MAYBE WIN A COUPLE
IN ATLANTA?
IN ATLANTA?
-VS-
Game Time Start: 7:00 PM ET
Where: Philips Arena, Atlanta, GA
Officials: T. Brothers, M. Ayotte, T. Washington, J. Williams
Media Notes: Indiana Notes, Atlanta Notes
Television: / FOX Sports Indiana / SportSouth / NBA TV (Canada)
Radio: WFNI 1070 AM, 107.5 FM / WZGC 92.9 FM
NBA Feeds:
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PACERS Andrew Bynum – racing Fesenko to be Pacers' least effective midseason pivot pickup (out) HAWKS Gustavo Ayon - right shoulder surgery (out) Al Horford - right pectoral muscle surgery (out) John Jenkins - lower back surgery (out) |
Jon Washburn: An In-Depth Look at the Pacers’ Screening in Game Two Over the past month and a half, basketball analysts have tried in vain to figure out what has been wrong with the Indiana offense. The flaws have been far more subtle than normal. Basketball geniuses like Zach Lowe even decided, after much research, that the Pacers are simply “not playing basketball as well.” Indeed, not much has seemed to change in Indiana’s offense from the start of the season. Usage rates for each player have remained remarkably consistent. Only Roy Hibbert has seen his shot attempts decline, and even his decrease in looks hasn’t been an outlier of sorts. The only substantial difference is that the entire team, across the board, seemed to have forgotten how to shoot the ball. After shooting 47% as a team in December, the Pacers shot 45% and 42% in February and March. Still, ardent fans of the Pacers “felt” that something just seemed different. The offense wasn’t flowing the way it should. George Hill was being too passive. Paul George and Lance Stephenson were forcing the issue. Roy Hibbert was being Todd MacCulluch-y. But was there something more tangible? After the Pacers awful loss at home to the Hawks two weeks ago, basketball expert Haralabos Voulgaris tweeted that they went through the whole game without setting a proper screen on offense. Since then, several writers at 8pts9seconds have been wondering if there was more truth to that than anyone wanted to admit. Unfortunately, no real stats (at least stats that are available to the fans and the media) exist regarding in-game screens. It’s borderline amazing the amount of information that the new SportVU cameras have provided us with, and yet, there are still holes in the story. So last night, I decided to watch the game and solely focus on the screens that both teams set throughout the game. Admittedly, this was a tough task, but it did provide us with some interesting information. A few ground rules:
On to the numbers! A few quick notes to summarize:
What was so interesting, though...CONTINUE READING AT 8p9s |
Kevin Zimmerman: Pacers find old magic in 3rd quarter against Hawks The Indiana Pacers regained their attacking defensive mentality and began sharing the ball again, but they especially did so with a few new faces. It started with aggressiveness. The Indiana Pacers trailed the Atlanta Hawks, 52-48, at halftime of Game 2 on Tuesday night, but something looked different to start the third quarter. Offensively, the ball whipped around. Indiana seemed set on posting David West and Roy Hibbert despite the latter's recent woes, and the familiar perimeter starters were neither taking early attempts nor wasting their dribbles. Paul George, Lance Stephenson and George Hill were definitive. Defensively, most of the Hawks' shots were contested. Even Hibbert, for as bad of a matchup the floor-stretching Hawks are for him, was getting a hand up on perimeter shots and working to recover after the fact. On pick-and-rolls, he wasn't being picked on, either. The Pacers, led by a determined George, were getting deflections and putting enough pressure on the ball to get Atlanta out of rhythm. But after all that, the Pacers went into a timeout with just a 68-65 lead and 3:30 to play in the third quarter. Head coach Frank Vogel substituted C.J. Watson and Ian Mahinmi and kept starters George, Hill and West on the court. That's when the dam burst, leading to a 101-85 Pacers win. Indiana finished the quarter on an 11-0 run after the timeout, and behind a smaller lineup finally broke the Hawks' offense. It was so hectic that even somewhat open looks by Atlanta felt rushed as the Pacers ran at the shooters. The Hawks missed their final six shot attempts, and by the end of the period had gone 5-for-20 from the floor. The bench trio of Lou Williams, Shelvin Mack and Mike Scott went 0-for- 7 combined. Offensively, the Pacers went 12-for-16 on field goals and had eight assists. Indiana took 18 spot-up attempts for the game, scoring at a blistering 1.4 points per possession, according to Synergy Sports, but the third quarter was different. In the final three-plus minutes, West bullied his way inside and then twice found Hill cutting to the hoop for two of the point guard's five baskets in the quarter, all of which were in the paint. George capped the third...CONTINUE READING AT SB NATION |
