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Normally if I get called at a Pacers game for a work related issue I am not happy, if I ever have to leave early for a work related issue I am fuming mad. Not tonight.
Thanks to a fortunate call (this time) from work I was forced to leave the game slightly earlier than I normally do. Oh I could have waited the last 50 some seconds or whatever it was but when Earl Clark pulled up and drained that three like he was Ray Allen both Diamond Dave & myself said that it was okay to take our leave.
If you’re wondering why I am not doing these as often as I was it’s pretty simple. When Danny came back and looked the way he did I was concerned, when he started missing games I started to worry and now that he is in the second week of missing games again, well I’ll just say I’m not in a good place where I can write these without sounding like I have been possessed by Vnzla81.
I knew Danny wasn’t going to be Danny but I was at least hoping beyond hope that he would come in and at the very least provide our bench with some form of offense. I’m not saying he won’t, yes in theory it is possible that he could still come back and be a contributor but right now I’m not counting on it.
And since I no longer am counting on that hope I am all but despondent about the shape of our bench. At this point in time the only hope I have is that our starters can play 40+ a game once we get to the playoffs because our bench is just a disaster. It doesn’t help that I have to sit there and watch Gerald Green sit there game after game knowing that he was our big off season signing (beyond re-signing George & Roy) and knowing that his contract still runs for two more years.
Not that the bench tonight was the reason we lost, they didn’t help but they didn’t play the majority of the game either. I’m just talking about my overall mood at the moment, which is sad because after that G.S. game I was on top of the world.
To say this game was embarrassing would be an understatement. I said to Diamond Dave at the end of the first quarter that we were in deep trouble because Howard was on the bench with 2 early fouls, Bryant wasn’t doing anything and yet we could not put any kind of lead on the board to which they could not come back from.
A few pointless (both literally and figuratively) D.J. Augustine plays later and we were looking up at them in the scoring column.
Our defense was slow all night, rotations were non-existent and the day after I declare David West the best Pacers power forward of the NBA era he turns into the “not me” ghost from family circle. In other words he would not rotate to help on defense and when his team mates would look at him he would fire back “not me”. This happened on more than one occasion btw.
Look I’m going to be the one person who gives Roy Hibbert a break tonight; he missed 4 of his up close shots because he was rushing them to get them up before Howard sent them the other way. Now again he could very easily have grabbed the missed offensive rebound and passed it out but 2 of the 4 were tips or close to it and Howard was within the vicinity. Hard to blame him for rushing the shot but at least he was down there battling all night long, more than I could say for some of the others.
Most of our team was more interested in re-creating the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker as was more than evident when Roy Hibbert masterfully blocked Dwight Howard off of the offensive rebound only to have everyone else stand there and watch as Ron Artest grabs an unmolested rebound for the easiest basket of his entire career. At that point in time I wouldn’t have blamed Roy if he had just decided to do a running clothesline on the next two Pacers he saw.
Don’t get me wrong Roy didn’t have a great game but IMO he was one of the few players that wasn’t taken completely out of the game.
Speaking of being taken out of the game, look everyone knows I love Vogel but he just killed Lance early on tonight. Of course Lance returned the favor later in the game (I’ve never seen Frank so visibly mad at one of our players before) but to start the game once again Frank went to his egg timer that said he had to bring in a bench player and it didn’t matter that Lance at that point in time was going all Hong Kong Phooey, no he had to come out and Orlando had to come in. This killed our momentum as Lance was attacking the Lakers and had them on their heels. Look I know he is a loose cannon but there are times when it is working that you have to let it ride until it ends and this was one of those times. Because typically once he comes out whenever he comes back he is not generally in the flow of the game at that time. Tonight was no exception, he didn’t get on again till the second half and by then he was out of control and caused a momentum killing turn over (which btw he was part of the momentum so it is a double edged sword).
As to the next part I will be as gentile as I know how. Paul George (regardless of whatever his final stats say) did not have a good game. Paul George has actually now had several of what I would call less than stellar games, games where you look at his stats and think that he played well but then if you watch the game you know that something was off. He just settles too much for my taste and 10 three point attempts is vomit inducing to me. His defense was ok although I contend tonight it wasn’t as good as it has been in the past and frankly was punished by Ron Artest all night long.
