the pacers won 49 games because they played excellent defense and mediocre offense. in this series, they have played excellent offense. tonight they shot 50% again (i think that's 4 times in the series) and even shot over 50% on 3's. either they are playing out of their minds and it's a fluke, or it is a miami-specific stat. either way, if it's a fluke it's unlikely to last in the next series, and if it's a miami-specific thing, it's less likely to continue in the next series. either way, when the 49 win team that plays below average on offense suddenly starts playing excellently on offense, then they are playing more like a 60+ win team. and when the 66 win team's 2nd best player apparently retires some time in the 2nd round of the playoffs, then they aren't playing like a 66 win team anymore. thus the 3-3 series.
You said games 2, 4, and 6 (tonight) were Heat shoo-ins. That the Pacers spirit was broken, that the Heat had figured them out. You said the other three games would be easy Heat wins and were mostly right twice. So you are 2-for-6. Your assurance, for every game so far, has been a guess that's 33% accurate. I was right that games 1,2, and 4 would be close, right that tonight would be a 10+ point Pacers win, and was wrong about games 3 & 5 getting out of hand in the Heat's favor. So I'm batting 0.667 and you are at 0.333.
Paul George has impressed me this series. He's put up superstar type numbers these past 2 games. Most impressive thing to me is hes driving in smoothly, have his handles improved this much compared to last season??? He went at LeBron during a couple fast breaks and finished around the rim as well, impressive young kid!
Guys, look at the history of road teams winning a game 7 and then go to Vegas and put all your money on Miami.
francis-- the Pacers matchup well with Miami because their best player is a bigman and they have good rebounders all around. That's why their offense looks good. However, you can see that when Miami turns up the pressure and drive the lane everytime, the Pacers struggle. This is especially the case when Miami gets the calls. Both of these things will happen in game 7, which I predict won't even be close.
7th games have overwhelmingly gone to the home team, but they also are usually games where the refs "let them play" and the biggest, toughest dudes prevail. Usually it's the higher seed, because being bigger and tougher is something that typically makes you the favorite in the first place. That's not the case here. The Heat have one person on their roster who finishes through contact. The Pacers have a lot more. If LBJ carries them, they can win, sure. I am wondering if he can do it though. Even Lebron looks worn down by this smothering D.
Watch out, your words are gonna get twisted and this post will turn into "PacerTom said the Pacers are going to win game seven."
You are mistaking me for someone else. I'm pretty sure I haven't posted predictions in this series but if I did, it would have been to say that the Pacers blew their only chance to win the series by losing game 3. Had they won that, they would have had a chance. Ever since this Heat team figured out their roles after 2011, they are unstoppable in must-win games. I would have thought you would have learned that last year but I guess you'll see in game 7. Enjoy it.
obviously, the pacers match up well with miami. they are practically built to beat miami. the big men to punish the heat's main weakness and the perimeter defense to mess with lebron and wade. now, the fact that dwade might be on vacation somewhere and that that is most likely a dwade dummy being weekend-at-bernies'd around out there is obviously helping, but the pacers were still built to beat miami. especially on defense and the boards. but that doesn't really explain the extreme level of success their offense has had. some stat after game 4 said their offensive efficiency through game 4 in this series would have led the league in the regular season. and small or not, miami can't be that easy to score on. the pacers have just done an excellent job of hitting jumpers, many of which have been well-contested. and while it was open, a great example was the paul george 3 tonight at 72-68. the pacers must have occasionally missed some open 3's this season, especially with all of the momentum that was going miami's way. but in this series, paul george has been making 3's, including a 30 footer to tie game 1. the pacers just really haven't had anybody "off" the way battier or allen or wade have been in this series, where even the easy stuff isn't falling.
This. And if OKC hadn't gotten so hot last year and somehow beat the Spurs the King would still be without a ring.
see the post right after the one you quoted. My bad. I confused you with jeffgreen91, and thus I apologize for that amazingly incredible insult directed at you. Nobody should be confused with jeffgreen91, except maybe fictional characters like "Rain Man"
^^^This. It's always been about the physical matchups. Fair point. But the Pacers starting 5 was actually efficient all year, and especially in the 2nd half of the season. What is changed is that the starters are all playing 40 minutes whenever lack of fouls permits it. You can't really do that all year, but with no back-to-backs you can. Game 5 the Pacers missed 5+ layups in the first half and thus were protecting a 4 point lead rather than 12+. Hill and Stephenson have certainly had their share of total nightmare performances and Augustin and every single bench player has been an offensive nightmare. That's why 40 minutes for starters is almost essential. Roy Hibbert used to be physically limited to about 24 minutes a game due to stamina, clumsiness, and perpetual foul trouble. And that would go back to only the beginning of 2012. His transformation, and Paul George's, and even West's from last year's post knee surgery lack of stamina, have made the huge minutes over a series possible, and made the offensive efficiency possible.
IND starting lineup is now a plus-49 in the series. All other IND lineups are a minus-54. Pacers are beating the Heat without a bench. Starters flat out outplaying the Heat