Matt Dollinger: Pacers take frustrations out on Hawks to even series After sleepwalking through the first six quarters of the playoffs (and the last month of the regular season), the Indiana Pacers snapped out of their extended snooze Tuesday, clobbering the Atlanta Hawks 101-85 in Game 2 to even their first-round series 1-1. The Pacers aren’t back, but they’re at least starting to get up. Let’s keep Indiana’s blowout Game 2 victory in perspective. Beating a sub-.500 team at home is several hundred miles short of the NBA’s mountain top. There’s no denying that Indy’s 16-pt win was a promising sign for a team that resembled a blue-and-gold dumpster fire three days ago, but the Pacers still have plenty of problems to figure out. They trailed by double-digits in the first half once again against Atlanta and didn’t start to resemble the team that claimed the East’s No. 1 seed until midway through the third quarter. That’s when a month of frustrating, fatigue, fed-up stars and frankly horrible basketball spilled over and swept the Hawks away. Indiana closed the third quarter on a 24-6 run and capped the period with a buzzer-beating three-pointer from Paul George (27 points, 10 rebounds and six assists) that brought a cathartic explosion from the Fieldhouse. It was more a celebration of relief than joy. Finally. Indiana had been suffocating in a cloud of losing for over four weeks. Finally, it had a feel-good moment to rally around. Finally, it started to look like the team that was consensus title contender the first four months of the season. The Pacers went on to outscore the Hawks 55-33 in the second half, cruising to a much- needed win before heading to Atlanta for two games. But they would be foolish to let its guard down now. This is a team that lost 10 of 13 games at one point during March and April and got outplayed by one of the worst No. 8 seeds in NBA history for the first six quarters of this series. Several issues remain glaring, none more unsightly than the Pacers’ 7-foot-2 quandary of a center, Roy Hibbert. Indy seems dead-set on force-feeding Hibbert until he shoots himself out of his slump, something that might not be the wisest strategy. Hibbert scored just six points and shot 1-of-7 in Game 2. Over his last 15 games, he’s shooting only 29.5 percent. That’s a startling number for any player, much less one with a significant height advantage that attempts almost 70 percent of his shots from within 10 feet of the hoop. Game 2 gave Indiana a series-squaring win and a sense of optimism — but not a solution for every one of its issues accumulated over the last four weeks. The Pacers needed Luis Scola. Of course, he was ready. This season has been a tough adjustment...CONTINUE READING AT THE POINT FORWARD |
Increased Transparency Reveal Awards Voting is More Broken Than We Thought The most fun sideshow of the playoffs is awards season, where seemingly every day a new award winner is announced. Nothing will top Dirk Nowitzki accepting the MVP trophy while his Mavericks were getting bludgeoned by the eight seed Warriors in 2007, but this awards season does have a new wrinkle: transparency. Due to pressure from the Professional Basketball Writers Association (of which I am a member), and especially President Mary Schmitt Boyer, this year all award votes are made public. The call for this to happen intensified last year when a lone voter prevented LeBron James from an MVP sweep, inexplicably voting for Carmelo Anthony instead. Dan Le Batard took advantage of the anonymous nature of the balloting and trolled everybody by pretending it was him for awhile before Boston Globe columnist revealed in a column that he was the one that had voted for Anthony. In the abstract, increased transparency is a good thing and I fully support the PBWA’s push to make this happen. But just a few votes in, increased transparency has raised many more questions than it has answered. Why are team and quasi-team employees allowed to vote? Sam Smith, a writer for Bulls.com has a vote. John Denton, a writer for OrlandoMagic .com has a vote. Walt Frazier, broadcaster for the MSG Network (whose executive chairman is Knicks owner James Dolan) has a vote. Chris Marlowe and Jason Kosmicki of Altitude Sports and Entertainment (owned by Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke) have votes. I’m sure there are more examples if I delved into the ownership structure of every regional sports network, but you get the point. The conflicts of interest here are huge and obvious. Do any of these voters feel pressure—whether explicit or implicit—from their employers on who to vote for? Do they feel it necessary to support certain candidates to stay in the good graces of the person who cuts the paychecks? For their part, the NBA is unconcerned, with NBA Senior VP of Communications Tim Frank telling me that while the NBA monitors all votes, they aren’t really concerned and, “just haven’t seen any type of bias”. That may well be true, but when it comes to conflicts of interest, the appearance of one can be just as damaging as a conflict itself. This concern is also present, though not as acute, for people who aren’t employees but regularly cover one team. Arizona Diamondbacks beat writer Nick Piecoro, for instance, wrote a great piece on how teammates griped when he didn’t vote for Brandon Webb as Cy Young, and generally the pressure he feels as an awards voters. His conclusion though, seems sound: “hiding behind anonymity isn’t the answer”. Why does the media even vote on awards in the first place? For six years the AP’s college football rankings were a major component of the formula that determined which two teams played in the college football national championship game. But in 2004 the AP pulled out, with the AP’s sports editor saying the decision was, “prompted by reading and hearing stories from voters of ethical concerns and harassing e-mail messages and phone calls.” The Charlotte Observer’s sports editor said, “’My issue was with the ethics of reporters determining where all that money went. I didn’t think that was right.” These concerns aren’t quite as pronounced...CONTINUE READING AT THE DISS |
Pacers Candace Buckner @CandaceDBuckner Jared Wade @8pts9secs Tim Donahue @TimDonahue8p9s Tom Lewis @indycornrows Ian Levy @HickoryHigh Whitney @its_whitney |
Hawks Chris Vivlamore @ajchawks Jason Walker @JasonWalkerSBN Kris Willis @Kris_Willis Bo Churney @bochurney Raj Prashad @RajPrashad Co Co @cocoqt81 |
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