Do you think we would have gotten out of the first round with Oladipo?

[boomershadow]

I was listening to JMV on the way home from work the other day, and they were debating a point I thought was interesting. JMV claimed that even if Vic had been healthy enough to play in this series, and if we are talking about the Vic from earlier this season whose usage was a little too high and efficiency a bit too low instead of the breakout star Oladipo from last year, then the Pacers still wouldn't have been likely to beat a team like the Celtics in a playoff series.

Now would we have been more likely over the course of the season to hold onto the higher seed and thus face an easier opponent? Possibly. I don't think it's a given though. It's not unfair imo to say that we didn't exactly see our guys put in the best position to succeed this playoffs, Vic or no Vic.

So what do you think? Could we have beaten Boston? If we had held onto a higher seed, would a hungry young team like Brooklyn have given us trouble or would we have been able to pull it out in the end? Could we have even hung onto that higher seed given the lack of gas our players seemed to have near the end of the year? Food for thought.

[Tom White]

Boston would still have won the series. They have superior talent over the Pacers at too many positions.

[Pacers_Freak]

We would have been the 3 seed IMO.

[8305]

We would have been the 3 seed IMO.

Fair assumption and with it I say we move to the 2nd round.

[pacers33granger]

JMV claimed that even if Vic had been healthy enough to play in this series, and if we are talking about the Vic from earlier this season whose usage was a little too high and efficiency a bit too low instead of the breakout star Oladipo from last year, then the Pacers still wouldn't have been likely to beat a team like the Celtics in a playoff series.

I'm not sure if we win, but to this specific point, his leadership and defense would be worlds better than what we got from the guard positions this series even if he was shooting poorly. And his presence would have been huge in getting other guys' looks.

[Scoot McGroot]

JMV claimed that even if Vic had been healthy enough to play in this series, and if we are talking about the Vic from earlier this season whose usage was a little too high and efficiency a bit too low instead of the breakout star Oladipo from last year, then the Pacers still wouldn't have been likely to beat a team like the Celtics in a playoff series.

I'm not sure if we win, but to this specific point, his leadership and defense would be worlds better than what we got from the guard positions this series even if he was shooting poorly. And his presence would have been huge in getting other guys' looks.

Yeah. Exactly. And hopefully, we wouldn't have gone through such long scoring droughts in the playoffs that essentially lost us Games 1, 2, and 3.

But even then, it's likely we would've at least beaten Boston one additional time during the regular season and gotten home court advantage as the 4, or even more likely, ended up as the 3 seed as we were solidly projecting towards until we finished below .500 without Vic. A 2nd round appearance is likely, and an ECF appearance was also very possible, too.

[pacers70]

Yes.

We would have been the 4th seed. The biggest problem we had in this series was that we did not have a star in clutch situations. While Vic may not have made all of the key baskets, they would have focused on him which would have left Bogey freer (if that's a word).

We would have won the series and lost in round 2.

[Scoot McGroot]

Yes.

We would have been the 4th seed. The biggest problem we had in this series was that we did not have a star in clutch situations. While Vic may not have made all of the key baskets, they would have focused on him which would have left Bogey freer (if that's a word).

We would have won the series and lost in round 2.

We were 25-12 with Vic and 23-22 without him. We finished 1 game back of the 4 spot and only 3 games back of the 3. Hard not to imagine we would’ve been the 3 if Vic was around all year.

[Wizop]

The biggest problem we had in this series was that we did not have a star in clutch situations.

eliminate the 8 and 12 point quarters earlier in the game and there wouldn't have been clutch situations.

[pacers33granger]

Something else to consider here is that Tyreke may have found his footing earlier had the rotations been stable. He started here and there and may have assumed he was going to start once Vic went down. While more opportunities were there for guys, role changes mid season are always tough and can throw things out of whack a bit.

[Wizop]

Something else to consider here is that Tyreke may have found his footing earlier had the rotations been stable.

and if he'd solved his knee problem earlier. I keep saying this, but I need to see him spend the summer seriously working out. I think his knees and his vertical would benefit from losing some weight. not that I don't share this problem.

[pacers70]

Yes.

We would have been the 4th seed. The biggest problem we had in this series was that we did not have a star in clutch situations. While Vic may not have made all of the key baskets, they would have focused on him which would have left Bogey freer (if that's a word).

We would have won the series and lost in round 2.

We were 25-12 with Vic and 23-22 without him. We finished 1 game back of the 4 spot and only 3 games back of the 3. Hard not to imagine we would’ve been the 3 if Vic was around all year.

Our schedule got a lot tougher in March. It would have been tough to hold off Philly.

[pacers70]

The biggest problem we had in this series was that we did not have a star in clutch situations.

eliminate the 8 and 12 point quarters earlier in the game and there wouldn't have been clutch situations.

Part of being clutch is stopping teams when they get on runs or finding ways to score when your team hits a drought. With Vic (assuming Nate would play him when we struggled) we probably would not have had an 8 or 12 point quarter.

[Scoot McGroot]

Yes.

We would have been the 4th seed. The biggest problem we had in this series was that we did not have a star in clutch situations. While Vic may not have made all of the key baskets, they would have focused on him which would have left Bogey freer (if that's a word).

We would have won the series and lost in round 2.

We were 25-12 with Vic and 23-22 without him. We finished 1 game back of the 4 spot and only 3 games back of the 3. Hard not to imagine we would’ve been the 3 if Vic was around all year.

Our schedule got a lot tougher in March. It would have been tough to hold off Philly.

We only had to Go 26-19 the rest of the way. 7 games worse than we played in the beginning with Vic. Not out of the solid realm of possibilities?

[pacers33granger]

We only had to Go 26-19 the rest of the way. 7 games worse than we played in the beginning with Vic. Not out of the solid realm of possibilities?

Yeah maybe Philly ramps it up and we'd have to have won 4-6 games instead of 3, but we lost a lot of winnable games in that span.

3 point loss to Memphis right after the injury, big loss to Washington a week after, 8 point loss to Orlando a week after, 4 point loss to Detroit, 9 point loss to Dallas, 2 point loss to Denver, 2 point loss to Boston, 5 point loss to Orlando, the last loss to the Nets...

All of those were winnable games and subbing in Vic for Matthews wins us several of those. Maybe we lose that OKC game where Matthews came up big, but even though he was solid it's not like he changed many games.