The Hoop & The Harm

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, so to get back into the swing of things, I figured I’d dig up some interesting facts about the 2012-13 Indiana Pacers. You know the ones…the rag-tag group that pushed the “Heatles” (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh) to Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals.

That Pacers team came around right when I was first falling in love with NBA basketball, and they’ve always stuck with me as one of the most fascinating teams of that era. So let’s rewind a bit and dig into some fun (and slightly absurd) context from that season.

1. PG Warning
   • Paul George’s breakout season was the headline of the year. He won Most Improved Player and announced himself as a legitimate two-way star as a 22-year old. But the most interesting part of his leap isn’t just how good he was, it’s how his scoring fit into the league at the time.
   • Paul George averaged 17.4 points per game, which ranked 30th in the NBA that season. In today’s game, that same scoring average would rank him 75th overall, sitting below players like Shaedon Sharpe and OG Anunoby.
   • And yet, that 17.4 PPG accounted for 18% of Indiana’s total offense. The Pacers averaged just 94.7 points per game, ranking 23rd in the league. For perspective, the 23rd-ranked offense last season, the San Antonio Spurs, averaged 114 points per game. At that pace, Paul George’s same offensive share would land him closer to 21 PPG today.
   • To really drive it home: Indiana’s 94.7 PPG would rank dead last in the modern NBA, by more than 10 points, with even the lowest-scoring team last year (the Charlotte Hornets at 105.1) clearing that mark comfortably.
2. Dynamo Defense
   • The Pacers’ defense was their calling card, and it was the primary reason they were real contenders. They posted a 99.0 defensive rating, best in the league and 6.1 points better than league average. To put that in context, it’s the second-best defensive season in Pacers history, trailing only the 2014 Pacers (7.4 points better than league average), a team that featured much of the same core.
   • This wasn’t some gimmicky scheme either. It was personnel-driven dominance. You had elite wing versatility from Paul George, a rim-protecting redwood named Roy Hibbert, and a supporting cast that was equal parts physical, athletic, and unhinged (i.e. David West, Lance Stephenson, Tyler Hansbrough, etc.).
   • Every possession was work. Every matchup was uncomfortable. And no matter who you were playing, the Pacers dragged you into their kind of game.
3.  Ian Mahinmi: The Chaos (this is where the stats get fun)
   • I just mentioned that unhinged supporting cast…and possibly the most fascinating member of that group is Ian Mahinmi (when’s the last time you heard that name?).
   • Mahinmi led the entire NBA in fouls per 100 possessions at 8.1 (!), and it wasn’t particularly close. To put that into perspective, that’s roughly one foul every 12 possessions,  despite the fact that he only played 16.5 minutes per game.
   • On a typical night, Mahinmi was on the floor for about 34 defensive possessions. In those possessions, he averaged 2.75 fouls (34 × 0.081). That’s nearly halfway to fouling out in limited bench minutes.
   • Scale it up and it gets even more absurd. Over the season, he committed 201 fouls in just 1,322 total minutes. That comes out to:
     • 0.152 fouls per minute
     • 7.3 fouls per 48 minutes (5.47 fouls per 36 minutes)
   • In other words, if Mahinmi played starter minutes, he would’ve fouled out every single night…and then some. For comparison, that’s over one full foul per 36 minutes more than Roy Hibbert, who was already considered one of the most foul-prone bigs in the league and finished third in the NBA in total fouls that season.
   • He wasn’t just aggressive. He was mathematically unplayable.
4. Miami vs Indy’s ECF Duel
   • On paper, the Pacers actually won a lot of the margins that usually decide a playoff series. They crushed Miami on the glass, totaling 55 more rebounds in the series (299 vs 244). Also, they posted a 34.6% offensive rebounding rate compared to just 26.1% for the Heat. Both teams finished the series with the same effective field goal percentage, which normally tilts things toward the team generating extra possessions. So how did Indiana lose?
   • Turnovers. The Pacers coughed the ball up 121 times (17% of their possessions), while Miami was much more careful with only 82 turnovers (11.8% of possessions). That gap alone erased the advantage Indiana created with their rebounding.
   • This series is remembered as the start of Paul George’s coming-out party, and rightfully so. But one of the more surprising wrinkles is that Roy Hibbert actually led the team, averaging 22 & 10 for the series. Miami genuinely struggled with his size and strength, and Indiana leaned into that mismatch as much as possible.
   • Defensively, though, the results were mixed. Hibbert anchored the paint and the Pacers’ size scared Miami away from most non-restricted-area paint attempts — the Heat took fewer than 10 per game outside the restricted area. But when Miami did get all the way to the rim, they made it count, shooting 61% on restricted-area attempts on 26 shots per game.
5. Miscellaneous Stats
   • 0 40 Pt games
     • This roster didn’t produce a single 40-point performance all season. In fact, they only had one 35+ point game, with Paul George dropping 37 in a lone outlier night. Everything about this team was collective by design.
   • 2 Relatively efficient scorers
     • Just two Pacers finished the season with a true shooting percentage above league average: George Hill (55.8%) and David West (54.5%).
   • West’s 20.1 PER
     • Surprisingly, the most dominant Pacer on a per-minute basis was David West. He led the team with a 20.1 PER and a .179 Win Shares per 48 minutes, both #1 on the roster. Not flashy, just relentlessly effective.