INDIANA PACERS AND THE LAST PLAYOFF SPOT

by HP, Hardwood Paroxysm

X marks the spot.

As in, the last playoff spot in the standings.

Through losing Jermaine O'Neal for 90% of the season, through David Harrison's dabbles with the ganj, through injuries and suspensions and Donnie Walsh leaving for New York and everything else, here they are.

The Indiana Pacers are galloping towards the playoffs, like a certain fedora-clad hero is making his way back this summer to some sort of land featuring jeweled skulls.

Tonight the Pacers waxed a hot Atlanta (Hotlanta, if you will) team, pulling them within 2 games of the eight spot held by the Hawks with four games to go. Who led these merry men from Indianapolis, you ask? Was it Jermaine O'Neal, freshly back from injury? No. Was it stud superstar in the making, Danny Granger? Surely not, said I.

No, it was your favorite, and mine, Mike Dunleavy, Jr. 28 points, 6 rebounds, and an assist. What's more confusing? This is no statistical deviance, as you may have suspected. No, this season he's averaging 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists. He's a leader on the floor.

Yes, this may be the apocalypse. Meanwhile, Flip Murray who you may remember from... everywhere, had 20 and 10. Travis Diener gets significant minutes on this team. Jeff Foster's their glue guy, continuing a tradition set by Rik Smits.

I tell you this because you may have, like me, known absolutely nothing about these guys. Sure I noticed the occasional mystifying boxscore or Travis Diener offensive explosion, but I didn't really pay much attention. I know I've heard Larry Bird say there needed to be significant changes in the roster after this season and things were bad enough for Donnie Walsh to want to move on... to New York.

But yet, here they are.

And it's a testament to both the scrappiness of Indiana and the ineptitude of the Eastern Conference that this team, at 34-44 is within range of the playoffs. I for one have a hard time figuring out why this team would do this. I mean, after all, all they're battling for is the opportunity to get slaughtered, beaten, destroyed, annihilated, creamed, destroyed, clam baked, sauteed, and generally kicked the crap out of by the Boston Celtics in the first round. This team should be aiming as hard as it can for the bottom of the barrel to try and get one of the Lopez twins, or a better pick or anything. But they're not. They're coming together, they've won 3 in a row, seven of their last 10, and they just beat the team they're struggling with.

In an era where the entire Heat roster is either on the shelf or on test-drive from the D-League, where teams are shutting down players left and right for the season, this team's still plugging along. Fighting its guts out, refusing to go down, no matter how useless that pursuit may be. Now, I've never been a critic of tanking. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to get the most out of a flawed system when faced with a wrecked season. I applauded the Heat when they shut down Dwyane Wade. For all the cries of "But what about the ticket-holders!", I was left with the same question. What about this kid's long term health, much less his career?

But I find myself rooting for the Pacers all of a sudden. Even though the Hawks have a much more athletic and exciting set of athletes, including stat-stuffer Josh Smith and quick strike Joe Johnson, they've still mired in mediocrity, barely staying in the playoff race, and coasting in on the failures of the rest of the East. So it's good to see a team with less athletic talent, with more roster challenges, with more injuries, and with much less to play for coming after them, guns blazing.

It reminds me of that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy and father storm the tanks. Now, don't get me wrong, the Hawks are not Nazis. And if they make the playoffs I'll be thrilled for the franchise and its fans. They've certainly waited long enough. But you have to admire the way that the Pacers have come riding in, with no guns, no tanks, no backup, and just fighting to beat hell.

Now, the Pacers have Philadelphia, Washington and Charlotte in their next three games. Philadelphia and Washington are both battling to stay out of Detroit's way in the first round, and Charlotte has been hot as Elsa in Last Crusade. So there's every reason to suspect a predictable collapse, especially with the Hawks finishing against New York, Boston resting starters, Orlando resting starters, and the always tragic Miami D-Leaguers. But if, by some miracle, the Pacers can catch them, it would say a lot about the guys in that locker room.

And if they do manage to flip the Hawks out and back into the familiar confines of the lottery (where they will summarily surrender their pick to the Phoenix Suns, I remind you), they should immediately turn to Boston, Detroit and the rest of the East and say...

"No ticket."