INDIANAPOLIS -- Coach Nate McMillan remembers all too well the pain of having to watch his Indiana Pacers play without their All-Star.
Last year's upstart bunch went winless (0-7) in games Oladipo sat out, as they struggled to replace not only his production but his leadership and intensity.
"You know," McMillan said last season, "it's not only the fans (he energizes) with his playmaking. He does so much for us in terms of leadership and setting the tone."
Faced with the prospect of playing their first full game without Oladipo this year, McMillan admitted that Monday night against the Utah Jazz, the Pacers faced one of their toughest tests of the early season.
Safe to say these aren't your 2017-18 Pacers. While last year's group struggled to an find offensive rhythm, to forge a formidable identity without their leader, this year's deeper, more talented group didn't have that problem.
With Oladipo looking dapper in his suit and sitting on the Pacers bench nursing a sore knee, his teammates steamrolled the Jazz 121-94 in front of a rowdy Bankers Life Fieldhouse crowd to pick up their third straight victory and move to 11-6 for the season.
The defense was nasty; the offense poetry in motion. Indiana forced 18 Jazz turnovers -- converting them into 33 points -- and limited Utah's leading scorer Donovan Mitchell (21.7 ppg) to just seven points. On the other end, the ball moved freely from Pacer to Pacer as they generated open look after open look. Flying up and down the court, they recorded a season-high 35 assists while shooting 48 percent from beyond the arc (12-of-25). Six players scored in double figures with Bojan Bogdanovic leading the way (21 points on 9-of-14 shooting).
"When I've been talking about ball movement and getting everyone involved, this is what we are talking about," a particularly pleased McMillan said after the game. "Tonight, they executed the game plan perfectly. We needed to get pressure on Utah to disrupt their timing. I thought we did that and then we got out and played at the tempo we wanted to play at."
Just behind Bogdanovic were the sensational bench duo of Aaron Holliday and Domantas Sabonis, who scored 19 each. The former delivered another sensational performance to follow up his breakout game against against Atlanta, while the latter nearly secured a triple-double, adding nine assists and nine rebounds.
Thaddeus Young, Myles Turner and Doug McDermott each contributed 12 points.
"We didn't win a game without Victor last season, but tonight we came out and played," McMillan said. "Injuries are going to happen during the course of the season and you have to be able to adapt. Tonight, they stepped in, as a team, and played solid. They went out there and found a way to get it done."
Truthfully, all nine Pacers who garnered 20-plus minutes of action Monday night played well enough to merit mention, but let's talk about the guy no one expected to be discussing this early in the season -- or maybe at all: Aaron Holiday.
Following a breakout game against Atlanta on Saturday, Holiday's encore Monday was arguably even better. He not only racked up 19 points -- 16 in the second half -- but added seven rebounds and an assist in just 21 minutes.
He both drained his shots from long distance (2-of-4 from the 3-point line) and wowed the crowd with a scintillating slam to help seal the game.
The rookie has played so well in his first two games, so "fearlessly" as Turner called it in the postgame locker room, that he's given his coach one of those good kinds of problems.
"I think that kid has earned the right to be out on the floor and he's waited. He's been patient," McMillan said. "I've talked about how tough it is to play a 10-man rotation, but we may have to look at that, look at a way to get him out on the floor. He's doing some really good things for us. I love the energy. I love the intensity he brings to the floor."
At the very least, if Holiday continues to play at this level, the Pacers can feel comfortable allowing Oladipo to take as much time as he needs to recover.
Also, let's not forget about the man who was thrust into the starting lineup with Oladipo out: Tyreke Evans.
Playing 7 more minutes than his average of 20, Evans was steady if not spectacular. He finished with just eight points, but added three rebounds, five assists and two steals to replace much of Oladipo's all-around production. Evans also committed no turnovers and helped facilitate the up-tempo offense McMillan has so craved.
There will be games in which Turner makes a bigger impact on the box score, but there might not be many in which the young center makes a bigger impact.
Despite being hobbled early by a left ankle injury, Turner returned in the second quarter with a vengeance. He racked up 12 points, six rebounds, four assists, three blocks and a steal in about three quarters, and could have done more had McMillan needed him in the fourth.
But those numbers only tell part of the story. Turner was hustling all over the court, contributing on the fringes. His outlet passes were quick and decisive, often leading to easy buckets -- like one in the third quarter, when he fired a pass to Darren Collison, who quickly found Bogdanovic for an uncontested layup.
Turner also used his long wingspan to alter a half-dozen shots and tip loose balls to teammates. He set some devastating screens that set up his teammates for easy buckets and threw his body at rebounding menace Rudy Gobert while letting his teammates clean the glass.
In other words, Turner was everything the Pacers hoped he'd be when they made him a $72-million man.
As far as the ankle injury, Turner had it wrapped during the game and re-wrapped afterward. He expects it to be sore Tuesday morning but doesn't think it will prevent him playing Wednesday night in Charlotte.
Turner wasn't the only Pacer defender frustrating the now sub-.500 Jazz. The Pacers came out of the gates on fire, forcing eight first-quarter turnovers and turning them into 16 points.
They finished the game with 13 steals with four Pacers picking up multiple thefts. Thaddeus Young led with three.
The only member of the Jazz to give the Pacers fits was point guard Ricky Rubio, who scored a game-high 28 points (5-of-6 from beyond the arc).
Turner, Sabonis and the rest of the Pacers helped limit potential All-Star Rudy Gobert, who has been a force of nature lately, to just 12 points and 11 rebounds. Playing 25 minutes, he was -18 in the box score.
"Rudy is a good offensive rebounder and a good shot-blocker," Turner said, "but you can negate some of that by putting a body on him. Getting him out of the play. A big emphasis of ours is 2-on-1 rebounding, one guy boxes out, the other comes in and grabs the rebound and starts the break. We did a good job of that tonight."