Pacers' Biggest Weakness Exposed in Troubling Loss

The Pacers have a good team, but they have to fix this big issue.

Feb 24, 2025; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam (43) dribbles the ball while Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) defends in the second half at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images | Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images

The Indiana Pacers have been pretty good this season after a rough start. They started just 2-6 and 6-10 because of some injury issues.

Once this team started to get healthy, they started to win more games. Now, they have gotten themselves all the way to fourth in the Eastern Conference standings.

The Pacers decided not to add any players at the trade deadline because they feel like this roster is good enough to win big. It's essentially the same roster that made the Eastern Conference Finals a year ago.

Despite their overall better level of play, they struggle with consistency. The Pacers have a big problem with one main area of their team.

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That area of the team is rebounding. That reared its ugly head yet again in a big loss to the Denver Nuggets on Monday night.

While it was the second night of a back-to-back, the Pacers have gotten crushed on the boards all year long. They are the third-worst team in the league in rebounding.

Head coach Rick Carlisle was very frustrated with how his team played. He understands what issues the team has and he knows they need to get corrected.

When asked about how poor the defense was against the Nuggets, Carlisle had this to say.

"Well, we had 18 turnovers," Carlisle said. "We lost on the boards pretty substantially and we had a rough shot-making night and I haven't even gotten to the answer of your question yet."

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The turnovers were concerning, but part of that is due to the fact that they were without T.J. McConnell. He missed the game due to an ankle sprain.

Certainly, the defense is trouble. Having the Nuggets score that many points in the paint is concerning, especially because they had Myles Turner for this game.

But that many points in the paint were a product of offensive rebounding. The Pacers have to get better on the boards if they want to make another deep playoff run.

There isn't an immediate fix available for that besides having some better effort. They need all five guys to go after rebounds.

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