I won’t be a wet blanket and complain about how it took us overtime & two record breaking performances to beat a team minus it’s two best players who were on the back end of a back to back.
I’ll just take the win and be happy with it. As it stands right now we have clawed our way up to 9th in the East, sadly we face the Spurs on Friday and then embark on a west coast trip that usually, even in the good years, is troubling. Last season we did very well out west but that was last season.
Chicago has been faltering lately & I’m sorry but I’m not sold on the Bucks for the long term. I believe in Scott Skiles but I just don’t believe in their roster. So what I’m trying to say is that if we can get things turned around we still can probably get a playoff spot & there is an outside chance, very outside, that we might be able to keep the Central race interesting for the year.
I’ll just get this out of the way up front. Congratulations to Paul George, he had a record breaking game and he deserves to have the accolades being thrown his way. Obviously I believe tonight’s game was pyrite but at the very least it did save the game for us. If nothing else let us hope and pray that he now can come out of his funk and become the scorer we so desperately need. Obviously I don’t like the three point shot all that well so while I appreciate his affinity towards it I hope he starts to mix it up more and drive, drive, drive to the basket.
Roy Hibbert definitely controlled the defensive paint tonight, not only did he block 11 shots but he scared poor old Roberts out of what should have been a pretty easy layup just by rotating over.
This is now the second good game in a row from Roy (yes I know he was abysmal from the field but baby steps people baby steps) and right now he needs to know we need him to lock down the defensive end and rebound & he did both tonight very well. Robin Lopez & Jason Smith both tried to be very physical with Roy & it never really worked on him.
Tonight we will just do some bulletpoints to get us through the night.
• The most impressive thing about George’s game was that he scored 33 of his 37 points after the half. What people may not have noticed was the Paul got benched for fouls & frankly poor play in the first quarter & Lance not Paul was the first wing brought back in. Not sure if this lit a fire or not, if so then by all means let’s do this again.
• Lance Stephenson to me is the most fun player to watch on the floor. This guy can do anything with panache & flair including making mistakes. He had a move he put on tonight where he dribbled away from the basket drawing the defender out then slicing & cutting quickly to the rack for two. 12/5/5 is a solid if not spectacular game. I’m confident he should be the 5th starter till Danny returns.
• I hate Ryan Anderson with the passion of a white hot sun. Maybe it’s still just the lingering affects of so many years of the stretch 4
but he & Novak make me vomit in my mouth every time I see them.
• How did Lance Stephenson’s head foul Jason Smiths forearm? I actually thought that they were going to blow a flagrant one on Smith when I nearly seized when they blew the foul on Lance. I haven’t seen it again but watching it live it looked like a pretty cheap shot by Smith.
• Speaking of Smith, cheap shots aside, I don’t know what he contract is but I bet the Hornets are getting better value out of him than we are out of Mahinmi.
• We are not going to be able to continue to play West & Hibbert this many minutes a game for the long haul. This sadly is all on Mahinmi & not Tyler because West has to come in & play alongside of Tyler when Ian does his disappearing act. He didn’t have a hideous game but you just can not leave him out there for any length of time right now. So far I’m still missing Lou.
• What is wrong with me that makes me not be able to appreciate Gerald Green’s game? I mean he plays fairly solid & once again tonight he didn’t have a bad game but whenever he is in I find myself counting down the time till either Lance or Paul comes back.
• Sam was atrocious from the field. Good hustle & defense as always but man was he ice cold from the field.
• I really, really, really wanted Roy’s put back dunk to be the game winner but alas overtime was in the mix.
• Tyler is just ridicules about drawing fouls. Thank God tonight he decided to hit them. Solid energy & general mayhem which is his job so pretty decent night from him.
• Augustin looked a little more alive tonight than normal, makes me wonder if running with Hill isn’t what he wants. Had a good steal and had a nice pass (although it looked like it was going to go to the moon when he threw it) for a Green dunk.
• I credit a lot of tonight’s win from a surprise visit pre-game from the Captain Danny Granger.![wink](https://www.pacersdigest.com/core/images/smilies/wink_pd.gif)
Ok, let’s regroup for Thanksgiving. We now are on a two game winning streak and certainly we have seen some improvement from the Bucks debacle of last week, even the N.Y. loss looked better than the Milwaukee loss (not that you should look good in a loss but you get my point). So maybe we can put this early season malaise behind us and keep us hovering around the .500%. It’s going to be very hard to do this because the December schedule looks pretty daunting. But for tonight we celebrate & party up.
