This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
With each trip back to Salt Lake City, there are fewer familiar faces. Some Jazz fans might not recognize him either.
It has been four years now since C.J. Miles last wore a Utah Jazz jersey. Once a 17-year-old rookie shooting guard here, he's now a 10-year veteran, a key cog for one of the NBA's hottest teams and … a power forward?
It's taken Miles and the Pacers a while to adjust to the idea, too.
"I've spent 10 years playing one position," he said before Saturday night's game against the Jazz. "You spend the whole summer working on your craft, trying to get better and better at it. And I didn't know I was going to be in this position until training camp, basically."
After years of emphasizing lockdown defense and flirting with the best of the Eastern Conference, Indiana coach Frank Vogel and the Pacers front office wanted to remake their image this year, going smaller and speeding up their offense. That meant changes — and some early hesitancy to make them.
The Pacers looked out of sorts early in the season. And after being blown out by the Jazz on Halloween night in Indianapolis, they were 0-3 to start the year. Since then, however, All-Star Paul George and company have gone 12-4 and currently sit in fourth place in the East.
Vogel credited Miles with helping the team turn things around.
"He's been one of the guys that has really helped us transform our style of play," the coach said. "He was one of the guys that, early on when some of the returning players were still trying to run the old offense, that sort of adapted the quickest."
Said Miles, "I believed in what our coaching staff wanted to do. I don't feel like they would be steering me wrong."
Even if that meant changing positions.
Early in the Pacers' conversion, the team had anticipated George would spend more of his time playing power forward, but Vogel said he ultimately wanted George to lock down on the opposing team's best perimeter threat.
So, instead, the 6-foot-6 Miles was charged with the task of defending inside.
"C.J.'s willingness to guard 4s has really made this whole thing work," Vogel said. "Without that, I don't know where we'd be right now. We probably wouldn't be doing what we're doing."
There are days now when he feels the bumps and bruises, but a shift in the league has helped make it possible for Miles to play his new position.
"How many 4s are there that are just these overpowering big guys?" he said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm still at a disadvantage size-wise even against some stretch-4s. But there's not 10 Blake Griffins anymore."
And, on the other end, the benefits have been huge for the sharpshooter, who has been able to use his speed and some extra space to average 15.6 points a game on 43 percent 3-point shooting.
"I've been saying it all year, they hate guarding me more than I hate guarding them," he said.
Freebie 3s
Already playing like an MVP candidate entering Saturday night, George stepped his game up Saturday in Salt Lake City, knocking down eight of his 11 attempts from 3-point territory. But George wouldn't have set a new career high of 48 points without some extra help from the Jazz.
The Jazz fouled the Pacers six times on 3-point attempts, with George getting four trips to the free-throw line because of it.
"I thought that got him going," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.
"Some of it is how hard he's running and how quickly he's able to pull up," the coach added. "Some of it is a lack of discipline. It comes from a good place because you're trying to be aggressive. We've talked about multiple-effort plays and activity and competing and running guys off the line. But you get in that moment, you've got to jump up; you can't jump out. Especially with a guy like that, he's going to get that call."
Gordon Hayward, Rodney Hood, Trevor Booker and Chris Johnson were all guilty of it Saturday.
"He probably sold a couple of them," Booker said of George. "At the same time, we did foul him. I fouled a jump shooter tonight. We just got to look at the film and do a better job."
Room and boards
With center Rudy Gobert out, the Jazz understandably might expect a dip in their rebounding numbers. But the Jazz still managed to outrebound the Pacers 54-44 on Saturday, grabbing 19 offensive rebounds along the way.
Derrick Favors had 13 rebounds and Booker grabbed 14.
"This was a must-win game for us," Favors said. "Me and Book, we just went out there and tried to get every one we could."
Gobert's sprained MCL has made life more difficult for the Jazz, who could be without their center for several weeks, but Snyder said his team's fight can help overcome some of their deficiencies without him.
"There were a lot of variables going into the game. That's on some level a function of us trying to redefine ourselves," he said. "But I felt like our effort was at a high, high level. We'll figure some of the other stuff out. It may not look pretty all the time. It may not be successful all the time, but we'll keep grinding."
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