You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story

[BlindSideNZ]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story

Glad to see you back for another trek. Interesting concept. Look forward to seeing how it plays out.

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story

enjoyed reading about your trades I know your good at that kinda stuff

Thanks! I figured, with how all bunched up the playoff teams were here, that no one would be looking to rock the boat too hard. Lots of middling teams that can still make a push to get into the postseason once the ASB ends -- Denver is close to getting Millsap back after he's been gone months, the Spurs are expecting Kawhi back sometime in late March, and the Suns are in striking distance.

Should the Suns/Nuggets fall short (very possible), I expect them to blow it up in lots of ways (pink slips for the coaches, trades galore).

In the East, it's a rat race for the final two playoff spots -- one of the 76ers, Knicks, or Hornets ain't making it, the Pistons and Celtics are not doing great, and the Bucks (after an abysmal start) are making up ground, but likely are done for the year (and so may be Kidd too). Plenty of storylines in the offseason, where the league will see a major shakeup I predict, but I decided to keep the deadline kinda quiet this time around.

Glad to see you back for another trek. Interesting concept. Look forward to seeing how it plays out.

Thanks! Glad to see you back in these parts. I'm enjoying this one so far and hopefully will be able to take it really deep.

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story




Ch. 13

The final game we had before the ASB was against the new look Knicks, who were rolling with George Hill as their starter. There was a time, in the history of the Knicks and Pacers, where the two teams were heated rivals. But that was the 90s — the Knicks fell into a pit and pretty much didn’t emerge once it hit the 21st century. Where the Pacers had some success to look back on (a Finals appearance, multiple playoff victories), the Knicks had … scandals. Losing seasons. Blown draft picks. Bonehead trades.

I didn’t consider the Knicks a rival. Entering the league, the Heat and Pistons were the teams I treated like rivals. LeBron and the Cavs technically were, but LeBron was on another *ucking level — hard to be a rival to a demi-god of the basketball world.

The Knicks came into our place and we had a throwback night to the early 2000s. We donned the yellow pinstripes, the Knicks tossed on their early 2000s uniforms (the ones with black in it for some odd reason), and the game wasn’t really much of a contest. George Hill could not guard me. The Knicks had no answer for what I was doing and though Porzingis was good, he wasn’t good enough to carry his squad to victory.

It only got interesting in garbage time, where the Knicks tried to make up for playing like garbage for two-thirds of the game and got within six points of us. We had been playing with the backups at that point, with about 3:23 to go, but McHale stuck all the starters back in and we closed the door on them hard.

The loss put the Knicks three games under .500 and the win put us another step closer to securing a playoff spot that wasn’t the *ucking 8th seed.

The break arrived and we all finally got a chance to catch our breath. Thanks to how weak the East was (at least compared to the West), I was named to the All-Star Team.

And since I was already there, I entered the Dunk Contest — I wanted to do something that LeBron wouldn’t do, and that was win the dunk contest. I mean, sure, he was clearly a better dunker and player than anyone in the league, but he didn’t have a contest win to his name. It wasn’t exactly an illustrious group since the dawn of the 21st century, but I wanted in.

It was tight contest — Ferguson really gave me a challenge, but I pulled it out.

The weekend was a huge success — I met a lot of guys that I normally wouldn’t get to meet and most of them were quite complimentary to me. You spend so much time watching a guy on TV and reading articles about him, but it’s amazing how little the public actually knows those people. It was good to be an All-Star and I planned to make my way back there as often as I could.

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story




Ch. 14

After the ASB, we went on a three-game win streak against garbage squads — the Hawks twice, then the Mavericks, all on the road. They were good wins, solid wins, but they weren’t against teams with top-tier talent but that changed when we faced the Bucks.

Milwaukee had been hit with injuries earlier in the year and lost key contributors on the bench and in the starters for stretches … and they soon found themselves in a hole they couldn’t climb out of. It was crazy to see how much talent that team had, and yet had poor they were playing — rumors around the NBA indicated that Jason Kidd was done there unless the Bucks had a stellar post-ASB run.

