How the Pacers are Elite without an Elite Player

The common wisdom in the NBA, at least the modern NBA, is that you need a superstar player to run the offense around or else you just won’t be a true championship caliber team. And a lot of the modern championships seem to back this up…
But, there’s a team this year that is putting up some of the best offensive numbers we’ve seen, and they have a different approach. Winning more by committee. Playing tons of guys, humming the ball around the court, and making clutch shots – and while they do, they’re scoring the basketball at a face-melting rate. This team is the 2025 Indiana Pacers. Here’s why their offense works.

If you liked this video, you should check out another one here: https://youtu.be/Hlgf49Prfgo
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References:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l2FJua7lA-DpGAvIbZn-ZsIF1M7krgRrZtoh8_TWi3M/edit?usp=sharing
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The common wisdom in the NBA, at least the modern NBA, is that you need a superstar player to run the offense around, or else you just can’t be a true championship caliber team. And a lot of the modern championship teams seem to back this up. LeBron on the Heat or the Cavs, Curry on the Warriors, Joic on the Nuggets, etc. But there’s a team this year that is putting up some of the best offensive numbers we’ve seen, and they have a different approach. winning more by committee, playing tons of guys, humming the ball around the court, and making clutch shots. And while they do, they’re scoring the basketball at a facemelting rate. This team is a 2025 Indiana Pacers. And it’s not just empty numbers. They’ve pulled off some of the most unbelievable, improbable comebacks in playoff history behind offensive flurries that boggle the mind. They’ve dropped massive games on multiple teams, scoring so many more points than them that the box scores look fake. And they have made it all the way to the NBA finals, beating the Bucks, Cavs, and Knicks along the way. The Pacers are a legit offensive juggernaut. And in this video, I want to tell you why. It’s not just one clean answer to say this is a thing that the Pacers are doing that no other team is. It’s a combination of things that the Pacers harness to their absolute potential that supercharges their offense. So, I’m going to share what I believe makes the Indiana Pacers offense uniquely incredible. Now, if you’ve only been watching the NBA playoffs, this Pacers run might feel like a surprise. They weren’t one of the favorites going in, but they’ve been quietly creeping up in the back half of the season, becoming one of the association’s elite teams. They started off the season slow, but after the All-Star break, they have been the third winningest team in basketball while putting up a near 60% true shooting percentage. The reality is the Indiana Pacers have been sharpening this blade for months. The offense certainly isn’t the only factor driving the Pacers recent success in the regular season and playoffs as their defense has reached a manic pitch of energy that destabilizes their opponents. But in this video, I really want to focus on the Pacers offense because they don’t run offense like most other NBA teams do. They don’t walk the ball up the court, call a play, set a high screen, and let their star make a decision at the nail. The Pacers don’t have time for that because the ball is already gone down the court. This team plays fast, both in pace and in decision-m with overwhelming ball movement. The moment a player catches the ball, they already know what’s next. Swing it, attack the close out, cut, relocate, shoot, repeat. Each touch has a purpose. And if you pause to think on defense, they’ve already burned you because every second matters. One of Steph Curry’s greatest qualities as a guard, extraterrestrial shooting non-withstanding, is that he never stops moving off the ball. As a defender, it’s easy to fall into a rhythm, expecting the man you’re marking to take a few breaks to stop and reset once in a while, but Curry breaks that rhythm, constantly relocating, looping around the court, pressing to find an opening. And the Pacers built their offense on the backs of that same idea. None of Rick Carile’s guys ever stopped moving. And if you’re guarding Indiana, you don’t get a moment to breathe. According to data from Second Spectrum, the Indiana Pacers ran the second most of any team in the league this season. And because they never stop moving, they can go fast or slow depending on the situation. You want to run, the Pacers ranked fifth in fast break points per game and sixth in fast break efficiency. But if the fast break isn’t there, they don’t just stall out and rely on ISO. They flow right into moving off the ball to find space and moving the ball around. And importantly, they move the ball around with