DON'T LET KG ANYWHERE
NEAR BOWSER
NEAR BOWSER
-VS-
Game Time Start: 7:00 PM EST
Where: The Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Officials: Ron Garretson, David Jones, Gediminas Petraitis
Media Notes: Indiana Notes, Minnesota Notes
Television: FOX Sports Indiana / FOX Sports North
Radio: WFNI 1070 AM, 107.5 FM / WCCO 830 AM
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PACERS Rodney Stuckey - ankle (out) Myles Turner - thumb (out) WOLVES Nikola Pekovic - right Achilles tendon (out) Ricky Rubio - left hamstring strain (probable) Andrew Wiggins - right knee soreness (probable) |
Paul George is singlehandedly keeping the Pacers relevant Paul Flannery The All-Star is returning to his elite form after a devastating injury and allowing his team to navigate a difficult style change properly. For three-and-a-half quarters Wednesday, the Pacers and Celtics were locked in one of those weird NBA games that was close without being compelling. Neither team shot well from behind the arc, turnovers were a problem for both squads and as the misses and errant passes piled up, the game lacked a cohesive element that would easily define it in the next day's postmortems. There was, however, Paul George, and he was clearly the best player on the floor. George put up 22 shots, a dozen more than any of his Pacer teammates and well more than anyone on the other side. He was every bit the star that the Pacers will rely on to bring them back to playoff contention and exactly the kind of player the Celtics lack in their large ensemble mix. That much was readily apparent, yet George didn't dominate the action as much as artfully pick his spots. There was a brief outburst early in the third quarter when he erased a small Boston lead with a pair of threes, but it was down the stretch when he truly took over and carried the Pacers home with a win. Indy ran actions to get its star into mismatches and he took advantage by shooting over Marcus Smart, a tenacious on-ball defender who lacks the size to defend a player like George once he gets into his spot. "It's my job to go out there and perform," George said after scoring 26 points to go with 10 rebounds. "I take a lot of pride in being our leader. I take pride in the outcome of games. I'm going to bring it, night in and night out. I'm going to be the guy that's always going to bring it." This is what stars do and this is what George was coming to terms with before he suffered that gruesome leg injury during a Team USA exhibition game in the summer of 2014. Before the injury, PG was a vital part, but by no means the whole show for a Pacers' team that won primarily with defense and a bruising frontcourt. Now he is the undisputed centerpiece of a fairly dramatic overhaul. In the offseason, the Pacers cut ties with Roy Hibbert and David West, the latter of whom took a significant paycut to chase a title with the Spurs. They added Monta Ellis and worked on installing a spread offense that would represent a complete stylistic change from the past few years. It would also conclude the transition that began over the past few years as George grew from a player with tantalizing potential into one of the premier perimeter threats in the league. "We believe we're putting him in position to have the best season of his career," Indiana coach Frank Vogel said. "Playing with a little more space, a little more tempo, we think offensively is going to help him explode onto the scene and take his game to an even higher level, while still having the flexibility to play with bigger lineups when we need to." After a slow start George has been fantastic over the past week. It started with a win over Boston in Indy when he also went for 26 and 10 and continued through huge performances against Miami, Cleveland and Orlando. After dropping their first three games, the Pacers have won five of six even with several key players missing time with injuries. As they move on from the low post bullyball ethos that defined their recent success, a middling start could have spiraled into disastrous territory, but George has kept them afloat. He's averaging 23.8 points, 8.8 rebounds and 4.7 assists, which would be career highs if he kept up this pace. All of that is to say that PG looks like he's back, although he'll be the first to tell you he's not back back just yet. "My skillset, everything on the court has been there," he said. "I feel like with a year away from the game I was able to rehab and really focus on myself. I'm still trying to gain that little bit back physically. I'm not all the way there. Leg endurance, the foot speed, the explosiveness. That's the little bit that has to come back." These are tiny, encouraging signs... CONTINUE READING ON SBNATION |
The Wolves and the Youth Movement: What Do We Mean By "Development?" Some early season thoughts on youth and development. Let me start with a caveat, because that's always a fantastic way to draw in readers: The Wolves have only played four games so far this season, and it's far too early to make any hard and fast judgments. Now that's out of the way. One of the givens about the Wolves last season and this has been that "development" is more important than winning. This idea seems to be central to both the organization and coaching staff as well as most of the remaining serious fans of the team. And it might be the right idea. The Wolves, for better or worse, have a roster full of inexperienced players. Nine of the 15 players on the roster are in their first, second, or third years in the league. Of the six remaining, one is out injured and seems a dubious proposition to ever play a significant role again (Nikola Pekovic), three are here for hybrid playing "mentoring" reasons (Kevin Garnett, Tayshaun Prince, and Andre Miller) and are clearly on their last legs as players, one seems as likely as not to be gone by the trade deadline (Kevin Martin), and one is their best player, Ricky Rubio. So yes, the Wolves have a lot of guys to develop. Which raises the question: What is the best way to go about doing that? One of the advantages to an organization saying they are focused on development is that it creates much hazier bases on which to judge their performance. When the goal is to win, to put the best team on the floor, well, that's easy. What's your record? What's your point differential? What are your offensive and defensive ratings? We have numerous, generally accurate, ways to determine how well a team is playing. Development is a much thornier issue. Development means mistakes. Development means playing certain players more or less than optimal if your goal is to win, but how much more or less? Development raises questions. Is playing time necessary? Always? Some of the time? Is all playing time created equal? Is development affected by who you share the court with? By how well or badly the team plays while you're out there? By the style of basketball that you and your teammates play? Does quality development happen when you are clearly over-matched and getting blown out every night, as we saw regularly last season? Most importantly, how do the people in charge view the development process? This stuff has been going around in my head for a while, but I was spurred to start writing by this exchange of tweets, so let's start here:
So let's see if we can trace the development of Zach LaVine. LaVine was thrust into the point guard role last year far earlier than was intended when Ricky Rubio got hurt in the fifth game of the season. He wound up playing 1900 minutes, almost all of which was at point guard, for the worst team in the league. He was awful, yes, but in theory he was getting valuable experience. But how valuable was this experience? The Wolves last season were a train wreck on both sides of the ball. They gave up easy shots and points in bunches, took terrible shots themselves, took the fewest percentage of threes in the league and one of the highest percentages of long two point attempts. Much of this was "orchestrated" by Zach LaVine. I'm not blaming LaVine; he did the best he could, but it clearly wasn't very good. The question is whether it helped him prepare for this season and future seasons, indeed a difficult question to answer... CONTINUE READING ON CANIS HOOPUS |
Pacers Candace Buckner @CandaceDBuckner Nate Taylor @ByNateTaylor Jared Wade @8pts9secs Tim Donahue @TimDonahue8p9s Tom Lewis @indycornrows Whitney @its_whitney |
Timberwolves Jerry Zgoda @JerryZgoda Zach Harper @talkhoops Steve McPherson @steventurous Howlin' T Wolf @howlintwolf A Wolf Among Wolves @A_W_A_W William Bohl @BreakTheHuddle |
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