They came out hyped — playing at home, they were clearly energized. They had pride on the line. We were the team they were supposed to be … if we won that game, we’d be first in the whole conference. To think, our team, a bunch of guys people overlooked or called overrated, was about to be first? It was something that was on all our minds. The Bucks knew it, too, and the first quarter of that game was playoff intensity.

Guys were chippy, fouls were hard, defense on both sides was vice-like. We couldn’t get inside the paint and neither could they — they couldn’t hit any deep balls and neither could we. The first nine minutes of that quarter, we were in a deadlock tie, 19 all. But then the subs came in and the Bucks bench, a weakness, showed just how weak it was - we put them on BLAST.

It started with Lance doing what he does, making a mess of things — he went inside, got fouled, started jawing, hit his shots. He was playing with swagger — Lance was the quintessential “irrational confidence guy” that every team needed. He was a Nick Young, JR Smith type — a guy who never met a shot he wouldn’t take and, even if he missed, would load up again. Defenses couldn’t sag off him too much not because he was deadly from everywhere on the floor, but because he when he got hot, he got HOT.

Lance got hot towards the end of the first and he rubbed off in a big way on the rest of the bench — ROLO (Robin Lopez) absolutely fed off Lance’s energy and started sending shots back like he was a grumpy newspaper editor crushing the dreams of rookie writers. The Bucks looked flustered and Lance even hit a triple from the corner to keep them really honest — they fell behind by five at the end of the quarter.

In the second, it was time to feast. The bench demolished the Bucks bench and we rolled. The bench wasn’t thing less than amazing and us starters fed off them heading into the half. In the third, McHale played the bench heavy minutes and they responded in a big way — Mudiay and Sabonis especially. The two were in the zone with each other, playing on the same wave-length like they were of the same *ucking mind.

We waltzed in the fourth too, playing guys who barely saw any minutes — TJ Leaf, Dante Cunningham, and Valentine — and after we won the game, we were in first place.

The next morning, it was announced that Jason Kidd had been fired. He was the first to get axed that season, but he sure wasn’t the last.

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story




Ch. 15

The biggest game of our season was against the Warriors — a team that was 53-19, tied with the Rockets for 1st out West, and was an absolute nightmare to defend. The Warriors were the apex of team basketball — what LeBron was to the individual player, the Warriors were to teams: a demi-god.

We were locked in a three-way tie between the Cavs and the Raptors for the 1st seed out East at 46-28. We were well above .500 and I, for one, felt like our best basketball was ahead of us … our bench was set, our starters knew their positions and jobs, and I was running on all cylinders. I was excited to pit myself against the greatest shooter in the modern NBA and, arguably, in all of NBA history. Steph Curry wasn’t a joke.

The 1st quarter was a series of runs, back and forth, between the teams. We leapt out to a 7-0 lead and effectively silenced the Warriors for the first three minutes of the game. Golden State blitzed us with a barrage of triples from Curry and Durant, and our 7-0 lead was gone in the blink of an eye. That’s how the Warriors played — no lead was safe, no way could you count them out. The weakest position on the floor for them was at center, a strength of ours thanks to Myles Turner.

And Myles was an absolute *ucking rockstar in that opening quarter. He led it rain from deep, spotting up all over the arc and keeping McGee from camping in the paint. It helped keep us alive as the Warriors just opened a can of whoop*ss on us towards the end of the first. We were down by 5 and it felt like the beginning of a flood.

But McHale kept us level. He had played against this team — a lot as a HC of the Rockets — and he knew what they were. The Warriors had few weaknesses, but size was one of them; if we kept grabbing the rebounds, kept playing at our pace, and hit our open shots, we could win this. His pep talk was exactly what we needed to hear and in the second, the bench unit came in.

ROLO and Lance led the way — ROLO had himself a party sucking in boards and bumping guys on their shots. We funneled all the drives to him and it helped us climb back into the game. His defensive energy lit a fire under me and I started slamming the ball all over whomever was guarding me; they wanted to dare me to get inside and score … so I took that dare.

