Odd Thoughts: Playoff Bound
Written by Peck
Link
This is going to be a short Odd Thoughts but there is just no way I could not write something on the night that our beloved Indiana Pacers earned a trip back to the NBA playoffs.
That’s right, EARNED, a trip to the NBA playoffs. Under the rules as they exist, with the standards that are set and the teams that are playing the Pacers EARNED this spot.
What makes me even happier is that we won a game to get in. Yes the Bobcats lost to officially put us over the top but more importantly to me anyway is that we took care of business on our end and won our game and won it in a very convincing way.
Yes I will admit the Wizards were pretty much on cruise control after we took over the lead early on, but we still could have coughed up the lead at many different points in the game but we did not.
Side note: How Flip Saunders has a head coaching job in the NBA has always been a mystery to me.
Anyway I’m not going to review the game because in all honesty it was just a case of a team beating another team mercilessly. Happily our team was on the right end of this.
But I want to take kind of an overview of some things I think have been important in getting us here and hopefully important moving forward.
Mike Dunleavy becoming the 6th man:
Obviously this is controversial because Mike is one of those players you either hate or love and there are very few of us who take the middle ground with him. I just think he makes the second unit a much more fluid and properly functioning unit. Prior to him returning our second unit offense consisted of A.J. Price & Dahntay Jones attempting to go one on one with an occasional Josh Dunk or Brandon three for good measure. Mike changes all of that, he not only scores himself but his off the ball movement and passing ability changes the entire complexion of the second unit and makes that unit a much or potent scoring threat. His defense is good enough to be on this unit and in this position he does not have to defend the Wade’s or Allen’s of the world. I’m also happy that Mike gets to go to the playoffs for the first time in his career still being a contributor and vital piece of the club. Unlike Troy Murphy who bought his way into the playoffs and is really not part of any regular rotation.
Darren Collison hitting his shots:
But more importantly starting to hit his team mates for some easy baskets and increasing his overall assist total upward. Yea he had a few to many turnovers in this game but overall he has been getting a little better about taking care of the ball. He is always going to be a scoring point guard, that’s just what he is, but as long as he looks for other players first that’s all we really can ask from him. I still worry about his defense and I don’t look forward to seeing Derrick Rose run past him on the way to the rim but as long as he tries to keep him in front of him and helps run the offense on the other end I think he will be ok.
Frank Vogel as the head coach:
**Fair warning right now, if you are sick of reading about Jim O’Brien or are a defender of Jim O’Brien you may want to skip the next paragraph. I’m telling you this now because I don’t want to read complaints about “why can’t you let it go” or anything of that nature. If you want to defend him (well good luck to you) that’s fine but we are going to talk about him & I’m not even going to justify why I’m talking about him. Skip down to the next set of stars to avoid this topic. **
Frank Vogel has gone 19-16 with the exact same roster that Jim O’Brien could only go 17-27 with. Not to mention that Frank has had to deal with a serious injury to a starter (Mike’s thumb) and had to readjust the roster on the fly. He has had no training camp, had very limited practice time and not only does he have no head coaching experience but his assistants all have very limited time as lead assistants either.
I don’t care about any excuses about the schedule either prior to or after the coaching change. You play the games the NBA gives you and that is all you can do. Every team has to play the exact same amount of games and while yes certainly there are circumstances that may impact your playing ability overall in an 82 game season it pretty much all works out evenly. It’s kind of like complaining about poor officiating, yes in an isolated case you can get screwed on a call but overall it works out pretty evenly.
But from a personal standpoint I will say this. I like watching this team over 100% more than I ever did at any point in time in the previous 3 ½ years. I don’t understand a stretch four, but I understand old school smash mouth basketball. I don’t understand spreading the floor by taking quick shots early in the shot clock, but I understand taking good shots.
In other words on the offensive end Frank did a 180 with our club and took us away from a perimeter based offense to a team that lives and dies in the paint.
I don’t have to argue the merits of this as the results do that for me.
But if Frank did nothing else at all he did this. He believed in our players, he made certain that they knew that he believed in them. He told us all to jump on board for the end ride because it was going to be a special end of the season.
Jim on the other hand told Larry Bird that this team could not make the playoffs. That’s right he said that this team could not make the playoffs, it’s more fun to type that on a night when the team just secured a playoff berth.
I don’t know if Frank is the best coach to move forward with. I’ll say this, I wouldn’t be offended if that is the way that we chose to go but at the end of the day this is something that we can decide in the off-season.
But I know for damn sure that Jim O’Brien was not a coach we could move forward with and in fact should never have been brought back this year.
So you can either view it as the day Jim O’Brien was fired or the day Frank Vogel was promoted either way works but this was the one day that changed our franchise for this season.
**Ok, I’m done talking about O’Brien now**
I don’t know how we are going to end the year. We may decide we need to win and go into the playoffs with some kind of momentum or we may feel the need to rest Foster (which is what we did vs. the Wizards). Either way I guess I can understand, obviously I prefer to win out but I don’t want anyone with a lingering nagging injury going into the playoffs.
Playoffs…… yea that feels good to type that again.
In the past I’ve never been happy just making the playoffs because I always wanted more. But for this team with what we have been through and where we have come from I want to go ahead and say it. I don’t want the players, coaches or management to think this. But as a fan I’ll think it and I’ll say it out loud.
2010-11 Indiana Pacers NBA Season is a success
P.S. How fitting is this. On a night that we secure a playoff spot Mark Boyle has announced via twitter that Bobby “Slick” Leonard will return the broadcast booth this Friday and will be here for our playoff run. To say that this is amazing is almost an understatement knowing how grave his initial condition was. I guess the only thing to say to that is Boom Baby!
