The primary answer to what's ailing the Pacers was not to be found on the practice court at St. Vincent Center on Monday. That is, until coach Nate McMillan gathered the players for the closing huddle and lecture and Domantas Sabonis walked out of the training room, with no shoe covering the sprained ankle wrapped in tape.
The Pacers dropped three of their four games last week, all to losing teams. They lost at Detroit on Monday, at Dallas on Wednesday, rallied to beat Minnesota on Thursday, and lost to Orlando at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Saturday. It doesn't require in-depth analysis to get to the bottom of those dispiriting defeats. They were outrebounded on the offensive glass and took fewer field goal attempts in each of those games, the victory included, and were outscored on second-chance points in three of them.
Saturday's loss to Orlando was the most obviously symptomatic. The Pacers gave up 11 offensive rebounds while grabbing only three and were outscored on second-chance points 20-5. Three of Orlando's offensive rebounds came in the fourth quarter, when it outscored the Pacers 34-25 to overcome a four-point deficit.
Had Sabonis not sprained his ankle with 8:41 left in the game at Detroit the previous Monday it might have turned out differently. He's their best rebounder by a wide margin (9.3 per game despite playing just 25 minutes on average), their best scorer on a per-minute basis other than Victor Oladipo and their most accurate field goal shooter (61 percent).
So, yes, he likely would have made a difference against the Magic, and probably against the Mavericks as well. The case isn't as strong for the loss at Detroit, where the Pacers trailed by seven points when he went down, although he was having a strong game — 23 points and seven rebounds in less than 26 minutes.
"We miss him big-time," McMillan said. "He does a good job of just doing everything."
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Sabonis won't play in Tuesday's game against Chicago and is highly questionable for Thursday's game at Milwaukee. Ideally he would participate in a full practice before playing again, but the Pacers might not have that luxury. The opportunities for full-scale practices in the remaining five weeks of the season will be few.
So, the Pacers will have to make the most of a difficult situation. But it could be worse. They could be somewhere far south of third place in the Eastern Conference and fighting for a playoff spot, rather than fighting to uphold their preseason goal of homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
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Accomplishing that would win McMillan a lot of votes for Coach of the Year. But it also will require more raw effort than was displayed in last week's losses. The margin for error without Oladipo and Sabonis is small, particularly against the 10 winning teams the Pacers will be facing later this month.
Even without their top two offensive threats, the Pacers have scored enough to win — 109 at Detroit, 101 at Dallas, 112 against the Magic. The defensive effort hasn't been as strong as earlier in the season, but hasn't been as bad as the scores indicate, either. It's mostly been a matter of rebounding, particularly on the defensive board to prevent second-chance points.
"We're scoring enough to win," Wesley Matthews said. "And we're actually getting stops. We just have to limit (opponents') shots."
And get to loose balls, something they've done well most of the season but not as well lately.
"We got out-scrapped," McMillan said of the loss to Orlando. "They (got) all the 50-50 balls. That's who we want to be. That's how we win. You have to make those plays in the fourth quarter and we didn't do that."
That's who we want to be.
Sixty-four games into their season, the Pacers are in the undesirable position of trying to establish an identity. Losing Oladipo for the season on Jan. 23 forced a major shift. So did the acquisition of Matthews two games before the All-Star break. Turner's recent injury, Tyreke Evans' two-game absence, and Sabonis' current absence all have required adjustments as well. The Pacers have had Matthews, Turner and Sabonis together in just one game since the All-Star break: at Detroit, when Sabonis went down in the fourth quarter.
McMillan talked with the players at the end of Monday's practice for longer than usual. He also waited longer than usual to meet with the media after talking with Thad Young in his office.
"Who are we? That's the question I asked them today," McMillan said.
The players were not as upbeat, not as talkative at the end of Monday's practice, neither among themselves nor with the media. The atmosphere was more serious than usual, almost solemn. Were they chastened? Angry? Contemplative? Resolute?
Time will tell.
"We want to finish strong," McMillan said. "Every game, every possession is important. It's time to get serious. It's been time to get serious."
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