Sunday Shootaround

BOSTON -- As the Indiana Pacers wrapped up a morning walkthrough, coach Frank Vogel was running through sets with Chris Copeland and Solomon Hill. A year ago they were rotation afterthoughts, now they’re getting major minutes for a team that’s a shadow of what it once was.

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At this time a year ago, the talk was about Paul George taking his game to another level and emerging as a legit star. Now he’s back in Indiana, recovering from a gruesome leg injury suffered during a Team USA exhibition. George has been a constant presence around the team back in Indy, even getting up some shots on their practice court while he rehabs. According to Vogel his return this season remains "very unlikely."

At the other end of the court, David West was finishing a light shooting session consisting mainly of mid-range jumpers, his stock in trade. West’s stroke remained pure, but that’s about all he can do on a basketball court at the moment while he recovers from a sprained ankle. George Hill was also back home, his arrival pegged to sometime in December. Lance Stephenson was in Charlotte getting ready for a game with his new team.

That left Roy Hibbert as the last man standing from the once familiar starting five. For the time being anyway. As he wearily answered a few familiar questions, he let it be known he was ready to move on.

"I’m very tired of people talking about, ‘Without Lance,’" Hibbert said. "He was a great piece, but he’s not with us anymore. I miss him to death but that’s how the NBA is. OKC’s not saying we lost (James) Harden. Things happen and you’ve got to move on. I do miss Lance, he was a big part of our team but he had to do what was best for him and his family."

His light workout over, West took a seat courtside waiting for a trainer to wrap a large chunk of ice around his ankle. Even out of the lineup, he remains the team’s conscience.

"Obviously it’s not what we envisioned but we’re going to work with it," West said in his familiar raspy baritone. "We’re going to make the best of it and understand that this is the NBA. We’ve got to be professional, we’ve got to handle it and look to get the job done when we can."

It’s been a steep drop for the team who spent last November telling anyone who asked that they were gunning for the top seed and the chance to take on the Miami Heat on their home floor. Longtime league observers clucked at their audacity, but the Pacers rolled right along until a series of mystifying setbacks turned them into a sad sideshow.

Their season ended just as it did the year before and the year before that, with a loss to the Heat in the playoffs. By the end, simply getting back to that point was an accomplishment. With Stephenson’s departure and George’s injury, their days among the elite were already over before the season even began, maybe permanently.

Thanks to Hibbert, the Pacers have remained competitive. Not surprisingly, they’ve also struggled to score points and close games. At this early stage of a new NBA campaign, talk of last season still carries some currency, but it’s getting old fast.

"Guys got to put all the things that we’ve done in the past, got to get it out of our minds," West said. "It’s a different approach in terms of how we’re preparing."

For teams like the Pacers, last season is a cruel taunt, reminding them of what once was and what is now. For others like the Toronto Raptors, last season offers a mental checklist of all the things that went right en route to a breakout. As last season finally recedes into history once for all, it offers one last lesson about how fortunes can change quickly in the NBA where one team’s misery is another’s opportunity.

Consider the Raptors, who emerged from nowhere to take control of their division and came within a last-second play of winning a playoff round for the first time in over a decade. They were one of last season’s best stories, a true rags-to-riches tale of a team few took seriously until they were suddenly in the playoffs.

Now they are a certified good team, which in the nebulous East allows them to think big thoughts. With that comes a crash course in dealing with increased expectations and all the pressure that comes with them.

"It’s a new challenge for us," Raptors swingman DeMar DeRozan said. "We understand that nothing’s going to be the same as last year. What happened last year is what happened last year. Can’t do nothing about that but use the lessons that we learned and the experiences that we gained from different situations, like making the playoffs. We can carry that over to how to close out games, win games, tough games."

The Raptors are winning games, which is good. But they’re not happy with how they’re doing it, which is even better. Last year’s team relied on solid defense, a deep roster and the individual brilliance of DeRozan and point guard Kyle Lowry.