We managed secure a 65-62 lead heading into halftime. We were feeling it and, if I’m honest, we were feeling ourselves. We didn’t have a Durant or a Curry or a Thompson … we weren’t expected to hang around with these guys, let alone win.

The Warriors didn’t look worried at all at halftime, a sure sign we should have been but we were too busy celebrating not being down 20 points. We’d seen the Warriors do that to people and it wasn’t pretty. We didn’t want to be in that club (even though each and every damn one of us knew that, in all likelihood, we’d join that club at some point).

In the third, Steph Curry and the Warriors unleashed a devastating 13-1 run on us and nearly buried us. McHale took not one, but two timeouts in the first four minutes of the quarter. He stuck me back in early and, very simply, told me “to get control of *ucking game!”

He was a bit hot under the collar, but he was right, we were choking it away. I came in but the Warriors were constantly double-teaming me — which meant I had to toss the ball to someone else. Usually, that someone was Faried because he was the weakest offensive link we had. It wasn’t a bad strategy at all and the Manimal missed some bunnies, but he came back and played fierce defense on the other end. The third was about us climbing our way out of another hole and we did, slowly but surely, claw our way back. Towards the end of the quarter, we were up 94-93 after nailing an open triple from the corner.

With 12.2 seconds left, Curry grabbed the ball, slowly walked it up the court, passed off, ran off a quick screen, got it back and nailed a deep triple. Just like that, were down 96-94 going into the final frame. In the fourth, we went back and forth, back and forth, and were down by 8 with under 3:00 to go.

And that’s when I decided to see just how well I could play against Curry. They had bottled me up in the third and I passed off … not in the fourth. I took it into the teeth of the defense, I ran pull-up triples off screens, I faded on picks and passed only to wide-open people. We were so close — we had the Warriors on the ropes, nearly mounting the full comeback. With 17.3 seconds left I scored a floater over the outstretched arms of McGee and we were down 133-132. Thompson got the ball on the inbound and we fouled him immediately.

With the crowd dead silent, Thompson clanked the first free throw off the side of the rim. He nailed the second one, but they were only up by two points. We took a timeout, inbounded the ball to me upcourt and the Warriors instantly doubled. I passed to the Manimal and he slammed it home with 11.1 seconds left.

Tie game. The Warriors took a timeout, they went upcourt, and inbounded the ball to Curry. I bodied him up and he dribbled, and dribbled, and dribbled, and then passed off to a cutting Durant.

Robinson was on him — GR3 was stuck on him like glue but Durant raised up and knocked down the gamewinner. That was it — we lost on a last-second three that never seemed in doubt.

It was a tough one, but for that one game we went toe-to-toe with the best in the league. Even if we lost, we learned that we could not only hang in there, but we could win … all we needed was one more shot and we would have walked out of Oracle Arena with a W.

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story




Ch. 16

It took us the to the final game of the season against the Hornets to notch our 50th win. It was the first time since the 2013-14 season that we got past 49. There was only one guy left on the roster who had been around for that — Lance. This win, coming against Charlotte (who paid him a lot of money to be a big part of their team and then traded him when he struggled) meant a lot to Lance. He was a leader on this team, hard as it was to believe for any casual fan. They remembered Lance as the knucklehead, but he meant a lot to the Pacers.

The regular season ended that night with us as winners. The NBA announced the award winners the next day. The races for the hardware were pretty tight across the board.

But the winners certainly were worthy — I didn’t have any real disagreements with any of the choices.

The All-NBA teams were pretty tightly contested too — there was just so much damn talent in the league, it was hard to pick who went where.

The final standings put us as the 2nd seed in the entire conference — a far cry from where people were projecting us to be at the beginning of the season. Gramps had put his full faith in the team and the front office, and it had been rewarded — first year of ownership and he helped secure a top-seed in the conference. Not too shabby, especially considering how he came in guns blazing.