I’ll just take the win and be happy with it. As it stands right now we have clawed our way up to 9th in the East, sadly we face the Spurs on Friday and then embark on a west coast trip that usually, even in the good years, is troubling. Last season we did very well out west but that was last season.
Chicago has been faltering lately & I’m sorry but I’m not sold on the Bucks for the long term. I believe in Scott Skiles but I just don’t believe in their roster. So what I’m trying to say is that if we can get things turned around we still can probably get a playoff spot & there is an outside chance, very outside, that we might be able to keep the Central race interesting for the year.
I’ll just get this out of the way up front. Congratulations to Paul George, he had a record breaking game and he deserves to have the accolades being thrown his way. Obviously I believe tonight’s game was pyrite but at the very least it did save the game for us. If nothing else let us hope and pray that he now can come out of his funk and become the scorer we so desperately need. Obviously I don’t like the three point shot all that well so while I appreciate his affinity towards it I hope he starts to mix it up more and drive, drive, drive to the basket.
Roy Hibbert definitely controlled the defensive paint tonight, not only did he block 11 shots but he scared poor old Roberts out of what should have been a pretty easy layup just by rotating over.
This is now the second good game in a row from Roy (yes I know he was abysmal from the field but baby steps people baby steps) and right now he needs to know we need him to lock down the defensive end and rebound & he did both tonight very well. Robin Lopez & Jason Smith both tried to be very physical with Roy & it never really worked on him.
Tonight we will just do some bulletpoints to get us through the night.
• The most impressive thing about George’s game was that he scored 33 of his 37 points after the half. What people may not have noticed was the Paul got benched for fouls & frankly poor play in the first quarter & Lance not Paul was the first wing brought back in. Not sure if this lit a fire or not, if so then by all means let’s do this again.
• Lance Stephenson to me is the most fun player to watch on the floor. This guy can do anything with panache & flair including making mistakes. He had a move he put on tonight where he dribbled away from the basket drawing the defender out then slicing & cutting quickly to the rack for two. 12/5/5 is a solid if not spectacular game. I’m confident he should be the 5th starter till Danny returns.
• I hate Ryan Anderson with the passion of a white hot sun. Maybe it’s still just the lingering affects of so many years of the stretch 4
![shudder](https://www.pacersdigest.com/core/images/smilies/shudder.gif)
• How did Lance Stephenson’s head foul Jason Smiths forearm? I actually thought that they were going to blow a flagrant one on Smith when I nearly seized when they blew the foul on Lance. I haven’t seen it again but watching it live it looked like a pretty cheap shot by Smith.
• Speaking of Smith, cheap shots aside, I don’t know what he contract is but I bet the Hornets are getting better value out of him than we are out of Mahinmi.
• We are not going to be able to continue to play West & Hibbert this many minutes a game for the long haul. This sadly is all on Mahinmi & not Tyler because West has to come in & play alongside of Tyler when Ian does his disappearing act. He didn’t have a hideous game but you just can not leave him out there for any length of time right now. So far I’m still missing Lou.
• What is wrong with me that makes me not be able to appreciate Gerald Green’s game? I mean he plays fairly solid & once again tonight he didn’t have a bad game but whenever he is in I find myself counting down the time till either Lance or Paul comes back.
• Sam was atrocious from the field. Good hustle & defense as always but man was he ice cold from the field.
• I really, really, really wanted Roy’s put back dunk to be the game winner but alas overtime was in the mix.
• Tyler is just ridicules about drawing fouls. Thank God tonight he decided to hit them. Solid energy & general mayhem which is his job so pretty decent night from him.
• Augustin looked a little more alive tonight than normal, makes me wonder if running with Hill isn’t what he wants. Had a good steal and had a nice pass (although it looked like it was going to go to the moon when he threw it) for a Green dunk.
• I credit a lot of tonight’s win from a surprise visit pre-game from the Captain Danny Granger.
![wink](https://www.pacersdigest.com/core/images/smilies/wink_pd.gif)
Ok, let’s regroup for Thanksgiving. We now are on a two game winning streak and certainly we have seen some improvement from the Bucks debacle of last week, even the N.Y. loss looked better than the Milwaukee loss (not that you should look good in a loss but you get my point). So maybe we can put this early season malaise behind us and keep us hovering around the .500%. It’s going to be very hard to do this because the December schedule looks pretty daunting. But for tonight we celebrate & party up.
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