Ladies and gentlemen, we are almost there. Tonight, Wednesday, October 23rd, Indiana Pacers basketball returns against the Detroit Pistons at 7:00 PM Eastern Time!

This will be the Pacers’ first NBA game since their loss to the Boston Celtics on May 27 in Game 4 of the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals. That defeat ended a Cinderella run of sorts and raised new expectations for the team in blue and yellow.

After years of playoff disappointment, followed by years of missing the playoffs, a major trade to start a rebuild, and a recent surprising run to the Conference Finals, the Pacers decided to stay put this offseason. They took smaller steps on the fringes, focusing primarily on retaining their core players and relying on chemistry and growth from within.

Despite the lack of fresh faces outside of James Wiseman and rookies Johnny Furphy, Enrique Freeman and Tristen Newton, Pacers fans still have plenty of questions for their team. Despite seemingly reaching the conference finals earlier than planned last season, most still view the Pacers as a work in progress, an unfinished statue, you might say. In fact, of all the East playoff teams that don’t carry the Celtics name, the Pacers might cause the most question marks among their fan base and others.

Fluke Run or Real Deal?

To some, Indiana’s playoff appearance was a sign of an up-and-coming team that was no longer content to just be there, but instead hoped to add its first NBA championship to its history books sooner rather than later. For others, the Pacers’ rise was simply the result of fortunate circumstances, mostly injuries and bad luck for other teams, and they would soon become a middle-of-the-pack team again.

This is the first question the Pacers need to answer: Are they for real? While the Pacers wouldn’t have been able to reach the conference finals due to sheer luck alone, there’s no denying that some timely injuries to playoff opponents like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Julius Randle and OG Anunoby helped them. This has led many to label the Pacers a “random team” and compare them to the 2020-21 Atlanta Hawks, who had a similar playoff run and reached the Eastern Conference Finals before eventually falling behind and soon being eliminated from the playoffs. competition eliminated.

Aside from the obvious differences in situations between these two teams, the Pacers want to avoid this comparison in the future. In fact, it hasn’t gone unnoticed by Pacers players, particularly Tyrese Haliburton, who has spoken out numerous times during the offseason about the noise he’s heard from other teams and fans and how it has motivated him and the team to get better and prove the doubters wrong.

“The reaction and the view of us as a group after we had success last year and that way of being seen in some people’s minds as some kind of coincidence, I think is a big motivator and irritation,” Haliburton said in his interview for Media Day 2024-25. “So I think as a group we have a lot of people who, you know, have problems on their shoulders for different reasons. “Everyone has been doubted in one way or another. I think everyone has different motivations and I think that just puts more on our shoulders as a group and I think that’s the exciting part because I think that’s why it was last year ​​There was a lot of success and hunger, and there is. We will not change this year because we know what we are capable of. We always knew what we were capable of and we don’t need to talk about it. We’ll just do it this year.”

Buried in this larger question of whether the Pacers are a serious contender is obviously the issue of Haliburton himself. Following his superstardom and success in the first-ever in-season tournament in the first few months of last season, Haliburton suffered a hamstring injury and wasn’t the same player for the rest of the season and most of the playoffs. His shot went wide; He didn’t seem to shoot as much in general and seemed a step slower on the floor. After a summer rehab, a stint with Team USA in Paris and winning a gold medal, Haliburton looks rejuvenated and ready to turn some of the criticism of himself into praise.

“I’m starting this year and whether it’s the case or not, if you look at it that way, everyone thinks my success in the first half of last season was a fluke and I have to prove it again,” Haliburton told GQ Sports. “And that’s just who I am and that’s just how I’m cut. That’s the beauty of it for me: It’s just another chip on my shoulder, (in addition to) the thousands that are already there.”

Tyrese Haliburton clearly has a feel for how pundits have reacted to his and his team’s success and seems motivated to dispel any doubt and show the world that the Indiana Pacers are the real deal.

Will the defensive problems persist?

One reason the Pacers need to prove themselves has to do with the second big question they need to answer this season: Are they serious on defense? In the first half of the 2023-24 season, before the arrival of Pascal Siakam, the Pacers gave up an average of 123 points per game and only barely exceeded their 125 points scored, which resulted in the fourth-worst defensive rating in the league.

Those early-season defensive woes led Rick Carlisle to drop one of the most memorable quotes in recent Pacers history on New Year’s Eve 2023. In a speech before the New Year, Carlisle stated, “Being historically great on offense is fun, but even going out with a pretty girl gets boring after a while if she can’t protect anyone.”

Apparently that analogy was exactly what Indiana needed to tighten up a bit. Progress was made in this regard following the Siakam trade, as the Pacers allowed an average of 117 points in the second half of the season and “improved” to the ninth-worst defensive rating in the league, finishing with the seventh-worst defensive rating in the league in all 82 games .

In the playoffs, Indiana’s defense improved again, scoring just under 113 points per game, giving them the fourth-worst defensive rating of all playoff teams. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was before the Siakam trade. Before the Siakam move, there was a serious chance that the Pacers would fall out of the playoffs and slip into the play-ins as Tyrese Haliburton missed time with his hamstring injury and was a step behind when he returned, or worse, missed the playoffs altogether .

The Pacers aren’t exactly lacking in defensive talent. They have established defenders like Aaron Nesmith, Myles Turner and Pascal Siakam, as well as young up-and-coming pests like Jarace Walker, Ben Sheppard and Andrew Nembhard. The question is whether they can use these players’ talents to their advantage and develop plans that can stop them in time when their best offense ever doesn’t work.

Right now, all we have for reference is the 41-game sample size of the post-Siakam trade portion of last season, the playoffs and the 2024 preseason, in which Indiana gave up 121 points per game and ranked sixth-worst in defensive rating. However, it goes without saying that preseason defensive efforts should be treated with caution and objective evaluation should begin with the first game of the season.

It’s not like the Pacers lack motivation in this regard either. Former President Barack Obama (yes, that Barack Obama) told Tyrese Haliburton on a podcast episode of The Young Man & the Three (formerly Old Man) that Indiana needs to improve its defense based on what he did last season saw from them.

When a guy with those qualifications tells you you have to pick it up, it’s safe to say you have to, and that’s exactly what fans hope the Pacers do starting Wednesday.