Yeah, but like can you honestly say you expected him to lead the league in blocks and be like No, no, no, no. Like very credible like good rim protector. So like Oh, I thought yes. That’s like one of his only two skills is rim protection. I obviously thought he’d be at least decent at that but not like lead the league in blocks in 18. No, no, not lead the league in block. Last year his block percentage was 6.9% to be clear, which is actually really good. and he’s like still really good and he’s almost doubled that like yeah that’s nuts. Yeah. No, no, no. That I do agree with that like the actual block especially when and so the re the reason of course to say Tony shut up when I say the first 15 games are not very good is they have changed his defensive ask recently and that was not the case in the first 15 games. We’ll see if he keeps making threes. That’s obviously an extremely significant part of this is that shots have finally gone in and made his percentages look normal and not like just atrocious. Um, but yeah, that has been he almost, by the way, how many how many blocks do you think he had with the Grizzlies last season in 64 games? He has 48 this season. How many games did he play with the Grizzlies? 64. Uh, I want to say 75. 56. He’s about to pass it in 20 games. So yeah, he’s been he’s been a machine at that and that’s been a big deal for the Pacers team that is like at least okay on defense. They’re not a good defensive team, but they’re okay. I I put him in meets with the last name the number six, seven games being above and the first 13 games being below. But I also had like my toe in the water of like, guys, this guy’s played 95 games. Can we like not put any expectations on him at all? Can we just see what happen? I thought maybe you’d be maybe you would be above because I feel like your expectations rough were lower than most people’s. Well, I think a lot of people would have said below for a long time because of the 80% of Miles Turner thing. But right now, he actually is being 80% of Miles Turner. So, good for you, Jay Huff. This this is like it’s not lost on me that them winning three out of seven and like looking like a capable team has coincided with them getting every night 48 minutes of center play. Not like here and there they beat Golden State with 48 minutes of center play in Charlotte. Like every single night, Huff and Jackson have been like useful to good players. And that is very a very good sign that Isaiah Jackson I feel like I don’t know if you agree, but I feel like he looks like more springy like his normal self lately. And that’s like probably the most encouraging thing about his season so far. I’m I’m hopeful that like as the season goes on and especially next year that he looks more like what we’ve seen in the past from Isaiah Jackson. They might not get a chance to know this because Huff with the starters has worked, but I want to know really how much of his current good play is getting a rhythm and and recovering versus playing with this bench group that he has a career of experience with and knows where to cut and how to play off TJ and things of that nature because that has certainly been a part of I I’ve cited that stat a million times that he entered the season with more minutes than McConnell than Huff had played at all period like in any for any team. So, how much is that versus how much is what your user said, recovery rhythms, things like that? We seen the like the next quarter of their season. We’ll take them to Go ahead. Oh, sorry. The I was just going to say we have seen in the past like good chemistry with Andrew Nimhard and Isaiah Jackson, but that hasn’t really played out as much this year in terms of like their lob game and stuff like that. Yep. Their next quarter of the season, games through 41 will take them to January 15th, which is a very convenient time to be at halfway point and assess your team because that’s when basically every player will be eligible to be traded this season will be eligible to be traded. That’s when you’d like to know everything about your team as possible. So, I will just generically lo it to you. What should the next quarter of the season be about for the Pacers? Don’t laugh. That’s not the right answer. Oh my gosh. Um, that’s not a question I have thought uh much about. I think it’s should be fairly similar to what the first quarter should be about. It’s just finding finding consistency for 48 minutes. No, they said a lot at the beginning of the year. The standard is the standard. Have the standard for an entire game. Uh, get healthy. um keep guys healthy in any way you possibly can. Um and hopefully like get more positives from the young guys, keep Ben Mattherin going with his increased role. Um experiment figure out what you can learn about these guys. I think that’s the the biggest thing. I think it kind of continues what we wanted the beginning of the season to be, but now um hopefully get more health in this next fourth of the year. Yeah, I think that what I what I will find tricky is the balance of this next quarter of the season. Look, they’re getting close to the NBA cup break. And I said on November 10thish, I’m making up that date, but like let’s