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The Pacers head into Wednesday night’s game against the Bucks having lost six straight games.
If they lose on Wednesday night, it’ll mark the longest home losing streak for the franchise since 1985.
My mother hadn’t started high school in 1985.
Seriously.
The league’s All-Star break couldn’t come at a better time as the Pacers will have a break until February 21st after Wednesday night’s contest.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst stopped by The Ride with JMV to talk about why the Pacers have been struggling so much.
First and foremost, some of it has to be put on Victor Oladipo.
“I know that Victor has had some moments defensively where he has shown the flashes of the two-way player who became an all-star, but you know he’s eating up a lot of minutes, and frankly he’s been awful on offense. He’s just been awful,” Windhorst told JMV.
Flashes of the 2017 Victor have happened here and there like he mentioned. His field goal percentage has gotten much better in his last two games, and he’s finished in double-figures in both of them.
Still, the rust shouldn’t be surprising.
“I’m not super-duper crazy surprised. It was a terrible injury. He was off for a year, but when you have a guy who’s that important part of your team who is not delivering, it’s going to affect you, and a lot of these games have been close. It may just be as simple as Victor rounding into form and making a few point difference on the scoreboard to turn things around.”
They will have time to stop, catch their collective breath, and regroup over the next week-and-a-half with the All-Star break taking place.
Hopefully once they get back they can finally put it all together for the stretch run, but there’s a bigger issue that Windhorst isn’t sure they can fix this season.
“I don’t think this roster is complete. I think that they’re still learning about what they have. I don’t think that this particular season is going to be the best we’re going to see from this group primarily because Victor was going to be out so much. I had high hopes for them this year because I knew Victor would come back, and because I liked the moves they made. Right now they’re in a lull, but there’s time left for them to straighten it out.”
Time is ticking on the 2019-2020 season.
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