The Pacers finished their four-game preseason slate forcing more turnovers per 100 possessions than half of the league (13th) while only playing faster than four teams (26th). At first glance, those rankings don’t exactly seem to jibe with the eye-test:
However, prior to the team’s exhibition finale, they actually placed among the bottom third of the league in both categories, even after filtering out their snail’s pace (92.66) meeting with the Detroit Pistons when Nate McMillan opted to rest his top six players.
Further investigation initially seemed to suggest that conditioning might be the culprit.