decisiveness. Let’s watch some Pacers possessions against the Washington Wizards. They would end this game with 162 points. A mark that even in a league full of offensive talent was the most points scored by any team this season. It was such an offensive domination that when Indiana started pulling their punches at the end of the game, the Wizards fans booed in response. Even they wanted to see more Pacers offense here. After a Washington bucket, TJ McConnell brings the ball up and finds Nith in the corner. The straightforward decision here is to shoot. Why not? But he takes a step and instead passes over to Pascal Seakkum. As he sizes up his options, the Pacers turn on that offthe-ball movement. There’s like three different places he could pass it and he finds the driving McConnell for an open layup. A few minutes later and Nesmith drives to the paint, but runs into a forest of Wizards. So, he pops it out to Turner who sends it to Hallebertton whose presence drives in more Washington defenders and he instantly pops it again to Obin for a baseline reverse lay. Then after a knee rebound, the Pacers smell blood in the water and this time go quickly. A Hallebertton lob to a one-handed OB top jam. In all three of these possessions, you can see the Pacers decisiveness with every player rapidly calibrating the offense at three very different contexts. They are the fastest moving team in the NBA at just 2.65 seconds a touch and only two dribbles a touch. Some of these small passes and small movements may seem unimportant, but what they do is they keep shuffling the line of attack and the angle to the basket, probing, finding the opportunity, and as soon as they see the opportunity, they go for it. Moreover, they were sixth in the NBA in quickest time of possession per play and were top four in quickest time in possession after an opponent turnover, the only team to be in the top ranks of both. So, in the normal run of play with their in system, the Pacers make their decisions quickly and they go quickly when the opponent makes a mistake. Any situation, the Pacers are going faster than you and they know it. They know the game plan is to run the defense raggedall game and make the shots when they’re open. Star guard Tyrese Hallebertton said it well. It’s hard to play at our pace in a seven-game series and it’s hard to play at our pace in a one-ame series. To put numbers behind their success, Indiana finished the regular season with the sixth most points in the league while shooting a below average amount of free throws and the third most assists. If you have a lot of points and not as many assists, that means that you’re scoring a lot on the back of individual shot creation. If your ratio is the other way, more assists than points relative to league splits, it means that you’re scoring more based on your players creating open looks for each other. That is the region that the Pacers reside in. What this tells us is the Pacers pass with purpose and the purpose is to find a way to score the basketball. They made the second most passes per game of any NBA team, leading to the second highest assist percentage in the league, only behind the Nuggets and Nicole Joic, who is basically a walking assist creator. They also had the third highest secondary assists of any team, pointing to the fact that it’s not just one guy who is making great passes. is a teamwide effort to pass and then pass and then pass again to find the right shot. Speaking of the right shots, taking a look at Indiana’s shot profile reveals that this pass heavy constant movement style is directly leading to them taking more of the right shots. Of the 10 main areas of the court that you can shoot from, the Pacers overindex on shots in the paint, at the top of the key, and in the corner three spots. said more simply, “The shots that the Pacers take the most are the best, highest impact places to shoot from. On top of this, they were a top three team at creating wide open shots, which are defined as shots without defenders within 6 ft. So that unrelenting movement clearly works. They’re not moving the ball into closed gaps. They’re moving the ball with purpose and finding open men to take the high percentage shots. And really, they don’t waste possessions at all because maybe most impactfully, the Pacers rarely turn the ball over. For a team that plays where the basketball becomes a pinball, you’d expect a decent amount of sloppiness. Instead, the Indiana Pacers were the fourth best team in turnovers. And for a team with the second highest assist percentage, that few turnovers is remarkable. The connective tissue of all this is the Pacers Tyrese Hallebertton. He’s the main reason that this offense hums, the one with his hands on the sticks, drawing up a truly elite assist to turnover ratio. He touches the ball a ton, ranking near the top of the league in touches per game. But unlike some