Indiana Pacers know that to improve in the offseason, they must get better on defense

INDIANAPOLIS — It’s officially the NBA offseason. The Boston Celtics won the 2024 NBA Championship on Monday night, and after a few days of celebration and reflection, other teams will figure out how to improve their long-term outlook.

That includes the Indiana Pacers, who just won 47 games and reached the Eastern Conference Finals. They had a terrific 2023-24 season, but as a young team, they know that growth isn’t always linear. They will have to find ways to improve if they want to make it back to the conference finals — or even farther — in the future.

“We see areas where we’ve got to improve. Both the roster, skill level, defensively, things like that,” general manager Chad Buchanan said at his end-of-season exit interview. “There’s plenty of areas for us to improve. I think that will be a focus for us this summer and building a team moving forward.”

Buchanan shared that he believes the players on Indiana’s roster recognize the importance of getting stops to make it deep in the playoffs. The team had several moments throughout the regular season where they re-focused on defense — either through a lineup change or intense practice — and it often led to bursts of defensive success and wins.

But the Pacers still finished the regular season with the 24th rated defense, and they were 13th out of 16 teams in the postseason. They can score against anybody and they know it, but future improvement starts with getting stops.

“As a front office, you’re always looking for ways to improve your team,” Buchanan said. His team has three draft picks to try to improve, but no salary cap space. They can use cap exceptions to add talents as well as re-sign their own free agents. “I also believe that we have a lot of internal growth ahead for some of our players,” he added, specifically referring to defense.

“If there’s something out there we feel addresses a need, we’ll be aggressive to do that,” Buchanan explained. Between the Pacers young core and only being out one first-round draft pick in future seasons, Indiana can make any reasonable move that becomes available to them.

Their most important offseason task is re-signing Pascal Siakam. The forward was tremendous last season, and both he and the team have talked about their hopes for free agency this summer. Reporting suggests there is mutual interest between the parties.

Then, the Pacers can look at Obi Toppin, who spent last season with the team, and other free agency options. The 36th overall pick could help the team add talent, too.

Buchanan said that the blue and gold are trying to follow the Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics model of constructing their team piece by piece. Those franchises got their star(s), then slowly acquired players that fit in their systems around the mega talent.

Boston’s foundation, in particular, stood out to Buchanan. Their defense is great, and that’s where the Pacers want to grow. “I think our players really recognized the importance of being able to get stops,” he said.

The offseason is underway. Indiana will hope to keep Siakam and Toppin while adding defense where they can.