“We’re here now, boy. We’re here now and we have to be here in the future,” Gramps told me when the regular season was over. “Just take it one game at a time from this point on … the playoffs are where amazing happens, Jack. Let’s give the fans some amazing, huh?”

It was as much a hope as it was an objective. We were in good shape going into the playoffs, we had no injuries to speak of and most of the playoff teams were also pretty healthy. Injuries had hit a lot of guys playing for the garbage squads … but there was one injury that was definitely on everyone’s radar, and that was Steph Curry.

He was a bit banged up and the Spurs, playing their final game of the year against the Pelicans, won it so they could match up against Rockets — they were more confident they could stifle Chris Paul and James Harden, two players the Spurs had had past success against.

The poor Pelicans got stuck with the Warriors, who had eaten Anthony Davis alive the last time he made the playoffs. This time he had more help, but it was likely NOLA was going to be slaughtered again — and Boogie Cousins was still uncommitted to the team long-term.

We got a match against our division rivals, the Pistons, who had limped into the playoffs. They were not as good as us — that much I knew. But they also had way more playoff experience than we did. In the postseason, the game was different … a division match raised the stakes of the games to even higher levels.

It was going to be up all of us to prove we weren’t some fluke. I wasn’t sure if we could … but I was sure as hell was going to try.

(Random number generator has assigned me Games 3 and 7 (assuming we get that far) to play. Here we go.)

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story




Ch. 17

The playoffs were the “second season” of the NBA. You had the regular season, which was important — it gave you the chance to play against everyone, to scout them up and down, and it gave the team time to find themselves. But the playoffs were a different beast altogether — a 19 year old kid, I had never experienced postseason basketball. I had only ever seen the NBA playoffs from the perspective of a fan and, as far as our roster was concerned, we were a bunch of guys who had barely been past the 1st round.

McHale was our voice of reason, our guide, and he warned us prior to Game 1 that we needed to treat every game like it was our last. We might have been the 2nd seed in the East, but we were going against a division rival who didn’t give a flying *uck about what the seeding was — they knew us just as well as we knew them. Detroit had limped into the postseason, but they weren’t pushovers — SVG wasn’t going to let them get punked.

Game 1 was close throughout, but the Pistons pulled it off, beating us 102-95 on our home floor. It was a disappointing start to the postseason — they came into our house and stole a game. We didn’t lay down, exactly, but the moment seemed to get the better of us as the game went along. As a young squad, that was understandable … but it didn’t make it any easier to stomach.

Game 2 was a defensive slugfest, ugly until the fourth quarter, where we blitzed Detroit 32-21 and closed them out to a standing ovation from our home crowd. I didn’t have a great game, by Myles did — he shut down Drummond, he stretched the floor, and he inspired VO to let loose from deep (3-4 from behind the arc for Victor). It was a much needed win, and one that made me feel a good deal better despite the fact I only scored 13 points.

Game 3 saw the venues switch — and this was where we needed to establish that we were the better team.

“I want to win every quarter!” I screamed at the guys in the huddle, right before we took the floor. I knew it was going to be hard, I knew we were going to face a lot of adversity, but I wanted the guys to know I was ready. I wanted them to hear it in my voice that I would take the game over if we needed it. I think they got it, because we came out in the first quarter looking to take it right at Drummond and his defense.

Drummond was no joke — defensively, he was probably the best center in the East and maybe in the NBA. His rebounding was insane and Detroit pounded us on the glass all game long — Drummond and Boban were a platoon of bigs we simply couldn’t keep off the boards. But we weren’t exactly trying to outrebound them … we were fine giving up the boards if it meant we could get out on the break.

And that’s exactly what we did — we had depth, we had youth, and we ran like we stole something after every rebound. Push the pace, push the tempo, don’t play into Detroit’s idea of a game — they wanted to set up their defense, seal off the paint, but we played fast and loose. We weren’t going to give them time to set up and the strategy paid dividends in the first as we ended the quarter up 26-23.