Tonight let’s just assign McDonald land character names as grades.
Paul George: Ronald McDonald
Big lanky goofy and humorous, yeah that pretty much say’s it all tonight. I really enjoyed his rocket pass standing less than 2 feet away from Roy Hibbert that flew into the stands and nearly killed a fan. Could not contain Ron Artest at all and just could not hit his shot, which is not a problem honestly. But when he started settling for pull up three’s early in the shot clock then that is a problem. I understand that Dwight Howard was in there but he has got to attack him. No the referee’s were not the problem tonight, our fear of Howard was. He got his fourth foul and played the entire second half without fear of fouling out because we did everything but go at him. He finally picked up foul 5 later on.
David West: Grimace
This works on so many levels, first it is the face that he carries 90% of the time and second he moved with the speed and purpose of the character during the game. I told Hicks a week or so ago that the teams that had success with West were not the teams who tried to attack him head on but they would use usually smaller cagey veterans who used leverage and not strength and would take him out by denying position. Then as a bonus if that player could play the three point line on the other end David can be for a short time at least totally taken out of a game. Think what Battier did to him in the playoffs a couple of times and then think about Jamison and Artest doing it tonight. This actually may have been his worst game of the season.
Roy Hibbert: Officer Big Mac
Yea I know you all want me to make him the clown, not going to happen tonight. Look I’ve been plenty tough on Roy this year but IMO this game wasn’t on him, he really tried. And for that he is given the Big Mac moniker as he was attempting to police the interior. Is he as good as Dwight Howard? Hell no! But he at least didn’t defecate on himself when faced with a superior player.
George Hill: Mayor McCheese
Certainly offensively gave the team a lift in the second half, of course once again when called upon to hit a pressure free throw he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that instead of ice water in the veins he had grape jelly. Also how much do we care that he could not keep a nearly 40 year old player in front of him for most of the game? I mean he is one of the all time greats (Nash not Hill) so there is that, but again for the love of God he is beyond old. Also he did take a pop to that jaw early in the game and he was actually spitting blood into a cup, I’m not sure if he got a cut on the lip or something else but kudos to him for soldiering on. However the cheese for me came after the game in his post game comments, which we’ll get to shortly.
Lance Stephenson: Captain Crook
If I were going with Norse Mythology tonight I would have named him Loki the doer of both good and evil. As was aptly stated by Jason Whitlock a couple of weeks ago he is the perfect kind of idiot and this is both part of his charm and his danger. He doesn’t know when he is supposed to be afraid and therefore at times he does breath taking moves that make everyone jump on their feet and declare that we will be just fine without Danny. Then later in the same game he will pull one of the most bone headed plays that make you wonder if Danny in a wheel chair wouldn’t be a better option. Two additional things happened tonight that again can be part of his charm but also goes a long way in explaining why several other media types think we are a punk team. We all saw the flop that he drew that foul on Howard, I am sure he will be getting a letter for the league office of flopping on that one. But earlier he made a spectacular spin move and found Pendegraph for a fantastic dunk. While spinning around Steve Blake he came back to him face to face not 2-3” from him and yelled in his face at the top of his lungs, Blake pushed him which was the reaction he was trying to draw to get a “T” but the refs. missed the entire thing. If anyone remembers when Mark Jackson did this to Pat Ewing years ago it was the same thing.
D.J. Augustine: The Hamburglar
Equally as effective as his name sake. Had one really nice fake pass and drive for a shot but other than that? Nada
The rest of the bench: Fry kids
Just not even worth talking about.
Okay let’s deal with the Lakers fans that were in attendance. Were there a lot of them? Yes, yes there were. I have no idea of the % of fans they had there but it was a good chunk I’ll say that.
Look I’m not defending anyone or anything but I just want to point out a couple of things. There are just certain historic teams that no matter how good or bad they are at the moment transcend the sport they play. These teams have pantheons of fans that are all over the world and they sometimes even have fans that travel with them.
In baseball you have the Yankee’s, in football you have the Packers and to a certain extent the Patriots and in basketball you have the Lakers and to a slightly lesser extent the Celtics.
Not everybody that was there tonight was an Indianapolis resident, they drove in from Dayton, Cincinnati, Louisville & Effingham. Yes there were also fans there from Evansville, Lafayette and sadly right here in Indianapolis. They are going to get tickets, they are always going to get tickets.
