One year after reaching the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pacers know what's necessary to take the next step: Defense and rebounding

They steadily improved last year on the defensive end, but Boston showed them the template when it mattered most.

More than anything, the sweep at the hands of the Boston Celtics was instructive. As much as the young Pacers learned in their wild ride to the Eastern Conference Finals, knocking off Milwaukee, hammering the Knicks in a perfect Game 7 performance at Madison Square Garden, they learned a lot more, learned the hard lessons, that come with competing against a team that went on and won the NBA title.

They learned that every possession matters, that defense still rules the day in crunch time and rebounding is paramount. For all of the Pacers’ offensive gifts – they led the league in scoring and assists last year – it comes down to the gritty stuff, the willingness to mix it up on the defensive end and on the boards, to take that next step the Pacers so desperately want to take.

“Defense has to be a constant if we’re going to win a championship,” Rick Carlisle said Monday. “Certainly we want to get into the top half of the league (in defense) and hopefully one day be a top 10 defensive team.”

We started to see the growth last year. Between Christmas and the All-Star Game, the Pacers went from last in the league defensively to 26^th, and from the All-Star Game until the end of the season, they moved up to 18^th. Still not great, still not Celtics-like – we saw how they clamped down on the Pacers in the final moments of all four games – but with a new defensive system, it took some time and a starting lineup change to get the ball rolling in the right direction. And it only helped that Pascal Siakam, a strong defender, joined the team midway through the season.

It came as no surprise, then, that on Media Day Monday, most of the conversation centered around how to take the next step and the primacy of defense and rebounding. Even Tyrese Haliburton, never known as a defensive stalwart, spoke about the importance of personal improvement in that area.

“People look at me as a high IQ player, but when I watch film sometimes, I get frustrated and it’s like, `What am I thinking defensively?’ “ he said. “It’s different if you’re in the right place and the guy makes a shot…But sometimes I’m not in the right place, so that’s a big focus for all of as a group.”