We kept at it in the second and the Pistons began to foul us a lot in order to keep us out of the paint — Avery Bradley, their big acquisition, fouled me pretty hard and we both went to the floor. I came up okay — pissed, but okay — but Bradley injured his shoulder. He didn’t hurt it too bad, but it hurt enough for him to be off his game. With Bradley banged up, it gave us an opening to attack the paint.

We began to rain down triples in the third — Myles had been cold in the first half but he nailed two triples after the break, which opened up the floor. GROB got hot, started drilling shots in the face of Tobias Harris and Stanley Johnson, and the Pistons started drowning. It got to the point we were up 85-70 entering the fourth and the Pistons arena was dead silent — and I hated playing there, because it was like the Pistons chose the most annoying PA sound effects in history.

In the fourth, we ran away with it and with 6:12 left, up by over 20, McHale stuck in the deep reserves — guys got minutes that wouldn’t have, valuable playoff experience. McHale stuck with them even when Van Gundy put his starters back in with 3:20 to go, just to prove a point to them, but McHale trusted our bench guys (which we nicknamed “The Pit Crew” because Indianapolis is just as much about racing as it is basketball). They finished the game off and we walked out of Detroit with a statement win, up 2-1 in the series.

[Jogo]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story

Tate's destroying the competition, wins ROY AND taking this squad on his back to the postseason. And he's only making 3 mill over 4 years?!

Damn, he has to be feeling really undervalued. Prepare for a hefty payday at the end of his contract, or he's going LeBron on this Pacers team!

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story

Tate's destroying the competition, wins ROY AND taking this squad on his back to the postseason. And he's only making 3 mill over 4 years?!

Damn, he has to be feeling really undervalued. Prepare for a hefty payday at the end of his contract, or he's going LeBron on this Pacers team!

LOL, he is pretty underpaid, but luckily he comes from wealth. Thanks to Kevin Durant (who took a paycut the last offseason really -- Durant isn't making as much as he can), there's precedent for players taking less to stay where they want.

I figure when renegotiation time hits, he'll take another paycut (though not nearly as severe). We'll see ... honestly feel like he'll just take old-man Dirk/Tim Duncan deals for his career and make 7M-10M a year to allow the team to pay for good talent.

Just finished Round 1 up and the results were fascinating ... post to come later today.

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story



Ch. 18

The Game 3 win was big, but we immediately followed it up with a loss in Game 4, 107-102. We had the lead entering the fourth, but we just couldn’t fight the Pistons off any longer. Drummond had his way with us on the inside and it was like we weren’t even in the paint in the final quarter … he just got whatever he wanted.



We had been close. We traveled back home for Game 5, where we snuck out a one-point win — Detroit had stormed back early in the fourth and we had traded buckets the entire quarter, trading the lead back and forth, unable to get much going from deep at all. It came down to a putback by Faried towards the end of the game that, mercifully, gave us enough of a lead that Detroit couldn’t fight back. We won 90-89.



In Game 6, back in Detroit, we had a chance to close it out — we could have made it into the second round then and there. We choked it away — I choked it away. I played a bad game and it buried us early. We lost every quarter of the game and lost the game 101-88. I scored only 12 points, dished out 14 dimes, but I didn’t do enough to guarantee a victory for us.



It came down to Game 7 against our division rivals. There was no other way out, no clean victory to have … the game was on our homefloor and I thanked our lucky stars we had that going for us. If we had been on the road again, I doubt we would have been able to play them close. But on our homefloor? We knew the rims. We knew the crowd. We were comfortable amongst our fans, the sea of gold.

It wasn’t a fun first quarter. We went down early, 12-5, and it looked like we were going to choke the game away again. I couldn’t get anything going to save my life … my shots weren’t falling. The pick and roll offense was shut down, the Pistons were sending our shots back like we had forgotten to put postage stamps on mail, and the crowd was tense.



