The Indiana Pacers Were A Historically Bad Team In Close Games

Every NBA team loses a few close games each season. That’s natural, and it’s something certain to happen in a talented league that is currently full of parity.

But this past season, the Indiana Pacers found themselves on the wrong end of too many close games — the Pacers finished the 2021-22 season with 19 losses by four or fewer points. The blue and gold frequently came up short when they had a chance to win late, and it completely changed the makeup of their season.

“At the end of the day, we are right there. We’ve just got to close out the games, defensively and offensively,” former Indiana All-Star center Domantas Sabonis said during the campaign after a three-point Pacers loss. “We’ve just got to get together as a group.”

When contextualized, the number of tight games that the Pacers lost this season really stands out: Indiana’s 19 losses with a small margin of defeat is more than three times more than the six they had in the season prior. They exceeded that half-dozen total just one-third of the way through the most recent season.

In the end, Indiana played in 23 games that were decided by four points or less, which led the league and is the fourth most during a single season in the last decade. The team from the Cirlce City was right there in many games, but when the final buzzer sounded, they rarely triumphed.

Pinpointing what exactly went wrong for the Pacers down the stretch of games is a difficult task — not because it isn’t clear why they couldn’t finish games, but instead because a zoomed-out view suggests that the answer is “everything”.

According to NBA.com, the team in the Circle City struggled on both ends during clutch situations. In the 45 games that the Pacers played in which the score margin was within five points in the last five minutes, the Pacers went 11-34. Their offensive rating in clutch moments was a ghastly 94.3, the third-worst mark in the league. On defense, things were just as bad — Indiana gave up 114.4 points per 100 possessions in clutch instances throughout the season. When the game was on the line, the blue and gold failed at the foundational objectives of basketball: put the ball through the net and prevent the other team from doing so.

“They invariably come down to little things,” head coach Rick Carlisle said of close battles. “There’s always a focus on the last play and things like that. But it comes down to basic execution.”

The offensive struggles late in close games was dreadful. The Pacers often changed their ways when the game was hanging in the balance — instead of running their ususal plays and creating offense with a clever set, Indina would turn to more isolations and simple pick-and-rolls. By itself, that change is not problematic; most NBA teams execute a similar strategy late in tight games in order to prevent turnovers and to increase the chance their best player takes important shots.

But for the Pacers, that idea was unsuccessful. And the roster makeup was a factor. While the team had multiple ball-handlers capable of creating a shot on a given possession, Carlisle’s team had few guys who could constantly break down a locked-in opposing defense — a closer, if you will. Without one, generating quality shots late in games is difficult.

“When you’re running a last play, you’ve got to find seams and you’ve got to find holes.” assistant coach Lloyd Pierce said of late game offensive execution in December of 2021. The Pacers lost by two points to the Golden State Warriors just moments prior to Pierce explaining late-game offense, and Indiana turned the ball over on their final possession in that game.

Turnovers were a theme for the Pacers in late-game situations. The team finished with the eighth-worst turnover rate in the clutch this past season, which hurt their already-poor efficiency in those moments — Indiana had the league’s worst true-shooting percentage in crunch time this season and were one of just three teams with a percentage under 50. No matter how you slice it, Indiana’s offensive output was lousy in the clutch, both due to poor strategic decisions and the lack of a closer.

“We can clearly do better and be better in every situation.” Carlisle said after a three-point loss to Atlanta early in the campaign.

Indiana’s clutch defense, meanwhile, was perhaps more concerning in 2021-22. While the offsense ranked lower in the league during these moments, the Pacers offense has stunk in the clutch for a few seasons now. In 2020-21, the blue and gold ranked 28th in offensive rating in clutch momements, and in 2019-20 they ranked 20th. Lacking a supreme offesensive weapon since trading away Victor Oladipo, the team has struggled offensively late in games.

But the team still managed to succeed thanks to capable, even strong, late-game defense. The Pacers went 6-6 in games decided by four points or fewer in 2020-21, partially because the squad ranked sixth in defensive rating in the clutch at 102.2. The year prior, they finished third in clutch defensive rating. For a while, despite struggling to score in the final minutes, Indiana got by with hard-hitting defense.

That deteriorated this past season. The Pacers were the 26th best defensive team when the game was on the line, and it hurt them badly in the loss column.

“I think we’re not getting the stops that when we need. I think everything we do is on the defensive end,” guard Malcolm Brogdon said of the team’s late-game shortcomings after a two-point loss to Minnesota. “We have breakdowns. Just one little breakdown in the last minute, minute-and-a-half will kill us.”

The Pacers won by four points or fewer just four times this season, and three of those victories came against teams that finished with a bottom-seven record. It’s simple, the Pacers were miserable in close games, and it completely changed their season.

In the three seasons prior to 2021-22, the Pacers went a combined 19-21 in games decided by four points or less, nearly a .500 record. Had the Pacers won 50% of the time when presented with a clutch situation this season, they would have accumulated seven or eight more victories. That would have changed their entire season — they may not have made the same trades, they might not have favored younger players at the end of the season, and they may have made different signings throughout the campaign. The Indiana Pacers were awful — historically bad — in clutch situations this season, and it altered everything.

From the Pacers perspecitve, the quantity of close games may make it difficult to effectively evaluate the season. Over half of Indiana’s games featured clutch moments, meaning that generally, regardless of opponent, the Pacers were able to be as good as their opposite on a given night for 40-45 minutes of action. From a macro perspective, that suggests that the team has the talent to compete with most squads and may have just been unlucky.

To that point, the team with the most games decided by four points or less in 2020-21 (the Washington Wizards) reached the postseason. In 2019-20, Carlisle’s Dallas Mavericks were the group with the most games that finished with a final score margin of four or less, and they also reached the postseason. In general, being close late in games often means a team can triumph even the best of NBA rosters.

But that wasn’t the case for the Pacers this year, and from a micro perspective, it shows how poor the Pacers were at the end of games. It wasn’t just just bad luck, it was a pattern — the group couldn’t cross the finish line with a lead.

Indiana took steps toward remedying these issues down the stretch of last season. They acquired Tyrese Haliburton, a stellar young player who can cut up defenses, in a trade, and his offensive firepower could allow him to be a closer if he becomes more aggressive. From the trade deadline through the end of the season, a period in which the blue and gold had a drastically different roster, Indiana ranked 11th in clutch defensive rating. Their late-game defense improved as the season progressed.

If Haliburton can be a better closer, and those defensive numbers maintain, the Pacers should be a much better team in close games next season.

And they need to be, because they were historically bad in those instances this past season. 19 losses by four or fewer points is the fourth-most in a single season in NBA history, the Pacers simply must be better in tight battles. If they can’t improve their fortunes, they may be destined for another miserable season.