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FICKS THE KNICKS
WITH
REGGIE AND HAYWOOD
WITH
REGGIE AND HAYWOOD
-VS-
Game Time Start: 8:00 PM ET
Where: The Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
Officials: D. Stafford, D. Collins, H. Workman
Media Notes: Indiana Notes, New York Notes
Television: TNT / MSG / TSN 2 (Canada)
Radio: WFNI 1070 AM / WEPN 98.7 FM
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 PACERS Danny Granger - left knee tendinosis (out) George Hill - bronchitis-itis (probabable) KNICKS Carmelo Anthony - curling up with some Cheerios (suspended) Raymond Felton - fractured right finger (out) Iman Shumpert - torn left ACL and meniscus (out) Rasheed Wallace - sore left foot (questionable) |
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Tim Donahue: Paul George Scary Good in Statement Win Over the Heat Indiana defeated the Miami Heat 87-77 Tuesday night in Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Itโs a regular season game in early January, so the effects are little more than palliative, but there are still some things that shone through tonight. First, the Pacers defense is as serious as a heart attack. Coming into the night, Indy was #1 in the Association in defensive efficiency, allowing fewer than 96 points per 100 possessions overall. They were also the best at home, allowing fewer than 94 points per 100. Miamiโs 109 points per 100 was third in the NBA, and their 105/100 was fifth best away from home. The Pacers held the Heat to a season-low 77 points, and only 93 points per 100. After falling behind 51-44 with 8:23 left in the third, Indy allowed only 26 points over the final 20 minutes. Second, Paul George is not kidding around. In a contest against the two best wings โ arguably best players โ in the game today, Paul George took a turn as the best player in the building. In a 12-minute stretch from the 8-minute mark in the third to the 8-minute mark in the fourth, the Pacers hung a 33-9 drubbing on the defending champs. Paul George โ by himself โ outscored Miami 17-9 and almost matched their six rebounds with five of his own. Itโs difficult to tell what the crowning moment of the night was for the third year player out of Fresno State. Was it the pull up three to extend the lead back after Miami started to dig back in? Was it the post up on James, where he stuck a turnaround 15-footer in his mug? Was it the game long defensive effort on James and Wade? Doesnโt matter...CONTINUE READING AT 8p9s |
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| Dan Divine: Paul George outduels LeBron as Pacers serve notice that theyโre still here Last year, the Indiana Pacers didn't get much national attention until late in the season, when they'd already cemented themselves as one of the league's best, most balanced teams. After winning a playoff series and giving the Miami Heat all they could handle in the second round, the Pacers didn't catch anyone by surprise this year; most observers (us included) picked the Pacers to win the Central Division and again challenge for the conference crown. But then Danny Granger hurt his left knee, taking away the Pacers' leading scorer. Center Roy Hibbert and point guard George Hill struggled to live up to their big new contracts, and offseason acquisitions D.J. Augustin, Gerald Green and Ian Mahinmi were awful for the season's first month. The biggest thing, though? Paul George โ the team's first-round pick in 2010, a long, skilled and super-athletic two-way player who took a big step in his second season and looked poised to become a matchup nightmare in Year 3 โ stumbled, too. The 22-year-old swingman struggled when asked to assume Granger's offensive role, shooting less than 40 percent from the floor over the season's first month and looking less than stellar in his first crack at being a primary NBA scoring threat. As a result, last season's top-10 offense plummeted to the league's third worst after 16 games (and would've been worse if not for metronome-steady power forward David West) and only the NBA's stingiest defense kept the Pacers at .500. Indy already suffered nationally from a lack of stars; now they were a starless team with underperforming pieces that couldn't score and turned most games into grind-it-out rockfights. And so, folks haven't talked about them much. That might change after Tuesday's home win over the Heat, though. Because while the underlying story is the Pacer D holding Miami's No. 3-ranked offense to a season -low 77 points and less than one point per possession for just the fourth time this season (thanks, Kevin Pelton), the overarching one is that, while the rest of us weren't watching, George has started playing like a star. A 29-point, 11-rebound, one-turnover performance turned in primarily against LeBron James tends to make folks stand up and take notice of that. Twenty-two of George's team-high 29 came after halftime, including 12 (on 5 for 9 shooting) in a critical third quarter in which he nearly outscored the clamped-down Heat himself by himself, tilting the game in Indy's favor and putting the Pacers in position for a statement win to celebrate coach Frank Vogel's recently signed contract extension. After the game, George made no attempt to downplay how important it was for him to perform well against the reigning regular-season and NBA Finals MVP, according to Cliff Brunt of The Associated Press: "It's a chance to for me to see where I'm at, going against one of the best, if not, the best in the league," George said. "Another challenge to myself to go at LeBron. I definitely wanted to battle him." And he did, using his 6-foot-10 frame to harass James into a 4-for-10 first half before shaking off his own early offensive struggles to get loose in the second half. He didn't hold the MVP down entirely โ James finished with 22 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and two blocks, though he also turned the ball over an uncharacteristic seven times โ but on Tuesday night he gave the Pacers an edge in a matchup that Miami certainly isn't accustomed to losing, or even having in question. It was a pretty monstrous role reversal from the last time the two players met, in the second round of the 2012 Eastern Conference playoffs, which the Pacers lost four games to two as George shot just 36.5 percent from the floor and frequently seemed tentative in his attempts to defend James and running buddy Dwyane Wade. As Vogel sees it, for George to turn the tables at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Tuesday was just another big step in an ongoing series of them, according to Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star: โIt was huge for him,โ Vogel said. โHe took it very, very personal, not just what he did last year in the regular season, but he did not have a good series. He took a lot of criticism. It was very important to him to be assertive and to prove heโs growing. Heโs really blossoming in front of our eyes.โ The growth has been evident over the past five weeks, which have seen George average 18.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.6 steals per game and shoot 44 percent from the floor, 37 percent from 3-point range and 81 percent on free throws. This includes a pair of down performances in Indy's recent back-to-back against the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks; before that, as SB Nation's Paul Flannery noted, George had averaged 21/8/4/2 on 47 percent from the field and 41 percent from 3 over his previous 15 games. George's offensive uptick has coincided...CONTINUE READING AT BALL DON'T LIE |
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Pacers Mike Wells @MikeWellsNBA Jared Wade @8pts9secs Tim Donahue @TimDonahue8p9s Tom Lewis @indycornrows |
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