McHale called a timeout and sent our subs in early. We needed a spark … we needed something to get us going. Enter in ROLO and Sabonis — both our bench bigs came in and started giving the Pistons front line fits. ROLO effectively walled off Drummond from the paint, making him work extra hard to get easy shots and fouling him when he felt like it.



We managed to work the score to a tie, 21 all, with under 3:00 minutes to go. That’s when we finally got our first triple of the night to fall.







Sabonis got the shot off and got it down with a hand in his face and that gave us a 24-21 lead. It was the first crack in the Pistons perimeter defense we had seen all night and once Sabonis hit that shot, we found confidence. We found a crowd that exploded in cheers as soon as the shot went in, pent-up relief in the air.



It was like we could breathe … and we went on a run the rest of the quarter, ending the first up 33-24.



The Pistons night was about to get long. Really long. Lance came in the second and picked up the torch — he fed off the energy, he went at the Pistons, and hit a couple of big shots, including another triple from the right baseline corner.







It wasn’t even a competition heading into halftime, where we were up by 19 points. McHale cautioned us to keep level, to not get too cocky — we needed to play in our offense. We needed to keep pressing them on defense. Dare them to beat us from outside, which the Pistons frankly couldn’t do with their personnel. In the third, we put the throttle down and clamped down on them hard. It was like stealing candy from a baby.








The fourth quarter we were up by nearly 30 and McHale stuck in the deep reserves, who played pretty well. We walked out of there with a victory, a Game 7 beatdown that flexed our muscles and showed the Pistons (and indeed, the league) that we weren’t going to go quietly into the night.








We were the last team to make its way into Round 2. The playoff bracket was set for the next part of the postseason.




The Wizards upset the Raptors, though it was only an upset based on seeding — Washington was better than their record indicated and the Raptors simply folded in the end. They had a Game 7 on their homefloor and lost … Dwayne Casey was going to get axed because of it, but it was basically a mutual parting of ways. Toronto needed to go in another direction if they were going to really get to the top of the East.



Philly took the Celtics to a Game 7 but couldn’t quite make it over the hump. The NBA had the matchup they wanted in Round 2 — LeBron vs. Kyrie, the master facing the former pupil. Boston was beat up some, though — Smart was out with a broken toe for two weeks. Jaylen Brown was battling a sore hamstring and was limited. The Celtics were going to need everyone to step up in order to get past LeBron.



Out West, the Rockets and Warriors made quick work of their matchups. The Spurs didn’t have enough guns to keep up with the Rockets — Leonard missing most of the year due to injury had made playing team defense difficult against the spread attack of Houston. The Pelicans got dangerously close to winning two games against the Warriors, but still weren’t able to get past them; what it meant for Boogie Cousins was unknown, but it was a valiant effort.



The T’Wolves got past the Clippers after Patrick Beverly went down with a pulled calf muscle — without Beverly’s defense, the Clippers backcourt was an open sieve, which the Wolves happily took advantage of. The Thunder easily beat the Jazz, setting up the other marquee matchup the NBA wanted — Durant vs. Westbrook. Would OKC have its revenge for Durant’s defection?



Everyone was looking forward to seeing the other Round 2 contests, but we were not marquee draws — the Pacers vs. Wizards was a nice series, a nice story, but whichever one of us came out of the series would be seen as dogfood for the winner of Cleveland/Boston.



We had come out of the first round, though. We had achieved something the organization hadn’t achieved in a few years — win a playoff series.



We just had to take it one game at a time.



(The number generator has assigned me Games 2 and 3 for this series … let’s see what happens)

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story




Ch. 19

Game 1 of our series went to the Wizards, as we lost the lead in the fourth quarter and lost the game 111-108. It was disappointing to say the least … and I was *ucking pissed. We had done so well in the first three quarters but in the fourth our inexperience showed. Washington put on the jets behind John Wall and we got sucked into their game — it was hard as hell to stay in front of Wall, to keep him out of the spots he wanted to go. He was among the best guards in the game for a reason and I had my work cut out for me.

