Indiana Pacers:
Jermaine is out to prove he’s the best O’Neal in the East

The Indiana Pacers have been one of the few teams you can count on being in the playoffs since 1990. In that span the team has been to the playoffs 14 out of 15 times. They’ve become a fixture in the postseason and for many years their shooting guard Reggie Miller carried the team. Miller is arguably the most clutch sharpshooter of all time. He once scored eight points in 8.9 seconds at the end of game 1 in the second round of the 1995 playoffs against the New York Knicks. When Reggie would come to New York fireworks would always go off. He would regularly get into verbal matches against the most famous courtside Knick fan and acclaimed film director Spike Lee. One time during a playoff game against the Knicks Reggie hit a big shot looked over to Lee and put his hands around his own throat saying that the Knicks were choking down the stretch. Miller still has the same personality and the same ability to hit the big shot but he wasn’t able to carry his team on his own anymore and that’s when power forward/center Jermaine O’Neal came onto the scene. O’Neal has been dominating the East in the under the basket for three years now. The situation is very similar to the one in San Antonio with Tim Duncan and David Robinson. Robinson was the leader of the team for his entire career but saw that Duncan could take the team to a whole other level. The man behind the wheel of the Pacers is still Miller, but O’Neal is the motor that makes them go and gets them from point a to point b.

Last year the Pacers had their best regular season in franchise history. The team finished with a 61-21 record, which were three games better than Minnesota who had the second best record in the NBA. Indiana dominated the regular season and earned themselves the number one seed in the East and it was due, in large part, to the play of Jermaine O’Neal. He averaged 20.1 points, 10 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game on his way to finishing third in MVP voting behind Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan. Small forward Ron Artest was the one that actually brought some hardware home to the Pacers by winning the Defensive Player of the Year award. The playoffs came around and the Pacers realized that it’s a whole different type of game in the postseason. They rolled over the Celtics 4-0 and moved on to play the Miami Heat. They won the first two games of the series and then lost the next two on the road to the Heat. The Pacers sucked it up and won the last two games of the series by a combined total of twelve points. In the next round they matched up with the Detroit Pistons the team that fired the Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle. The Pacers won the opening game of the series but then went on to lose four of the next five games in a series that was known for its defense. Neither team scored over 85 points in any of the five games.

In the off-season, like many teams, the Pacers were active in the free agent and trade markets. The team had been one of the contenders to land Shaq at the beginning of the summer but didn’t land him. The team then helped out their back court, and some say hurt their front court, by trading for Stephen Jackson and sending Al Harrington to Atlanta in exchange for him. Jackson was a guy who had a knack for hitting big shots when he played for San Antonio during their last championship run and led the Hawks in scoring last year. They also lost Primoz Brezec to the expansion draft.

In the draft the team knew they had to find a replacement for Brezec and they found it with their first round pick Colorado center David Harrison. Harrison is a big kid at 7’ 260 lbs. and has the experience under his belt of playing three years in college and isn’t a project that the Pacers will have to wait on. More than likely he will log some valuable minutes for Indiana.
The Pacers starting five will be missing one thing for the first time in the past 17 seasons… Reggie Miller. With the acquisition of Stephen Jackson it will push Miller to the bench for the first time in his career. So the starting five will look like this: Jamaal Tinsley at point guard, Jackson at shooting guard, Ron Artest at small forward, Jermaine O’Neal at power forward, and Jeff Foster at center.

The Pacers got a great deal deeper now that they have Miller coming off of the bench. Miller will give Jackson or Artest a breather when they need it or will give the team a spark when they need it. Other notable players coming off of the bench are center Scott Pollard and forward Austin Croshere.

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