Can Pacers avoid 2nd-half slump this time?

[Pooh]

By Mark Montieth
[email protected]
February 12, 2004


Uh-oh. Here it comes.

The Indiana Pacers have reached the All-Star break, which sets up the season's stretch run. But it also brings an onslaught of questions, speculation and doubt.

Will the Pacers continue sprinting? Or will they collapse again?

"We'll see," Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal said, smiling.

The Pacers take a gaudy 39-14 record into the All-Star break, which for them concludes with next Tuesday's game against New Orleans at Conseco Fieldhouse.

It is the best break-time record in the franchise's NBA history. It also gives Indiana a commanding 6 1/2-game lead in the Central Division. But it will be greeted with shrugs in some places because of what happened last season.

A year ago, the Pacers were 34-15 at the break. They won their first three games after resuming play to peak at 37-15. But they proceeded to lose 12 of their next 13 games, limped into the playoffs as a No. 3 seed and made a quick first-round exit.

Until they avoid a similar collapse this season, nobody will be overly impressed, including themselves.

"I don't think anybody in that locker room thinks we've done anything," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said following Tuesday's 103-84 win at Chicago. "We're going to have to keep our eye on the ball and think about improving daily. There's a lot of areas we can keep improving in and just keep building."

That's been Carlisle's mantra all season, but it hasn't been a difficult sell to the players. The 12 who were on last season's roster don't need to be reminded how quickly wins can be unraveled and twisted into losses.

"I'm more disappointed we don't have 40-plus wins right now," O'Neal said. "We gave away some games we should have won. We'll take it, though. Thirty-nine wins is great.

"Now everybody's looking forward to coming back in the second half and proving (the media) wrong about us as far as the second half of the season."

The Pacers' remaining schedule looks about as close to a downhill run as a team can have. Of their 29 games, 15 are at home and only 10 are against teams with a winning record as of Tuesday's play. They face just five back-to-back sets, and have just two trips longer than one game. Of the six opponents they'll meet in those games, only one (Denver) had a winning record as of Tuesday.

"We'll have to do our best to take advantage of that," Carlisle said.

They think they will, partly because of Carlisle's methodical and low-key approach, partly because of the maturity they gained last season and mostly because of the absence of so many of the factors that led to last season's demise.

This time a year ago, Ron Artest was in the midst of a season that included 12 missed games because of suspensions. Reggie Miller was nursing an ankle that would require surgery two weeks after the season ended. Jamaal Tinsley was headed toward a stretch in which he would miss six games and several practices to be with his mother, who was dying of cancer. Brad Miller was about to have his foot stepped on by Shaquille O'Neal, which would force him out of six games in a seven-game stretch and limit his play in several more. And Jermaine O'Neal would soon be dealing with his stepfather's self-inflicted gunshot wound.

None of those factors exist today. In fact, if Al Harrington responds favorably to Sunday's cortisone injection in his right knee, all 15 Pacers should be healthy when play resumes next week.

They also expect to be mature enough to deal with whatever challenges the remaining schedule brings.

"We just pretty much worry about winning the next game," Artest said. "We'll let time take its course. We're not looking too far down the line."

Most of them, including Carlisle, admit to being surprised by their early success this season. This is a team that was rocked in the offseason by the loss of Miller, an All-Star center, and the firing of coach Isiah Thomas, which surprised everyone and angered O'Neal.

Carlisle wasn't officially hired until the first week of September, and didn't meet some of the players until training camp opened. It hardly was the typical prelude for what has followed.

"I thought we would be this good, but I thought it would take longer," Austin Croshere said. "I thought we would have some more bumps early on than we did, just because there were a lot of leftover things from last year that I thought would take longer to iron out.

"But everybody came in with a great at ude. All of the (playing time issues), Ron maturing, Jermaine and Isiah, all those things ironed themselves out in training camp before the season started."

And now here they are, more than halfway home and ready to take on their demons.

Their doubters, too.

[Kevin Kaster]

They will fall hard and everyone will laugh. Or, everything goes perfect for them and they get swept in the Finals 4-0.