of his compatriots on that leaderboard, like Trey Young or Brunson, his time per is incredibly low. What this means is that he’s always involved, but he’s not sticky. He embodies that decisive nature of the Pacers offense. If he sees an open man, the ball is going there. It’s a combination of utter trust in his teammates and constantly hunting for a pass that’s a bit smarter than the one the defense expects. If you’re just box score watching, Hallebertton’s probably not going to drop your jaw to the floor like a Jokic 40point triple double, but he is still magic, notching double-digit assists in a row without turning the ball over once. When Hallebertton plays, the Pacers average over 118 points per 100 possessions, one of the top marks in the league. When he sits, their offensive rating drops by six points, making the Pacers a solidly mediocre team offensively without him. Tyresese Hallebertton is the offensive engine that the Pacers need. Speaking of Hallebertton, before we go any further, I want to make something super clear. You may have clicked on this video just to comment and flame me for calling Tyrese Hallebertton not an elite player. And listen, I am a big Hallebertton fan and I will give Hali his flowers all day long. I think the whole thing with him getting voted as the most overrated player in the league is ridiculous. I maybe even subscribed to the theory that the Pacers were the ones who voted him as the most overrated to fire him up before the playoffs. And he’s obviously been awesome. It’s just I use the word elite to describe like maybe five guys in the sport this year. My list of elite players goes as far as Joic, SGA, Giannis, and yes, Tatum. May his Achilles rest in peace. Even Luca was a little inconsistent and injured this year, but it was a weird year for him. So, no knock on Luca’s abilities. Anyway, point being, Tyrese is absolutely an amazing player, but he’s not the same level as like an SGA where he is a franchise altering gravity redefining player. Though, in this playoffs, he is doing his best to prove that he should be in that tier. So, if you came to the video to quibble about Hallebertton’s elite title, there you go. The point is, a lot of the best teams in recent years do have one of those MVP level guys. The Pacers have taken a different approach and it’s working. During the 2024 25 regular season, no Indiana player played more than 33.6 minutes per game. Seven different players on the Pacers averaged double-digit points and 12 of them averaged over six points a game. Pascal Seakum led the team at just over 20 points a game, which is great. But compared to other teams that have leading stars averaging 25, 28, even 30 a game, it’s clearly a different approach. It’s egalitarian, and they ensure that every pacer is more fresh than the opponents, keeping the energy and pace high no matter what. It’s one thing to have a ton of guys on a team. Is another thing to have all those guys know what their strengths are and know how to fit inside the pacer system and how to be productive. So, it’s a scramble trying to guard all the options that the Pacers have. You have to deal with Benedict Matarin slashing baseline while Aaron Nesmith is lifting from the corner while Hallebertton gives the ball up and immediately cuts. Then on the next possession, you have to watch out for a Miles Turner post up or an Andrew Neb hard jump shot or Pascal Seakum driving for a layup or pulling for a three or Obie topping dunking with so much bounce you’d be forgiven for looking for his parachute after he jumped from an airplane. The offense is unrelenting because it never comes from one specific place. When Hallebertton sits, you might think you’re going to get a break. Then TJ McConnell comes on the floor and keeps the constant motion machine turning. Perhaps the best way that I can describe this Pacers team is relentless. On defense, they press their opponents constantly. And on offense, every cut, every drive, every extra pass is trying to pry open the smallest weakness. Because when you’re an opponent trying to defend the Pacers constant motion, every offball screen becomes a crisis and every half step late and open three. In a vacuum, this high tempmpo, high pressure style creates constant openings and over the course of a game, it additionally wears down the defense. The Pacers ask you the question, are you going to be able to stay with us for all four quarters? We have 11 guys we can run out there to keep the energy high. We are ready for the clutch. Can you keep up? And basically no team can. In the fourth quarter this year, the Pacers ranked fourth in score margin while scoring the second most points in the clutch. It can be tiring enough to already be a defender against the Pacers. Can you rotate five times in 15 seconds? And the Pacers have taken advantage of this edge over their opponents in the biggest stage, the