I’ll give you the weirdest one of all, the guy who sat right next to us tonight was wearing a Bryant jersey yet he holds a half season Pacers ticket package. He roots on the Pacers every game he is there and never once have we seen him wear another teams jersey. But for whatever reason tonight he did. Now he didn’t cheer one way or the other tonight but it was very strange. No, we didn’t ask why because I value my seats and don’t want to lose them for Diamond Dave fighting with someone.
Now here is where I know people are going to complain and I know that Hill did tonight. The stands should have been filled with Pacers fans. I don’t deny that but like I said about the Bulls fans a couple of weeks ago. They know when these tickets come out and the single ticket Lakers game is probably mostly sold out about a week after individual tickets go on sale, or at least I would bet they were. So in other words this was way before the Pacers were ever winning anything. In other words those Lakers fans already had their tickets.
Frankly I’m getting sick of even hearing about the attendance. I’ve been there for years & I’m telling you this year is the best we have had since the mid 2000’s. Yes there are times that the Bulls or the Lakers or the Celtics come in here and make noise. But just 4 years ago squad 6 from Milwaukee came in here and took over, so IMO we have made giant leaps towards gaining more fans back.
Now not to be rude to George or anything but you are not going to be able to shame fans into attendance. Win and you will get more fans. Look its already happening, we started winning consistently and more nights than not we have good crowds. Hell we almost had 15K for Minnesota on a Wednesday night and we know no one was there to see them, well not many any way.
Also while I know that you can’t win them all, laying an egg in front of a crowded house isn’t going to help anything. The fact that we are now losing to good teams again isn’t much cause for celebration for a die hard like myself let alone John Q Casual. I mean this is now consecutive losses to the Clippers, Celtics, Heat & Lakers. Oh sure we beat the heck out of the Magic and the decimated Wolves but better teams are now looking more and more daunting.
We can’t lose tonight, honestly we can not afford to lose. In fact we have to beat the 76ers the Cavs and the Magic to stay ahead of the Knicks and from what I read tonight it looks like Rose may make his season debut on Monday.
Oh well onto the next one.
Thanks to a fortunate call (this time) from work I was forced to leave the game slightly earlier than I normally do. Oh I could have waited the last 50 some seconds or whatever it was but when Earl Clark pulled up and drained that three like he was Ray Allen both Diamond Dave & myself said that it was okay to take our leave.
If you’re wondering why I am not doing these as often as I was it’s pretty simple. When Danny came back and looked the way he did I was concerned, when he started missing games I started to worry and now that he is in the second week of missing games again, well I’ll just say I’m not in a good place where I can write these without sounding like I have been possessed by Vnzla81.
I knew Danny wasn’t going to be Danny but I was at least hoping beyond hope that he would come in and at the very least provide our bench with some form of offense. I’m not saying he won’t, yes in theory it is possible that he could still come back and be a contributor but right now I’m not counting on it.
And since I no longer am counting on that hope I am all but despondent about the shape of our bench. At this point in time the only hope I have is that our starters can play 40+ a game once we get to the playoffs because our bench is just a disaster. It doesn’t help that I have to sit there and watch Gerald Green sit there game after game knowing that he was our big off season signing (beyond re-signing George & Roy) and knowing that his contract still runs for two more years.
Not that the bench tonight was the reason we lost, they didn’t help but they didn’t play the majority of the game either. I’m just talking about my overall mood at the moment, which is sad because after that G.S. game I was on top of the world.
To say this game was embarrassing would be an understatement. I said to Diamond Dave at the end of the first quarter that we were in deep trouble because Howard was on the bench with 2 early fouls, Bryant wasn’t doing anything and yet we could not put any kind of lead on the board to which they could not come back from.
A few pointless (both literally and figuratively) D.J. Augustine plays later and we were looking up at them in the scoring column.
Our defense was slow all night, rotations were non-existent and the day after I declare David West the best Pacers power forward of the NBA era he turns into the “not me” ghost from family circle. In other words he would not rotate to help on defense and when his team mates would look at him he would fire back “not me”. This happened on more than one occasion btw.