talk then about what their change of approach should be, if anything, right? Because I do think if you’re the Pacers, the like you’re four and 17. Let they’re not dumb. They understand what the writing on the wall of a four and 17 start is, right? So, what what do you do about it? Because I said this after their win streak this weekend in the Charlotte game. Like some fans like they won. Yuck. And like, okay, I get I’m not I’m not telling you you’re stupid for thinking that, but I am going to say like, don’t you want to as the Pacers know what can lead you to wins with this group? because next year there will be games Hallebertton doesn’t play or isn’t on the floor and you want to know what the best alignments are or who the best players are or who should be on that team at all. So like Jay Huff playing really well in some of those games or Ben Shepard playing well in some of those games or Ben Matherin playing well in some of those games or whoever it is like you want to know that still and they ha that’s been one thing about the like we just said this about the first quarter of their season that’s been frustrating is you haven’t gotten many chances to know that or write down in Sharpie like sweet we feel good about this or that. So I what I wonder is then what this kind of balances. I still kind of think they should play their best players and this is the wrong word, but push, you know, try to win for maybe a month more, maybe a little more than that just to find more of those answers as they get healthier, like especially when Nith comes back in the middle of this month. Toppin might return too late to factor into that because it’ll be close to the trade deadline, but just to generically have some sort of reasonable conclusion about these players because if you don’t know, that hurts you a lot when you’re making those decisions into the season, right? Or into next season, right? So, it as as dumb as it might as some fans might think it is. I still think you do need to try and experiment and put a good foot forward for some of this next quarter. That said, very obviously every other quarter of the season, they have goals of young guys, show me something, right? Like do anything, prove slash show you can be a part of the next good Pacers team doing this or that. And a lot of them have already in past seasons proven that they at least somewhat belong on good teams, but in a bigger role, in a different setting, things of that nature. What do you learn in that kind of situation? So, you listener can make your own date. Maybe some of you like now December 2nd, pull the plug, right? Like, pick your time when you think they should do that shift I described. But I don’t I like it’s one, it’s been a month and 12 days of their season or whatever. Like, that’s super early. Two, like it’s it’s insulting to fans to be like, “No, we’re done.” But like there is a point where every team makes that decision, right? And so they have to now figure out what the right time to feel like they’ve learned enough is. And the number of injuries they’ve had make that a non-trivial answer. So you listener, pick your date of what you think that should be or pick a stretch of schedule where you feel like that’s a reasonable time. Maybe it is January 15th. Maybe it is the halfway point when every player who will be able to be traded can be traded. Assess then. Do your trade deadline. Call it a year. But that is what the next quarter is about to me. And I think that’s fair. like it’s definitely too early to just be like full tank mode. Um that I I just I think not only in like insulting to fans, although some many fans probably wouldn’t mind and wouldn’t care. Um the I think the players is the hardest. You can’t sell that to the players this early in the year. like none of these guys that just went to the finals last year are going to sign up for that at this point in the year. Um, and like just that’s the only like that you don’t want to like break these guys psyche with like just constant constant constant losing like obviously like we see teams recover from that very quickly. Like the Pistons are obviously very good now and most of that team was like on a team that lost 20 whatever games in a row um just two years ago. Like it’s not even that long. Um, so I don’t know. Like I I think I agree with you. I think this quarter of the season it’s too early to just be full uh tank tank tank um all of that stuff. Like enjoy the wins while they happen right now. Like it’s the lottery odds are so like just ridiculous that like wins right now aren’t going to like be the worst thing in the world. Um, saying that though on uh my live show we do like we have been starting since we’ve been in hell. We have been starting the show with spins on Tankathon until the Pacers get boo. We did not we did not plan this. Okay, we’re evil. We’re doing evil things. Um the first time we did it, just to illustrate how terrible the odds are, the first time we did it, they got first. the second time. Um, OKC got first and the Bucks got and the Bucks got third. Oh god. And like the Hawks got second and the Pacers were like down to six. So like the And then it took like seven tries for the Pacers