I can almost hear Jim Mora as I type.
"Playoffs! Don't talk about playoffs. You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game."
But when you blog every day, you have to come up with topics every day. And today's topic is, well, you guessed it.
If you do the math, the numbers are daunting. The team currently in eighth place in the East, Miami, is on pace to win 39 games. For the Pacers to reach 39 wins, they'd have to go 22-11 the rest of the way.
And yet, the team itself does not consider the situation in terms quite so stark. The mindset seems to be: until we're out of it, we're in it.
"We're not out," said Luther Head. "That's the way we're thinking about it. Still playing hard, still games to be played, still wins to be gotten."
If they're going to make a move in the direction of contention, now's the time.
Beginning with tonight's game against the Pistons, the Pacers play their next three games against teams in the pack fighting for playoff spots.
The Pacers (17-32) are percentage points ahead of Detroit (16-31). They then travel to Milwaukee to face the ninth-place Bucks (21-26) Saturday and return home against seventh-place Chicago (23-24) Tuesday.
"Before the Toronto game up there (Sunday) we talked about the five games that we had prior to the All-Star break, that they were key games, that they were games against people we have beaten or have played close or have reason that if we put a good game together we can beat," said Jim O'Brien. "And if we have a good record, go 4-1 or 3-2, then we put ourselves in a better position coming out of the break to get ourselves back into the race."
They are 1-1 so far, having split with the Raptors.
"We still have 33 games left and we have to start making up some ground," said Danny Granger. "It would help if we were playing against the teams that we're competing with for a spot, and that's what we're doing right now.
"It's always on your mind. You never know what's going to happen in an NBA season. Some teams can win a lot of games in a row, some teams can lose a lot of games in a row. The season has so many highs and lows, you're never really out."
Anything short of three in a row may push the Pacers beyond the brink. Coming out of the break they have San Antonio at home followed by eight of 10 in the road, seven of those against teams with winning records.
So even with three in a row heading into the break the chances, admittedly, are slim.
Playoffs?