Look I’m going to be the one person who gives Roy Hibbert a break tonight; he missed 4 of his up close shots because he was rushing them to get them up before Howard sent them the other way. Now again he could very easily have grabbed the missed offensive rebound and passed it out but 2 of the 4 were tips or close to it and Howard was within the vicinity. Hard to blame him for rushing the shot but at least he was down there battling all night long, more than I could say for some of the others.
Most of our team was more interested in re-creating the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker as was more than evident when Roy Hibbert masterfully blocked Dwight Howard off of the offensive rebound only to have everyone else stand there and watch as Ron Artest grabs an unmolested rebound for the easiest basket of his entire career. At that point in time I wouldn’t have blamed Roy if he had just decided to do a running clothesline on the next two Pacers he saw.
Don’t get me wrong Roy didn’t have a great game but IMO he was one of the few players that wasn’t taken completely out of the game.
Speaking of being taken out of the game, look everyone knows I love Vogel but he just killed Lance early on tonight. Of course Lance returned the favor later in the game (I’ve never seen Frank so visibly mad at one of our players before) but to start the game once again Frank went to his egg timer that said he had to bring in a bench player and it didn’t matter that Lance at that point in time was going all Hong Kong Phooey, no he had to come out and Orlando had to come in. This killed our momentum as Lance was attacking the Lakers and had them on their heels. Look I know he is a loose cannon but there are times when it is working that you have to let it ride until it ends and this was one of those times. Because typically once he comes out whenever he comes back he is not generally in the flow of the game at that time. Tonight was no exception, he didn’t get on again till the second half and by then he was out of control and caused a momentum killing turn over (which btw he was part of the momentum so it is a double edged sword).
As to the next part I will be as gentile as I know how. Paul George (regardless of whatever his final stats say) did not have a good game. Paul George has actually now had several of what I would call less than stellar games, games where you look at his stats and think that he played well but then if you watch the game you know that something was off. He just settles too much for my taste and 10 three point attempts is vomit inducing to me. His defense was ok although I contend tonight it wasn’t as good as it has been in the past and frankly was punished by Ron Artest all night long.
Tonight let’s just assign McDonald land character names as grades.
Paul George: Ronald McDonald
Big lanky goofy and humorous, yeah that pretty much say’s it all tonight. I really enjoyed his rocket pass standing less than 2 feet away from Roy Hibbert that flew into the stands and nearly killed a fan. Could not contain Ron Artest at all and just could not hit his shot, which is not a problem honestly. But when he started settling for pull up three’s early in the shot clock then that is a problem. I understand that Dwight Howard was in there but he has got to attack him. No the referee’s were not the problem tonight, our fear of Howard was. He got his fourth foul and played the entire second half without fear of fouling out because we did everything but go at him. He finally picked up foul 5 later on.
David West: Grimace
This works on so many levels, first it is the face that he carries 90% of the time and second he moved with the speed and purpose of the character during the game. I told Hicks a week or so ago that the teams that had success with West were not the teams who tried to attack him head on but they would use usually smaller cagey veterans who used leverage and not strength and would take him out by denying position. Then as a bonus if that player could play the three point line on the other end David can be for a short time at least totally taken out of a game. Think what Battier did to him in the playoffs a couple of times and then think about Jamison and Artest doing it tonight. This actually may have been his worst game of the season.
Roy Hibbert: Officer Big Mac
Yea I know you all want me to make him the clown, not going to happen tonight. Look I’ve been plenty tough on Roy this year but IMO this game wasn’t on him, he really tried. And for that he is given the Big Mac moniker as he was attempting to police the interior. Is he as good as Dwight Howard? Hell no! But he at least didn’t defecate on himself when faced with a superior player.
George Hill: Mayor McCheese
Certainly offensively gave the team a lift in the second half, of course once again when called upon to hit a pressure free throw he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that instead of ice water in the veins he had grape jelly. Also how much do we care that he could not keep a nearly 40 year old player in front of him for most of the game? I mean he is one of the all time greats (Nash not Hill) so there is that, but again for the love of God he is beyond old. Also he did take a pop to that jaw early in the game and he was actually spitting blood into a cup, I’m not sure if he got a cut on the lip or something else but kudos to him for soldiering on. However the cheese for me came after the game in his post game comments, which we’ll get to shortly.
