The defence rests: The Indiana Pacers get it right, again

Roy Hibbert

Roy Hibbert is perhaps the best defensive big man in the league today (no offence to Dwight Howard). Employing the most basic defensive principle, that of sheer verticality, Hibbert has wreaked havoc in the paint this season. He has taken the easiest way of scoring in basketball – the inside shot – and transformed it into the least effective, with a hulking presence that is not only useful in altering shot attempts, but also in dissuading players from actually trying to attempt those shots. What is the point of using a pump fake when your defender doesn’t even need to jump to block your shot? But that is the beauty of Indiana’s defence; it doesn’t rely only on the big man for it to function. Every player in the starting unit takes pride in defence, a quality rarely observed in the current NBA.

Paul George has possibly become one of the best two-way players in the game and has morphed into a legitimate superstar. Lance Stephenson has transformed from a troublesome rookie with discipline issues into a constant triple double threat, and both of them are exceptionally good perimeter defenders. The 3-point shot is the best way to score in a basketball game, you say? Well, no other team guards 3-point shots better than the Pacers. They close down on the 3-point shot so fast that the opposition has to put the ball on the floor. This increases a chance of a blow-by which suits the Pacers just fine, because there is a 7-foot-2 monster lurking in the middle of the floor ready to swat shot attempts out of the park.

Combine Paul George and Stephenson’s suffocating perimeter defence and Hibbert’s massive presence with the smartness of George Hill and the ruggedness of David West, and we have a defence that might go down as one of the best to play in the game. Indiana has a middling offence, but their choke-hold on the opposition team’s scoring is good enough to win them ball games. A lot of ball games.

Half-way into the season the Miami Heat and the Pacers have already become must-watch television. They are en-route to an epic Eastern Conference finals showdown, possibly the only bright spot in the otherwise hapless conference. It is true that there are no real rivalries in today’s game, but if the two regular season meetings between these two teams are anything to go by, they share a legitimate mutual dislike for each other, which is obvious because the Heat have been a thorn in Indiana’s side for the better part of three seasons now. Also, Paul George is one of the few players who can actually guard LeBron James and not be a liability on the offensive end of the floor.

Whichever way the season ends for Indiana, no one can deny what they have accomplished this season. And as it is said, a team has to pay its dues before it wins it all, so if the Pacers do get the trophy this season it will hardly be a shock. They have, after all, behaved and played like champions right from the get-go.