The Indiana Pacers haven’t made the playoffs for the last three seasons. If they make it four straight years with a finish in the lottery, it’ll be the first time that’s happened since Jim O’Brien was head coach and only the second time the franchise has endured a 4-year playoff drought since the end of dark ages in team history: the mid-1980s.

While Pacers GM Chad Buchanan didn’t want to put any expectations of playoff or bust on this young roster as the front office continues to be understandably focused on long-term goals over modest short-term success, the players are putting those expectations on themselves and are ready to try and push beyond the rebuilding stage of their development.

Tyrese Haliburton said he’s tired of losing as he hasn’t had a winning season since his freshman year at Iowa State and isn’t concerned with any individual accolades, just winning. Throughout media day, it felt like the whole roster whether the longest-tenured Pacer Myles Turner or a rookie like Jarace Walker said a successful season would have to mean playoffs.

“We’ve spent two solid years in a true development mode. We’re going to keep an eye on development but we’re looking to take competitive steps,” said Rick Carlisle during media day. “… We told them to expect it to be hard and to embrace it being hard.”

While Carlisle didn’t want to put a number on what he’s expecting or hoping from the team this year, he did say they hope to be in the playoff picture and the guys are very focused on taking a step in that direction. It’s clear he’s pushing for more than the last year and a half as even the annual Pacers Fan Jam scrimmage—where in Rick’s words they usually “shit fuck around” in an exhibition for fans—is going to be spent this year as a competitive intra-squad game with league-assigned G-League officials.

“It’s valuable time,” said Turner. “… I think Rick is in that mode where he doesn’t want to waste any time this year. We got leaps to make and strides to make and that’s another opportunity to do it.”

To make those strides, Carlisle said they’re going to have to focus on the little things and by doing it on the margins. Everybody knows where they need to improve on the little things the most: the defensive end and that’s from the star of the team to the 15th man.

“The better I am as the leader of the group, the better we will be as a team,” Haliburton, who felt like he was forced to improve a lot on that end this summer already during the more physical play of the FIBA World Cup games. 

The less glamorous side of the court has been the focus of many players off-seasons. Obi Toppin mentioned that he’s been working on his lateral quickness and keeping guys in front of him and the Pacers continue to push Bennedict Mathurin in hopes of him becoming one of the best 2-way players in the league.

“There’s no one on our team that doesn’t have the ability to be better defensively,” Carlisle said. “We have to keep convincing this team how difficult it is to make these jumps defensively. A lot of it comes down to being able to close-out, guard one-on-one effectively, and go get the fucking ball off the rim. That’s it. We’re looking forward to the challenge.”

Turner and TJ McConnell both brought up accountability as a huge piece to getting to where they want to this season by making sure they don’t let anything slide where they may have held their tongue in the past. One of the team’s new players and immediately its best perimeter defender, Bruce Brown brings a championship pedigree to a team lacking in much playoff experience and confidently stated that the team will be much better defensively this season.

“Eventually, we have to stop talking about getting better on defense and start doing it,” Carlisle said after the team’s first training camp practice.

Let the games begin.