Pacers Reach Eastern Conference Finals for Second Consecutive Year as Cavaliers' Dream Season Ends in a Nightmare

The Indiana Pacers started the season 6-9 while the Cleveland Cavaliers started the season 15-0, but the numbers that matter the most for these teams are 4-1: that is the final tally of their second round series after Indiana won game five in Cleveland, 114-105. Tyrese Haliburton led the Pacers in scoring (31 points) and assists (eight). Pascal Siakam added 21 points, eight rebounds, and five assists as each Indiana starter scored at least 10 points. Donovan Mitchell scored a game-high 35 points, but he shot just 8-25 from the field and only had one assist. Evan Mobley contributed 24 points and 11 rebounds. 

The Cavaliers finished first in the Eastern Conference with a 64-18 record and they went 34-7 at home--but they lost all three home games to the Pacers in this series, culminating in game five when they squandered a 19 point second quarter lead. The Pacers seized homecourt advantage in this series by winning game one in Cleveland 121-112, and then the Pacers took a commanding 2-0 lead by taking game two 120-119; the Cavaliers were missing three key players due to injury--Defensive Player of the Year/All-Star Evan Mobley, All-Star Darius Garland, and De'Andre Hunter--but that is no excuse for enabling the Pacers to outscore them 8-0 in the final 57.6 seconds. The Cavaliers avoided being swept by routing the Pacers 126-104 in Indiana in game three, but the Pacers eliminated any realistic chance for a Cleveland comeback by stomping the Cavaliers 129-109 in game four. The Pacers led 80-39 at halftime of game four while facing Cleveland's full roster, and the Pacers destroyed the Cavaliers in the paint (58-32) for the entire game, making a mockery of Cleveland's double big lineup featuring Mobley and Jarrett Allen. At least one commentator compared Mobley to Tim Duncan this season, and that madness needs to stop. Mobley is a talented and still improving player, but Duncan entered the NBA as a polished, MVP-level player who would have destroyed this Indiana team at both ends of the court. 

Six Indiana players averaged between 11.4 ppg and 17.8 ppg in this series, with Siakam (17.8 ppg) and Haliburton (17.4 ppg) leading that balanced attack. Andrew Nembhard (7.2 apg) edged Haliburton (7.0 apg) for team-high honors in assists. Myles Turner had a solid series (16.2 ppg, team-high 7.2 rpg, team-high 2.8 bpg). The Pacers are not known as a physical team or a defensive-minded team, but they spent most of this series pushing the Cavaliers around at both ends of the court. After the game four rout, Coach of the Year Kenny Atkinson lamented that his Cavaliers did not play with enough force, but nothing much changed in game five. 

Donovan Mitchell's playoff career is a mixed bag, and this abbreviated playoff run as the best player on the East's top seeded team embodies those contradictions. Mitchell is a dynamic scorer who owns the seventh highest scoring average (28.3 ppg) in ABA/NBA playoff history, and he has scored at least 30 points in eight straight series openers, breaking a record held by Michael Jordan, who had two separate streaks of seven such games. In game one of this series, Mitchell scored 33 points, but he shot just 13-30 from the field and he only had six fourth quarter points. Mitchell scored 48 points on 15-30 field goal shooting in game two, but he shot 2-6 from the field with three turnovers in the fourth quarter as the Cavaliers blundered away the game down the stretch. Mitchell scored 43 points on 14-29 field goal shooting in Cleveland's only win, but then he had just 12 points on 3-11 field goal shooting in the first half of game four before coming up lame just prior to the second half with an ankle injury that caused him to miss the rest of the blowout loss. That all adds up to 34.2 ppg on .424 field goal shooting. Is Mitchell an MVP-caliber player who needs more help or just tougher players around him? Or is there something about the way Mitchell plays that is not conducive to deep playoff runs? Mitchell has never advanced past the second round.

As I noted in my series preview in which I picked Cleveland to beat Indiana in six games, the Cavaliers led the NBA in scoring (121.9 ppg) while ranking second in field goal percentage (.491), third in defensive field goal percentage (.454), sixth in rebounding (45.4 rpg), and 12th in points allowed. Their regular season point differential (9.5) is on par with the point differentials of all-time great championship teams such as the 1986 Boston Celtics, the 1991 Chicago Bulls, and the 1997 Chicago Bulls. I also emphasized that all of those numbers mean nothing unless/until the Cavaliers validate those statistics with a deep playoff run. The Cavaliers failed miserably versus the Pacers, and their failure cannot be attributed just to injuries; the Pacers proved to be tougher, and they played smarter in key moments. 

This will be a long offseason for the Cavaliers.

Meanwhile, after their sluggish start to the season the Pacers have reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight season, and they are suddenly in excellent position to return to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2000; the franchise known as the Boston Celtics of the ABA after capturing three ABA titles (1970, 1972-73) has not yet won an NBA title. Speaking of the Celtics, the Pacers await the winner of the Boston-New York series. Defending NBA champion Boston is without the services of Jayson Tatum, who ruptured his right Achilles in a game four loss that gave New York a commanding 3-1 series lead; after eliminating the best regular season team in the Eastern Conference, the Pacers may have a path to the NBA Finals that does not involve facing the Eastern Conference's other 60-plus win team.