Amazing Top 4 in the East after a surprising start to the season (11-7), the Pacers challenge us every morning to play with the lexical field of surprise by trying not to repeat ourselves. We’ll talk about it again in twelve days? Why not, because in twelve days Rick Carlisle’s men will be finished with a series of seven away games, a full-scale test to find out what this team is made of.
Myles Turner stayed and beats about half the teams he meets. Chris Duarte was injured but Bennedict Mathurin largely supplanted him in the hearts of fans and on the stat sheets. Tyrese Haliburton is true to expectation and shooting 11/20. Buddy Hield plants his four shots from the parking lot per game and the baby role players (Jalen Smith, Aaron Nesmith, Isaiah Jackson, Andrew Nembhard…) are there.
Mix it all up and voila the Pacers who have won 11 of their 18 games, most often thanks to incredible offensive outingsPacers far enough away from the place they were promised at the start of the season: in limbo in the League with the fishermen of Wembanyama.
Does all this mean that we are in the presence of contenders of a new kind? Maybe, probably not, and if we let ourselves go with a few predictions, we would say that this team should quietly fall into line in the heart of winter, but on November 27 the teammates of Therese she is Breton are fourth in the East and that’s a fact.
And what will December 8 mean?
Eleven days, seven games. Seven matches, including… eight away, we can actually say that the roadtrip will be a test. The Clippers, the Lakers and the Kings for a boiling Californian set, the Jazz and the Blazers a little further north, back further south with the Warriors on the menu and we end with the Wolves, whose fangs are starting to be very sharp. Seven games, seven trips, not against Villefranche or Mâcon if we can affordand a team that we will have to start “really” considering if the roadtrip balance sheet exceeds 50%.
Seven matches which could also draw some outlines of the following events for Indiana. A name that is obviously on everyone’s lips, that of a young Frenchman who plays for Levallois, a name that comes down to asking the same question, always, for about a third of the franchises in the League: can we afford to win too many matches this season, can we afford not to play the Wembanyama card thoroughly?
First answers therefore in a big ten days. Until then we may speak of Tyrese Haliburton as a Top 10 MVP, we may say of Mathurin that he overtook Paolo Banchero in the race for ROY. Either the Pacers will be back in the soft underbelly, in “their” place, ready to fight for an original war but which is probably worth it.