For more on the Indiana Pacers, check out Indy Cornrows.
Jan 10, 2012 - The Indiana Pacers are off to a great start to the season and have not showed signs of slowing down. There were several key moves made and other reasons for their success, but much of it hinges on two-time All-Star David West. His level of play has elevated the rest of the team around him, and his ability to work together with Tyler Hansbrough in harmony has paid off many times over.
As Ian Thomsen of Sports Illustrated notes, the Pacers have high hopes in the East this year. The Pacers are beating the teams that everybody expects them to beat, and they're playing well against the teams that they're supposed to, winning with regularity that only comes with a team poised to make a playoff run:
Their early schedule could not have been easier -- an unimposing pair of back-to-backs and a 5-1 record against teams that were in the lottery last spring -- but for the first time in years they're winning the games they ought to win, including an 87-74 throttling of the struggling Celtics on Friday in Boston.
Indiana has been adamant in their formula: always fight to win, and it will eventually pay off. As Thomsen notes, the Pacers have never had the "tanking" mentality. It's always been about winning, even when the season was guaranteed to be at a loss, the team still fought to erase that losing mentality. Now, as the Pacers are winning and playing well, that mentality seems to have paid off:
"It would have backfired if we would have tried to tank games,'' said Granger, the small forward who was picked No. 17 by the Pacers in 2005. "First of all, it creates a losing mentality, and you never want to have that mentality as a team. We would have got a high draft pick, but who's to say it would have fit in for what we needed here? People are so high on thinking, 'Let's get the high draft pick.' But if you really look at your team and dissect the draft, you can get a player who fits your team and who you see potential in. That's what our ownership has done and it's paid off.''
All signs point to the Pacers making the postseason and doing some damage once they get there. For now, they're concentrating on this season, not the future, though the article does note that they do have a lot of guys coming up who will need extensions in the near future. Still, the Pacers are playing very well and are poised to make a run.
For more on the Indiana Pacers, check out Indy Cornrows. You can also head over to SB Nation's main NBA hub at SBNation.com/NBA.
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