NBA playoffs. During this playoff run, the Indiana Pacers have made so many tremendous fourth quarter comebacks that they’ve started to feel inevitable. Combining their brutal relentlessness with a swagger and a belief that have made the Pacers the most clutch team in recent memory. In the first round against the Bucks, Hallebertton took on the 7- foot tall former defensive player of the year, Giannis onto Dumbo. Dribbled past him and put in the tough layup to win the game. The Pacers were down seven points with 40 seconds left to go in OT. and they won the game. The next round against the one seed Cavs, Cleveland led by 119 to 112 with under a minute to go. Then we blinked and apparently the Cavs did as well as the Pacers cut the lead to three as Hallebertton went to the line. But no big deal. He makes his two free throws. The Cavs are still up by one and can finish the game out. But then Tyrese misses his second free throw, gets the rebound among a sea of Cavaliers, runs out and cashes the three. two of the biggest, most improbable comebacks in playoff history in the span of just a few games. There were some signs of this Pacers clutch factor in the regular season. In the same week, both Hallebertton and Obby Toppin hit truly absurd gamewinners with Hallebertton falling out of the court while hitting a shot against the Bucks that would become a game-winning four-point play. Then Obie Topphen catching fire in overtime from the three-point line before hitting another fall out of the court shot to beat the Timberwolves who were on an eight-game winning streak before that. Clearly, the Pacers aren’t afraid of the moment. They see the open shot, the seemingly improbable long range three to win the game over the team that’s supposed to win. And that doesn’t scare them. They have proved they live for the moment and step up to it rather than shrink from it. And this chested out, confidence oozing play has been crucial in the playoffs. None more so than game one of the conference finals against the Knicks and in front of a boisterous crowd in Madison Square Garden. Knicks Pacers is a historic rivalry with the teams meeting in the playoffs several times in the9s and each of them being a bitterly fought encounter. Behind Reggie Miller’s clutchtime heroics, Indiana typically left these matchups on top. And in 2025, it wouldn’t be any different. Late into game one, the Knicks had built a sizable lead. Like the kind of lead where you feel pretty good about leaving the stadium to beat traffic. But if any team has earned your attention in the dying moments of the game is a 2025 Indiana Pacers. With 3 and 1/2 minutes left, New York had a 14-point lead. Then prime Klay Thompson checked into the game wearing the Indiana number 23 jersey. Aaron Nesmith hit a three, then another three, then another three, then another three. And yes, all of those clips are from the same few minutes span. The Knicks kept it competitive, and so they were still up nine with just 52 seconds left to play. Before this year’s playoffs, the stats told us that if a team falls down seven or more points with under a minute left, they’re going to lose. Teams that had fallen into a hole that big with that little time left had won only once in over 1,600 such games. But those teams didn’t have Aaron Nesmith. Aaron Nesmith got the ball two more times and so of course two more threes went in. After two free throws, it was suddenly a one-point game. Hallebertton drove up the court with pace. He got past Mikuel Bridges, but after the Knicks defender got enough of a hand on the ball to throw off his rhythm, he thought twice about going to the rim and instead decided to go for the Knicks jugular. He turns his back to the basket to get himself back to the three-point line and fires. He immediately pulls out the iconic Reggie Miller celebration while the former Pacer watched on from courtside. The Pacers thought they had won it, but it was ruled a two after Hallebertton’s toe was on the line. They remained clutched though and won in overtime, keeping their high energy and egalitarian offense going all the way through crunch time. At the time of posting, it remains to be seen whether this Pacers team is truly ready for the biggest stage of all, but if the past few performances are any indication, they absolutely are. If I was building a modern NBA offense from scratch, I’d look at the Pacers. Running an offense that’s controlled chaos in the best way. Playing with a face melting pace, sharing the ball around to find the open shot, taking care of the ball, and playing with the confidence that they’re going to make the tough bucket when it matters most. That is how you build an elite offense. Thank you very much for watching. I really hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, you should subscribe here on YouTube for more videos coming soon. and like it and I’ll see you in the next