to eventually get to first. So the only time I think the Pacers should tank in the next month and a half is if they play the Clippers. That’s the one you lose. You lose that game. Everybody in the league should be trying to make the Clippers win games. The The best thing in the NBA right now is that a lot of West teams have been very disappointing and the Clippers could in theory turn it around and get like the nine or 10 seed because oh my god. Oh yikes. Yeah, I I’m glad that you guys are doing it and if you listener are interested in in full tank and draft stuff like they are doing the tankathon spin. I get asked a lot started a show. It’s not everything or anything. People are like, “When are we going to start talking about the draft?” First of all, don’t use wei. I’m not t You and I are not like calling each other up about AJ Demana. Uh I will not talk about prospects until the season’s over. I just won’t. Like maybe I’ll reference general trends of good players during March Madness or something, but just not they’re playing. We need we need to talk about what they’re doing and what it means for the future of the Pacers. Um, but it ob I get why you’re asking. I’m not calling anyone dumb for asking that. But I personally will not be talking about the draft until whenever the Pacers are done playing games that matter. Well, that is a sobering conclusion to our first quarter of the season discussion is that it’s reasonable for people to be asking about these things and make sense for people to be doing tankathon spins. I had to say it last night, right? They won or they lost to the Cavs on the same night that the Nets won and the Wizards Yeah, like people were like that’s a real thing that I have to be like, yeah, people are probably happy about this grouping of results. Um, I have nothing else to add about the first quarter unless you do. Yeah, not a lot. I’m excited to see what Ben Mathan does the rest of the year. I’m excited to see what a lot of these guys are going to do the rest of the year. Um, yeah, it’s uh we’re still having fun on the live show despite being in hell. So, talking about games is in fact fun. Um the yeah the the other reality to keep an eye on in the second quarter is they might not get a single game this season with all of McConnell Nemhard Smith Toppen and Seakum available. It might just never happen like and that would have been a big part of them learning how good they could be with out Hallebertton is those guys all playing together. We’ll get potentially to see five of them together if N Smith returns this month slash during this quarter of the season. Derek thank you for the time. It’s the morning. I You and I record at the craziest times. Uh when where can people find you and the things you’re doing covering the Pacers or um taking on your fiery death about the Pacers? Yeah, I think I’ve uh locked up your like latest request to record and maybe now I’m getting close to your earliest request in the morning to record. So, um yeah, I’m just all over the map with that. Uh you can find our Evil Pacers recap live. Uh, we’re going to go live tomorrow after the Nuggets game. Um, it’s on the IP Pacers YouTube channel. So, you just search for IP Pacers. If you search for evil Pacers Recap live, Pacers Recap is one word. Um, it’ll probably pop up too. Um, yeah, that uh, you can find that um, ipacers.com. Ben Gibson, who’s been on the show recently, writing a lot lately, which is awesome. um on the website and yeah that’s uh Twitter iPacers blog blue sky ipacers all over the place if you get Washburn or will writing for you it’ll just be like the slow migration of the old blog group just Yep. slowly get all the Everybody’s coming. Everybody’s coming back. The itch never truly goes away for anybody, does it? It just It’s always there. Uh, tomorrow I will also be talking Pacers Nuggets, but well after the live recap of Kyle Taylor and Derek Kramer, and I have popped into their chat after two games, three games. So, uh, there’s a chance I am there. It’s a fun time and interactive live is something that I have never explored, but is a very fun niche, especially right after games. And the Nuggets stink right now somehow. So we’ll see what they look like against the Pacers. They’ve lost four in a row at home. That’s very strange. Uh so yes, Pacers Nuggets here tomorrow. We’ll have a guest on Thursday into Friday. I have no idea who it is. It’s hard. I will admit to listeners that my usual crop of guests are not watching every game. Can’t blame them. So I have to be a little pick your chooser. probably means you’ll get more Derek this year mostly because I’ll be like, “Hey man, you’re actually watching this February 8th game or whatever.” So, we’ll see who it is. But there are a lot of people still watching all of course all these Pacers games. Thank you all so much for listening today. We’ll see you very soon.

The Indiana Pacers 2025-26 season is 1/4th of the way done. What did the team show in the first quarter of the year? What was learned? And what will the second 1/4th be about? Host Tony East is joined by Derek Kramer of iPacers and Pacersrecap to break it down.

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