I didn’t do enough in Game 1 to slow him down. Sure, I scored 27 points and dished out 17 assists, but it didn’t matter in the end — we lost because I wasn’t aggressive enough in the final quarter. We lost because I couldn’t find the open man … I dove in and threw up wild shots. That wasn’t winning basketball, that was bull*hit play. I could do better.

And in Game 2, we — the entire team — came out with that firmly on our minds. We weren’t going to let the Wizards dictate how we played our game. We were going to dictate the terms. In the first, it was a bunch of misses early on — both teams came out tight. We were missing wide open shots and the Wizards were getting nowhere in their offensive sets. Something had to give, someone had to get first blood, and leave it to Myles Turner to do just that with a clutch three.

We started to run away with it — the Wizards couldn’t stop a cold, let alone us, and the triple broke the game WIDE OPEN. Washington started tossing the ball away, we came up with crucial steals, and we pinned our ears back: scoring was second nature to us and we ended the first up 31-15. We nearly pushed it to a 20 point lead.

And then we promptly choked it away in the second. Washington found their stride thanks to their bench and ours just gave up the ghost. We couldn’t get a stop at all — ROLO was fouling left and right, the refs were calling fouls left and right (against us, of course) and the Wizards were heading to the stripe, hitting their shots, and chipping away at the lead. They stymied us, frustrated us, and took everything we did to them in the first and did it to us.

We gave up the lead and limped into halftime tied, 54 all.

McHale was not happy. He let us have an earful about how lax we were on the defense in the second — we got cocky, we felt ourselves, and while we were busy admiring our play we got our *sses kicked. He was right — we all knew it — and we sat in there and took it. McHale’s directive was simple at halftime: get back to basics. Play our positions, stick to the fundamentals, make them work for their shot.

If they had to work hard for it on offense, they’d be tired out on defense. Play our game.

In the third, we took those words to heart. We traded buckets back and forth, we traded the lead, we fouled hard and got fouled hard. It was GROB who gave us a little breathing room with an and-1 on a dunk.

He hit the free throw (the only one of the night — it was a rough game for him) and it gave us a three point lead that we just barely hung onto heading into the fourth. We were up 81-78.

The Wizards we not done. John Wall exploded in the fourth for points and he was on fire like no other — but for everything Wall did, I did too. I turned on my jets and made sure to keep everyone involved. Wall and someone else would double me, I’d pass out — usually to Myles, who did what he does best and sunk shots. If not Myles, than the Manimal, who rolled hard to the rim all quarter long and scrapped for boards.

We got the victory and, for the first time in my career, I got to hear chants of “MVP” from my homecrowd. It was a special night, a special win, and exhausting on every level. I had never been so tense for a basketball game and so relieved when it was over.

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story




Ch. 20

We traveled to DC for Game 3 and it was a game we knew, in the depths of our stomachs, that we had to win. The Wizards had already beaten the Raptors and if we didn’t get a game back here, we’d be seriously *ucked. Shootaround was good … we were loose, but not too loose. We were focused and we came out that way.

From tipoff till the end of the game, we were locked in — more locked in than I had ever seen us. It showed up in a BIG way in the first five minutes of the game, as we found the open man and that man let a triple fly. We went 4 of 6 from deep in the first five minutes, putting us ahead 18-7 barely halfway into the quarter. The Wizards immediately called a timeout after VO broke out a ridiculous layup in traffic and MADE IT.

It was a beatdown We dominated the first quarter, and we continued to dominate in the second thanks to Sabonis and Corey Joseph, who kept our triples firing and they were making them. Again and again.

Scott Brooks was beside himself on the Wizards bench. He kept telling his guys to get back on defense, to cover, to hustle, but they were always too slow … the number of threes we had was something to behold. For the first time the entire year, we had turned the triple into more than just a threat, we turned it into a Warriors-esqe weapon. The stats at halftime screamed our domination.