This year’s team is even deeper and Lowry and DeRozan have been even better, but the defense is still lagging and their offense has been relying way too much on their two stars. Injuries to Amir Johnson and Jonas Valanciunas have tested their depth in ways that were rarely a concern for a team that had a stable starting five from early December to the end of the year.

They’ve also developed a maddening habit of falling behind in the first half and rallying in the second. It was enough to get by Oklahoma City and Boston on back-to-back nights, but not enough to get a win in Miami.

"Miami came out with their highbeams on the other night," coach Dwane Casey said. "You see that and we’ve got to be ready for that in the first half and not wait for the second half to make that adjustment in our approach. Nothing has changed. Our schemes are the same, our philosophies are the same, our personnel is the same. Teams are coming out a little harder and a little more focused. It’s not like, ‘Okay we’re going to Toronto and having an easy night, let’s go out after the game and a have a good time.’"

Wednesday’s game against the Celtics offered a perfect example of their new dynamic. Playing their fourth game in five nights, the Raps were blitzed early and often by the hyper-aggressive Celtics who made shot after shot and grabbed every rebound in sight. They rallied in the second half behind Lowry, who punctuated his 35-point night with a late-game steal and dish to DeRozan for the winning points. But the win did little to soothe Casey’s concerns.

"We’ve got to develop a playing personality starting the game," Casey said. "We can’t wait until we get punched in the mouth. Understand that teams are coming after our necks and respond accordingly. We did do it, but to get where we need to go we got to develop that."

Back home a few nights later against the Wizards, the Raptors finally put it all together. Their ball movement was crisp and their defense was much tighter thanks in part to Johnson and Valanciunas’ return to the lineup. They were in command from the opening tip in what was easily their best performance of the season.

The Raptors are now 5-1 and according to the team’s media relations staff, the win means that for only the second time in team history they are in first place in the East after six games.

In the giddy euphoria of a team experiencing long-awaited success, no achievement goes unnoticed. Meanwhile in Boston, the Pacers were on their way to yet another hard-fought loss that dropped them to 1-5.

"We’ve been fighting and scrapping to get there and like I said, that’s admirable, but at some point something’s got to change," Hibbert said. "You can’t just be satisfied with being admirable and we’re not going to get a lot of guys back for a while so this is the group we have."

The next night Hibbert went down with a knee injury and the Pacers lost again. It was only a year ago when they were the talk of the league and the Raptors were just another team trying to find their way. The new season is well underway. There are fresh storylines, emerging players and new journeys for teams to take. It’s finally time to put the old one to rest.

Five early-season takeaways because who has time to wait for context or appropriate sample sizes.

Houston, Golden State and Memphis are for real: This seems like strange distinction considering all three were 50-win teams last year, but the line between really good and great in the West is a sharp one. Houston and Golden State have been winning by huge margins, while Memphis is in peak Memphis form.

Let’s not write off the Blazers just yet: Portland was almost everyone’s preseason pick to regress right out of the playoff picture, but the Blazers retained their starting five and added some needed bench reinforcements. While Damian Lillard has yet to hit his stride, double-digit wins over the Cavs and Mavs reinforced how tough they are on their home court.

The gap between the conferences is bigger than ever: The Western Conference’s superiority to the East has often been couched in the total number of elite teams at the top, but the disparity gets worse as you go down the list. There are at least a dozen teams in the Western Conference who have the talent to contend for the playoffs and approach 50 wins. There are maybe half that with designs on finishing over .500 in the East.

Believe in Boogie: The Shaq comparisons are starting to make the rounds, which are unfair because no one has ever had his combination of size, strength and quickness. But if anyone comes close in this era it’s DeMarcus Cousins. He’ll be tested by players looking to throw him off his game, but he’s been up to the challenge without losing his aggressiveness.

Utah and Boston have improved: It hasn’t really shown up in the win-loss column yet, but both teams are playing an exciting style that suits their personnel and offers a better environment for their young talent to develop. Derrick Favors and Gordon Hayward have both been terrific for new coach Quin Snyder, while Jared Sullinger and Kelly Olynyk are coming into their own under Brad Stevens.