The city of Indianapolis has bigger issues on its plate right now:
The fate of Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Caldwell. The decision on quarterback Peyton Manning. The draft of Andrew Luck. And, of course, whether to attend the Maxim or Rolling Stone Super Bowl parties. (OK, that's my issue.)
The Indiana Pacers, for the time being, are a secondary consideration.
Which is too bad, really, because they're writing one of the NBA's best early-season stories, and continued to do it Saturday night with an easy 97-83 throttling of the Boston Celtics at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
After years of flailing, Indiana has a contender. Not a championship contender; there are less than a handful of teams who really have a chance to win the title. But they are a playoff team with a chance to make some postseason noise, and when's the last time you could say that about this group?
Forever, it seems.
This team is the real deal. After 12 games, nine of them victories, this is no longer a fun little team carrying momentum off its playoff performance against the Chicago Bulls. The league should, and will notice: There's big-time NBA basketball in Indianapolis again.
What's not to love, except maybe for the occasional Danny Granger heave and/or silly ejection?
Frank Vogel:
If the Pacers keep rolling like this, the interim-turned-head coach will get some Coach of the Year consideration. In less than a year's time, with a lockout thrown in, he has completely de-O'Brien-ized and lobotomized his team.
They've now won eight games when scoring fewer than 100 points; they did that seven times all of last year. Vogel talked about "smashmouth" basketball and has delivered. They defend. They rebound. They get to the free-throw line. In short order, he has taken a soft, 3-point shooting team and turned it into a beast.
Saturday night was the perfect illustration. Twenty offensive rebounds for 23 second-chance points. Forty-two points in the paint. And they did what Vogel wanted; namely, push the pace. They finished with 23 fast-break points.
The new guys, David West and George Hill:
It's a different team, a different locker room, a different mind-set with the addition of these two old souls. Watch a game, and when a Pacers player falls to the floor, it's invariably West or Hill coming over first to help them up. It's a small thing, and it's huge.
West and Hill get it.
West's thunderous left-handed dunk over Jermaine O'Neal suggested he's pretty much past those knee problems.
Asked if West has exceeded expectations, Vogel jumped. "He has, he really has,'' he said. "In particular, in terms of fourth-quarter offense. Our execution offensively in the fourth quarter lost us the Bulls series. Already this year, (West) has been responsible for two or three wins we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.''
Tyler Hansbrough:
Every time I watch him play, I think he should be wearing a wrestler's singlet. He's ungainly and unorthodox, but he has proven more people wrong than Tim Tebow. A lot of us (blush) thought he'd be a deep rotation player on a good team, figured his college game wouldn't translate to the pro game. Instead, he's been one of the best sixth men in the league.
Although he really should have stuck with the rec-specs/yellow headband look. Just for my amusement.
Roy Hibbert:
Look who's grown up. It takes longer for big men to figure it out, and Hibbert has finally figured it out. It's not just the production, it's the consistency of production.
With Hibbert, it's been as much about the mind as about the body. (Remind me to do my relaxation exercises after this column.) When something bad happens, it doesn't turn into five bad things. When bad games happen -- and that hasn't really happened yet -- it doesn't turn into a weeks-long funk.
Hibbert was feeling particularly good about himself in the third quarter when he hustled back and swatted Kevin Garnett at the basket, following that up with some Garnett-style woofing.
"He's just playing more physical," Vogel said. "There's no softness to his game whatsoever."
Paul George:
All he does is whatever the Pacers need on a given night. Over time, you'd like to see him become more assertive, and he still gets called for charging more often than anybody would like, but he has a special, intuitive sense of what the Pacers need. Scoring? He did it Saturday night, did it early against the smaller Ray Allen. Rebounding? Defending?
Larry Bird has developed a strong draft record (Hibbert, Hansbrough, Granger, Lance Stephenson and George), and George may prove to be the best of the bunch. We are no longer asking the question we asked on draft night two summers ago: Paul who?
There's athleticism here. There's power. There's depth. There's balance. There's unselfishness. There's a hint of nastiness.
There are still some holes. Bird still wishes he had a Jamal Crawford-style mega-scorer off the bench. There are nights when Granger, still their best player, shoots too often and too aimlessly. They still aren't getting elite play from the point guard, although that hasn't really been necessary.
But this has the makings of the best year since Ron Artest took John Green's beverage in the chest. And it's time the city began to notice.
Now about Jim Caldwell . . .
Bob Kravitz is a columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Call him at (317) 444-6643 or email bob.kravitz@indystar.com. You can also follow Bob on Twitter at @bkravitz.
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