Written by Peck
Link
This is going to be a short Odd Thoughts but there is just no way I could not write something on the night that our beloved Indiana Pacers earned a trip back to the NBA playoffs.
That’s right, EARNED, a trip to the NBA playoffs. Under the rules as they exist, with the standards that are set and the teams that are playing the Pacers EARNED this spot.
What makes me even happier is that we won a game to get in. Yes the Bobcats lost to officially put us over the top but more importantly to me anyway is that we took care of business on our end and won our game and won it in a very convincing way.
Yes I will admit the Wizards were pretty much on cruise control after we took over the lead early on, but we still could have coughed up the lead at many different points in the game but we did not.
Side note: How Flip Saunders has a head coaching job in the NBA has always been a mystery to me.
Anyway I’m not going to review the game because in all honesty it was just a case of a team beating another team mercilessly. Happily our team was on the right end of this.
But I want to take kind of an overview of some things I think have been important in getting us here and hopefully important moving forward.
Mike Dunleavy becoming the 6th man:
Obviously this is controversial because Mike is one of those players you either hate or love and there are very few of us who take the middle ground with him. I just think he makes the second unit a much more fluid and properly functioning unit. Prior to him returning our second unit offense consisted of A.J. Price & Dahntay Jones attempting to go one on one with an occasional Josh Dunk or Brandon three for good measure. Mike changes all of that, he not only scores himself but his off the ball movement and passing ability changes the entire complexion of the second unit and makes that unit a much or potent scoring threat. His defense is good enough to be on this unit and in this position he does not have to defend the Wade’s or Allen’s of the world. I’m also happy that Mike gets to go to the playoffs for the first time in his career still being a contributor and vital piece of the club. Unlike Troy Murphy who bought his way into the playoffs and is really not part of any regular rotation.
Darren Collison hitting his shots:
But more importantly starting to hit his team mates for some easy baskets and increasing his overall assist total upward. Yea he had a few to many turnovers in this game but overall he has been getting a little better about taking care of the ball. He is always going to be a scoring point guard, that’s just what he is, but as long as he looks for other players first that’s all we really can ask from him. I still worry about his defense and I don’t look forward to seeing Derrick Rose run past him on the way to the rim but as long as he tries to keep him in front of him and helps run the offense on the other end I think he will be ok.
Frank Vogel as the head coach:
**Fair warning right now, if you are sick of reading about Jim O’Brien or are a defender of Jim O’Brien you may want to skip the next paragraph. I’m telling you this now because I don’t want to read complaints about “why can’t you let it go” or anything of that nature. If you want to defend him (well good luck to you) that’s fine but we are going to talk about him & I’m not even going to justify why I’m talking about him. Skip down to the next set of stars to avoid this topic. **
Frank Vogel has gone 19-16 with the exact same roster that Jim O’Brien could only go 17-27 with. Not to mention that Frank has had to deal with a serious injury to a starter (Mike’s thumb) and had to readjust the roster on the fly. He has had no training camp, had very limited practice time and not only does he have no head coaching experience but his assistants all have very limited time as lead assistants either.
I don’t care about any excuses about the schedule either prior to or after the coaching change. You play the games the NBA gives you and that is all you can do. Every team has to play the exact same amount of games and while yes certainly there are circumstances that may impact your playing ability overall in an 82 game season it pretty much all works out evenly. It’s kind of like complaining about poor officiating, yes in an isolated case you can get screwed on a call but overall it works out pretty evenly.
But from a personal standpoint I will say this. I like watching this team over 100% more than I ever did at any point in time in the previous 3 ½ years. I don’t understand a stretch four, but I understand old school smash mouth basketball. I don’t understand spreading the floor by taking quick shots early in the shot clock, but I understand taking good shots.
In other words on the offensive end Frank did a 180 with our club and took us away from a perimeter based offense to a team that lives and dies in the paint.
I don’t have to argue the merits of this as the results do that for me.
But if Frank did nothing else at all he did this. He believed in our players, he made certain that they knew that he believed in them. He told us all to jump on board for the end ride because it was going to be a special end of the season.
Jim on the other hand told Larry Bird that this team could not make the playoffs. That’s right he said that this team could not make the playoffs, it’s more fun to type that on a night when the team just secured a playoff berth.
I don’t know if Frank is the best coach to move forward with. I’ll say this, I wouldn’t be offended if that is the way that we chose to go but at the end of the day this is something that we can decide in the off-season.
But I know for damn sure that Jim O’Brien was not a coach we could move forward with and in fact should never have been brought back this year.
So you can either view it as the day Jim O’Brien was fired or the day Frank Vogel was promoted either way works but this was the one day that changed our franchise for this season.
**Ok, I’m done talking about O’Brien now**
I don’t know how we are going to end the year. We may decide we need to win and go into the playoffs with some kind of momentum or we may feel the need to rest Foster (which is what we did vs. the Wizards). Either way I guess I can understand, obviously I prefer to win out but I don’t want anyone with a lingering nagging injury going into the playoffs.
Playoffs…… yea that feels good to type that again.
In the past I’ve never been happy just making the playoffs because I always wanted more. But for this team with what we have been through and where we have come from I want to go ahead and say it. I don’t want the players, coaches or management to think this. But as a fan I’ll think it and I’ll say it out loud.
2010-11 Indiana Pacers NBA Season is a success
P.S. How fitting is this. On a night that we secure a playoff spot Mark Boyle has announced via twitter that Bobby “Slick” Leonard will return the broadcast booth this Friday and will be here for our playoff run. To say that this is amazing is almost an understatement knowing how grave his initial condition was. I guess the only thing to say to that is Boom Baby!
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