Enthused by the acquisition of Peja Stojakovic and the coinciding end of the Ron Artest saga, Pacers players and coaches hoped Thursday's practice would signal a fresh start for the team.
Instead, the news was hauntingly familiar. Jermaine O'Neal, the team's leader in scoring, rebounding and shot-blocking and its primary low-post offensive presence, will miss at least eight weeks with what was described as "a significant tear in his left groin" in a statement released by the franchise.
"You're doing so bad, you lose four in a row, you're not playing well, then you come in and you're thinking you'll have a good practice and start turning things around somehow and the first news you get is that," said Sarunas Jasikevicius. "It's just crazy. But, hey, that's the way it is."
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Stojakovic, attending to family needs in Sacramento, will arrive in Indianapolis Friday but isn't expected to be in uniform when the Pacers face Cleveland that night in Conseco Fieldhouse. With three days of practice before the next game, Stojakovic should debut with his new team Tuesday night in Washington.
"This is just another step in the Days of Our Lives of the Indiana Pacers," said Fred Jones. "It's something we have to endure and face head-on and find a way. On this team, in the past few years, you find yourself in awkward situations. This is another one. We just have to take it and run with it.
"(Stojakovic) has been an All-Star in this league, he's a great shooter and scorer and we're going to need some punch on the offensive end without Jermaine. Hopefully he can come in and get adapted well and he'll help all of us."
O'Neal was injured in the fourth quarter of a 96-66 loss in Cleveland Tuesday night, when he said he heard a pop in his groin after landing awkwardly under the basket. An MRI taken Wednesday revealed the severity of the injury. Surgery isn't expected to be necessary, but he will be sidelined until at least the last week of March.
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"We're going to have to collectively come up with some answers," said Coach Rick Carlisle. "It's tough but we've been in tough circumstances before so we'll just have to deal with it. … We've just got to hope that long-range he's going to be OK. We've got to be ready to go the duration without him by the sound of it."
O'Neal said he hoped to be back in time for the playoffs, assuming the Pacers, currently tied for sixth in the Eastern Conference with a 21-20 record, can qualify. He said he would not rush his return because he believes this injury was the byproduct of coming back too quickly from a sprained left ankle that had sidelined him three games.
"I believe I'm going to be back, hopefully more sooner than later, but it won't be a situation like my ankle, where it was still swollen and I was trying to play on it," O'Neal said. "It's got to be a situation where I can be 98, 99, 100 percent back because I don't want to go through a situation where it becomes a recurring issue or needs surgery.
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"I'm in the situation where my playoffs may be my best hope of getting back. Hopefully my team can do what it takes to get us to the playoffs."
The team coped well without him last season The Pacers were 28-29 when he went down with a shoulder injury in early March, but went 15-7 in his absence to secure the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. With O'Neal back for the playoffs, they upset Boston before losing to Detroit in six games.
"This is very similar to the position we were in the last third of last year," Carlisle said. "Without a dominant post player like Jermaine, we're going to have to be a team that plays more off of movement. We're going to have to play more up-tempo. But in doing so we're still going to have to find a way to be solid at the defensive end. It's a challenge to play faster and still be solid on defense but we're going to have to find a way to do it because of the situation we're in."
That tempo should mean an even larger role than anticipated for Stojakovic. Not only will the need for his scoring punch become more acute, but the team's forced adjustment to a more free-flowing offensive style should suit his game and minimize the difficulty of his transition.
"We're certainly going to take advantage of having a guy like that on our team," said Carlisle. "Any time you can acquire a player with his abilities as a shooter and a scorer and we happen to think he's a better defender than people have given him credit for, we certainly need what he can bring us, especially with Jermaine being out now."
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Scot Pollard, a former teammate of Stojakovic's in Sacramento, neatly summarized the newcomer's importance.
"He's one of the best shooters in the league, so it's pretty easy for him to fit in," Pollard said. "You can always use a guy that can shoot better than 99 percent of the guys in the league, or maybe all of them, on a given night.
"Basketball-wise, what we need to do as a team is welcome him in and get him open."
