by @anarchyroll
5/21/2014
From the number one overall seed in the playoffs, to almost getting knocked out in the first round by a sub five hundred team.
From their star players calling out the league MVP to posting goose eggs in important statistical categories during key playoff games.
From dominating the two-time defending champions in-game one, to getting beat decisively and having a star player fined for flopping in-game two.
Just another day in the life of the most bi polar, enigmatic team in professional sports today, maybe ever; the 2014 Indiana Pacers. What an anomaly this team is. I haven’t seen anything like it in my lifetime. Teams either usually play up their potential, run into a bad match up and get steamrolled, or cash out and get bounced quick. The Pacers have done a little of all of those things and have survived. They are three wins away from being in the NBA Finals.
The Pacers match up very well against the Miami Heat. The Heat actually have to adjust what they do around the Pacers. There isn’t another team in the league other than the Spurs that forces the Heat to do that. What is going on in the minds of the Pacers players? Coaches? Management? Fans? Even loud mouth sports pundits have been shocked into dumb founded silence by the Pacers, for that at least, they deserve all of our respect no matter how their postseason ends up.
I find this team so fascinating no matter how much I have been trying to not pay attention to the basketball playoffs this year. I hear they’re the best ever according to Magic Johnson. I’ve been busy watching hockey playoffs, as a Chicago resident, you can understand why that would be the case. If I see a story about the Pacers online, I click the link. I turn up the volume when they’re talked about on ESPN or on sports talk radio. Something is going to come out in the press a month after the season that is going to explain all of this. My guess is that it will be one of the following;
- Team chemistry got messed up through bad trades and acquisitions during the season
- One or two star players got dumped by their woman
- Roy Hibbert is battling clinical depression
- A combination of 1-3
Hopefully, the Pacers can just play up to their potential and put an end to the Evil Empire of South Beach’s attempt to three peat.
Though personally I think that whoever wins East is nothing more than a lamb going to the slaughter of the Defend, Pass, Score, Repeat Machine that is the San Antonio Spurs.
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