Doyel: With Victor Oladipo out, Pacers need to see what they have in Aaron Holiday, T.J. Leaf, Edmond Sumner

Doyel: With Victor Oladipo out, Pacers need to see what they have in Aaron Holiday, T.J. Leaf, Edmond Sumner

NBA

Doyel: With Victor Oladipo out, Pacers need to see what they have in Aaron Holiday, T.J. Leaf, Edmond Sumner

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INDIANAPOLIS – Next time the Indiana Pacers play, and they play at the Washington Wizards on Wednesday, here’s who I want to see: Aaron Holiday. Here’s someone else: Edmond Sumner. Also: T.J. Leaf.

Here’s someone I don’t care to see, not Wednesday in Washington, not again this season: Tyreke Evans. Seen enough of that guy. No thanks. And for different reasons, less disgusted reasons, another guy I don’t need to see much more this season: Cory Joseph.

Ideally on Wednesday night we’d see someone else, anyway: Victor Oladipo. But he’s gone for the season. A torn quadriceps tendon last week ripped apart his right leg, and the Pacers’ 2018-19 season. Might they still reach the playoffs? Sure, they might. Might that matter a whole lot?

Much as we’d all like to believe the Pacers are capable not only of reaching the playoffs without Oladipo but doing some damage when they get there, it’s not going to happen. The damage, I’m saying. The reach? Sure. It’s not a reach to suggest the Pacers will get to the 2019 NBA playoffs.

But my goodness: Their 0-2 reaction to Oladipo’s injury – especially the way they lost to a bad Memphis team, to say nothing of an uncompetitive loss on Monday to Golden State, though that was inevitable given the way the Warriors are playing – suggests the Pacers will limp to the finish line this season, hanging onto a playoff spot but setting up a potential first-round sweep at the hands of whoever awaits.

And then what? Then another draft pick outside the lottery, where the Pacers have largely been operating for the better part of a decade, with mixed results.

Am I saying tank? Nope. I’m saying: Investigate, Pacers. See what you have in these young guys. The Pacers talk about their culture with pride, and with good reason. This place is different, better, than most NBA locker rooms. The level of care in there, of unselfishness, is more collegiate than pro, about the highest compliment to give an NBA locker room.

So let’s find out just how good that culture is, without Oladipo. With him, we all know. We’ve seen it. The Pacers love the guy, he loves the Pacers, they care for each other and fight for each other. Man do they fight.

Will they fight without him? Let’s see. They showed fight against the Warriors, they really did. Don’t be confused by the score. That was the best team in the NBA, one of the most talented teams in NBA history, in the middle of its best stretch in two seasons: 11 consecutive wins and counting. The Warriors are going to dump-truck a lot of teams, but the Pacers weren’t just reclining there in the road, waiting to be run over.

Myles Turner is playing the most physical ball of his career, even with a mask on his broken nose, and he was banging all game with 270-pound DeMarcus Cousins. Turner, Domantas Sabonis and Darren Collison were feisty throughout this loss, not just taking it, but fighting back. Literally, in Sabonis’ case, when Warriors big man Jordan Bell reacted to a (clean) elbow to the sternum with a shove. Already down 19 in the second quarter, Sabonis stepped up to Bell. What, he was saying. What.

More than finding out if they’ll fight – and we’re going to see they will, I’m sure of that – let’s find out what we don’t know: How good are Holiday (22 years old) and Sumner (23) and Leaf (21)? Play them. A lot.

This isn’t me saying: They’re great, play them! This is me saying: The Pacers need to know what they have in those guys, and Oladipo’s injury has given them the perfect reason to find out now. If by season’s end the Pacers don’t know exactly what they have in Sumner, Holiday and Leaf, well, what a waste of a season this will have been.

And I like all three, to be clear. Holiday is too small – that’s why Nate McMillan started the 6-6 Sumner against the Warriors, to defend 6-7 Klay Thomson, while the 6-0 Collison guarded Stephen Curry – but the rookie from UCLA has all kinds of offensive game. I like him, and I like him a lot.

Maybe Holiday is the ideal second-unit point guard, an offensive playmaker off the bench. So, fine. Give him that role. Take it from Tyreke Evans, who needed five games to get suspended this season for not being enough of a pro,and who has spent his time on the court demonstrating that – while he is very skilled – he doesn’t fit in here. His teammates play for the Pacers. Tyreke Evans plays for Team Get Mine.

Bury Evans behind Holiday and also Sumner, whose first start as a Pacer on Monday was a statistical disaster – 1-for-10 from the floor; two points, three rebounds and zero assists in 28 minutes – but who was averaging an intriguing 23.9 ppg on 49.8-percent shooting (40 percent on 3-pointers) for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the G League.

That was then, but this is now: Sumner does have great length, can get to the rim when he wants, and was fighting Steph Curry for the ball 75 feet from the basket late in this blowout, getting a turnover for his effort. Even with Sumner's bad statistical line Monday, Myles Turner went on Twitter after the game to say of Sumner: "Real killer here just wait."

And Leaf? The guy intrigues me to no end. Long and bouncy, a 6-10 power forward who can really run in transition? Guys like that have a spot in the NBA. He needs to defend and rebound better, which means getting stronger, but he needs minutes. So give him minutes.

What’s the worst the Pacers can do? Lose?

Look around. We’re there already.