Lance Stephenson: Captain Crook
If I were going with Norse Mythology tonight I would have named him Loki the doer of both good and evil. As was aptly stated by Jason Whitlock a couple of weeks ago he is the perfect kind of idiot and this is both part of his charm and his danger. He doesn’t know when he is supposed to be afraid and therefore at times he does breath taking moves that make everyone jump on their feet and declare that we will be just fine without Danny. Then later in the same game he will pull one of the most bone headed plays that make you wonder if Danny in a wheel chair wouldn’t be a better option. Two additional things happened tonight that again can be part of his charm but also goes a long way in explaining why several other media types think we are a punk team. We all saw the flop that he drew that foul on Howard, I am sure he will be getting a letter for the league office of flopping on that one. But earlier he made a spectacular spin move and found Pendegraph for a fantastic dunk. While spinning around Steve Blake he came back to him face to face not 2-3” from him and yelled in his face at the top of his lungs, Blake pushed him which was the reaction he was trying to draw to get a “T” but the refs. missed the entire thing. If anyone remembers when Mark Jackson did this to Pat Ewing years ago it was the same thing.
D.J. Augustine: The Hamburglar
Equally as effective as his name sake. Had one really nice fake pass and drive for a shot but other than that? Nada
The rest of the bench: Fry kids
Just not even worth talking about.
Okay let’s deal with the Lakers fans that were in attendance. Were there a lot of them? Yes, yes there were. I have no idea of the % of fans they had there but it was a good chunk I’ll say that.
Look I’m not defending anyone or anything but I just want to point out a couple of things. There are just certain historic teams that no matter how good or bad they are at the moment transcend the sport they play. These teams have pantheons of fans that are all over the world and they sometimes even have fans that travel with them.
In baseball you have the Yankee’s, in football you have the Packers and to a certain extent the Patriots and in basketball you have the Lakers and to a slightly lesser extent the Celtics.
Not everybody that was there tonight was an Indianapolis resident, they drove in from Dayton, Cincinnati, Louisville & Effingham. Yes there were also fans there from Evansville, Lafayette and sadly right here in Indianapolis. They are going to get tickets, they are always going to get tickets.
I’ll give you the weirdest one of all, the guy who sat right next to us tonight was wearing a Bryant jersey yet he holds a half season Pacers ticket package. He roots on the Pacers every game he is there and never once have we seen him wear another teams jersey. But for whatever reason tonight he did. Now he didn’t cheer one way or the other tonight but it was very strange. No, we didn’t ask why because I value my seats and don’t want to lose them for Diamond Dave fighting with someone.
Now here is where I know people are going to complain and I know that Hill did tonight. The stands should have been filled with Pacers fans. I don’t deny that but like I said about the Bulls fans a couple of weeks ago. They know when these tickets come out and the single ticket Lakers game is probably mostly sold out about a week after individual tickets go on sale, or at least I would bet they were. So in other words this was way before the Pacers were ever winning anything. In other words those Lakers fans already had their tickets.
Frankly I’m getting sick of even hearing about the attendance. I’ve been there for years & I’m telling you this year is the best we have had since the mid 2000’s. Yes there are times that the Bulls or the Lakers or the Celtics come in here and make noise. But just 4 years ago squad 6 from Milwaukee came in here and took over, so IMO we have made giant leaps towards gaining more fans back.
Now not to be rude to George or anything but you are not going to be able to shame fans into attendance. Win and you will get more fans. Look its already happening, we started winning consistently and more nights than not we have good crowds. Hell we almost had 15K for Minnesota on a Wednesday night and we know no one was there to see them, well not many any way.
Also while I know that you can’t win them all, laying an egg in front of a crowded house isn’t going to help anything. The fact that we are now losing to good teams again isn’t much cause for celebration for a die hard like myself let alone John Q Casual. I mean this is now consecutive losses to the Clippers, Celtics, Heat & Lakers. Oh sure we beat the heck out of the Magic and the decimated Wolves but better teams are now looking more and more daunting.
We can’t lose tonight, honestly we can not afford to lose. In fact we have to beat the 76ers the Cavs and the Magic to stay ahead of the Knicks and from what I read tonight it looks like Rose may make his season debut on Monday.
Oh well onto the next one.
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