With the emergence of Paul George as an exceptional player, the Indiana Pacers have been doing surprisingly well without their star player Danny Granger. But now Granger has a return date so we’ll see if it helps or hurts the team. Read more after the jump.
Danny Granger is expected to make his season debut for the Indiana Pacers Saturday night against the Pistons, reports Mike Wells of the Indy Star. Granger has missed the entire season with a knee injury and his return was expected this weekend.
Without Granger the Pacers are 34-21, currently the second seed in the East. They have the league’s best defense but an offense ranked 21st in the league.
Granger, the Pacers leading scorer at 18.7 points a game last season, can help change that. He is not the most efficient scorer (he shot just 41.6 percent last season) but he can space the floor and knock down threes (38.1 percent clip last year) and if he can learn to co-exist with the newly emerged All-Star Paul George the Pacers will now have a couple of players who can create their own shot, break down defenses and put the ball in the basket.
Indiana showed last year they have no fear of the Heat (they were up 2-1 in that series and forced the Heat to adjust their game) and they have a defense that can keep Miami’s stars in as much check as anyone. The Pacers can attack the Heat with size, one vulnerability teams want to go after.