In the third, the Wizards showed up — Bradley Beal and John Wall finally started to get going, but that was fine. We were still getting our shots and GROB was stepping up in a big way; unlike Otto Porter (who disappeared and massively underperformed that huge contract of his), GROB was letting it rain. He was making it from deep, he was spotting up from mid-range, he was getting to the line and making his shots.

It was the best game of GROB’s career that year, in my humble opinion and with him firing, me and Myles got into a major rhythm. I passed to him and he passed to me … the Tate-Turner connection was real and John Wall couldn’t stop me. I saw him trying to bring him team back into it and I told him, straight up, to “back the *uck off, *itch” and he didn’t much like that.

But he didn’t much have a choice.

In the fourth, Myles started nailing triples left and right and between the two of us, we buried the Wizards. No quarter was given. No mercy shown. We walked into their house and gutted them before their entire fans. We even subbed in the deep reserves and they kept hitting triples (namely, TJ Leaf, who scored five points in less than three minutes — I was impressed).

I wish I could say that was it and we plowed on to the ECF, but we didn’t. We dropped Game 4 and 5, came back to win Game 6, and lost Game 7 by one-point. The Wizards held us to only 19 points in the fourth quarter … we allowed them 34.

We had a chance to get there, to go the distance, but we let it slip away. I was sick, especially considering what happened in the other series.

The Celtics had beaten the Cavs, 4-2, thanks to the return of Marcus Smart. They lost Al Horford to a severe ankle sprain though, and he was unlikely to make it back for the rest of the playoffs, but they had made the ECF. We could have beaten them — we went 3-1 against them in the regular season, we could have taken them, but we couldn’t finish. We were young. We were dumb.

Looking back, I see where we went wrong … I see what we could have done better. But I was ill then.

In the conference finals, the Rockets did what no one thought possible — they beat the Warriors. Every game they won was by less than seven points, but they did just enough to get there. The Warriors had been felled and it felt like the entire league celebrated. Out East, the Celtics lost Hayward to a leg injury in Game 2, which meant they were down him and Horford for the series. Still, they battled it out to a Game 7 before losing.

Rockets vs. Wizards for the Finals — an unlikely NBA Finals as it ever was. The Wizards had finally gotten to the Finals again, nearly 40 years since the last time they had been there. The Rockets had bet on CP3 and Harden being the key to defeating the Warriors and that bet had paid off.

Both teams were healthy. Both squads competitive. But the Rockets were on another level — they had already played tougher opponents than the Wizards and they won each game by an average of 12.4 points. It was a slaughter. Even after Ryan Anderson went out in Game 1 with a broken leg, the Rockets still romped.

A four game sweep that finally gave Harden and CP3 their titles. I couldn’t be too mad … the Wizards had beaten us and I was glad to see them lose. Eric Gordon, former Hoosier, got a ring on the Rockets and so did Troy Williams — Indiana guys, through and through. I was happy for them.

But I saw the Wizards in the Finals, saw them fight … and I wanted to be there, fighting with my guys for a chance at glory. Our season had broken our way so many times, only to have it go wrong at the end. I didn’t know if we’d ever get a chance to get to the ECF again.

I just knew I’d do almost anything to get to the Finals … to win a title for Indiana.

[georgiafan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story

Tough way to lose a series

[trekfan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story

Tough way to lose a series

Yeah, I did my part -- got wins in Game 2 and 3, but we just didn't have enough to get further. Still, losing in 7 is better than being swept. A lot of the young guys on the team (Sabonis, Mudiay, Leaf) got valuable experience.

The offseason will be interesting -- the Rockets win has felled the Warriors, the Cavs got beat by a banged up Celtics in Round 2, so we could be seeing a shift in the powerhouses of the conference.

Free agency will be interesting, but more than that I think the trade market will be pretty strong -- lots of teams with middling contracts that didn't perform up to expectations this year (the Heat among them) and expiring contracts have some worth again.

We'll begin the offseason storylines today, it's gonna be fun I think.

[georgiafan]

Re: You Don't Know Jack: A Pacers Story

Cant wait to hear the offseason stuff to me that's more fun then the games