Philadelphia, PA – It wasn't the homecoming he would have liked but win or lose these days Indiana coach Frank Vogel has made Pacers basketball relevant again.
Vogel, who grew up in Wildwood Crest, a Jersey shore town about 70 miles southeast of Philadelphia, brought his club into the City of Brotherly Love on Monday and came up a little short against a Sixers team that, much like his own, is one of the most improved in the Eastern Conference.
Indiana fell 96-86 to the 76ers but was without two key contributors, Danny Granger and George Hill, and lost Tyler Hansbrough in the third quarter to what was described as a scratched right eye.
"A great win for our guys," Philadelphia coach Doug Collins said after escaping with the win. "Indiana is a very tough team to play against. Their size in the paint causes a lot of problems. Their length on the wings is really impressive."
Collins is hardly the only one that has been impressed by what Vogel has put together in Indy. The coach, who once idolized former Sixers great Maurice Cheeks as a child, has taken the latest club that revolted against Jim O'Brien and quickly turned it from lottery team to playoff contender to postseason gimmee.
The next stop is title contender.
"It's just surreal," Vogel said before the game about returning to Philadelphia. "I pinch myself on a daily basis that I'm even doing this. I keep it all in perspective and try to do the best I can. I believe in my ability to do this job at a high level."
Vogel, an early '90s Wildwood High School graduate that once appeared on David Letterman's Stupid Human Tricks as an 8th grader, had already coached the Pacers in Newark against the Nets and in Madison Square Garden against the Knicks but Monday was the first time he reached Philly as an NBA head coach. He brought along about 20 friends and family members to mark the occasion.
The Pacers, of course, named Vogel, 38, their interim coach last season but most regarded his ascension as a stop-gap measure. Indiana was going nowhere and Vogel was viewed as nothing more than a seat-warmer for the next big name Larry Bird became enamored with.
Instead Vogel changed the fortunes of the club when he took over for the surly O'Brien, piloting the Pacers to a 20-18 mark and a playoff berth for the first time since 2006, a competitive five-game affair with the mighty Chicago Bulls.
"I want expectations," Vogel said. "I want them having the bar set high. This team is capable. We've got pieces in place to do some really special things, to take this league by storm."
O'Brien, of course, was and for that matter still is a brilliant X's and O's guy but he could never see the forest for the trees at any of his NBA stops. A Cousins-Westphal type feud isn't even tabloid fodder for an O'Brien coached club -- it's almost expected. In fact, through all the coaching changes that come and go every year in the NBA, O'Brien was the only one who was once cited for not getting along with the administrative help. Yep, this is a guy who can alienate the secretary in the ticket department.
It's almost hard to understand how an affable coach like Vogel sat under O'Brien's learning tree. But that's the thing about Vogel, he's a pragmatist. He saw how far O'Brien's my way or the highway approach got and shifted gears. At the same time he soaked in the tortured genius' basketball acumen and incorporated that into his repertoire.
The result is an impressive early season record of 6-3 and expectations for similar success throughout the season. The Pacers are still clearly a step below the toast of the Central Division, the Bulls, but the addition of former All-Star David West to a core that features Granger, talented center Roy Hibbert, explosive point guard Darren Collison and lengthy two Paul George has Vogel thinking his team could make some noise.
"We're looking to take the next step," Vogel said. "We're a team that's entering its prime. We're young, but we're not a bunch of rookies."
