No you must use an existing iff file. Basically if it's not in the manifest the game won't be able to know it is there. You can't just make up names.
For the dds file names: just take a dorna with the right amount of panels (find out through your slotlist) and save over those names
Looking specifically at pacers I see "slot05": "dornas/generic/reeses_05_basket.iff" as one example
I find out that file is in 0E by searching the manifest. I extract the file with 2k explorer. I unzip it with 7zip.
I now see there are 9 panels

Now you do your photoshoppin and stuff
NOW THE WORKAROUNDThanks to jhb420returns for workaround Idea
You can figure out that dornas/020.iff is basically instructions.
Then looking at this

You can see there are instructions for different languages so that they go to the right nbastore.com or .mx or .ca whatever
If you play in english you will never need these other files so therefore we can repurpose them.
After you have all your dorna panels done zip that file back up and rename it "020_au.iff" then place into your modded/dornas folder. (Pacers don't have their own dornas/020 folder)
Then make sure you place that onto your slotlist "slot00": "dornas/020_au.iff"