Pacers win wild game over Portland
By TYLER SMITH (@TylerSmith_ISL)
ISL Editor
(Photo by Pacers.com)
INDIANAPOLIS — It’s been an up and down season all year long for the Indiana Pacers. They’ve never won more than two straight. They’ve never lost more than two straight. And they’ve been around the .500 mark all year.
Saturday night’s game against the Portland Trail-Blazers was basically the entire season wrapped up in one game- A tale of two teams. In the end, it was the Pacers coming out victorious in one of the craziest games of the season, 118-111 over Portland at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
This would have been a tough game for any team to play. Indiana just got home from a long Western Conference road trip, and were also playing on a back-to-back. They gave up 44 points in the first quarter, and 71 points at halftime. They trailed by 20, and it looked like a laugher from the word ‘go’.
Instead of letting fatigue and poor defense be the story of the night, the Pacers stormed all the way back in front of a great home crowd to even their record at 12-12 on the season.
“I think when you play the right way, you get rewarded,” Head Coach Nate McMillan said. “Last night, we didn’t do that. With the turnovers, and the one-on-one ball, that won’t get it done. Tonight, even down 20, I thought we didn’t panic and we stuck with the game plan.”
Paul George took over in the fourth quarter, outscoring the entire Blazers team 15-13. He finished the night with 37 points on 13-of-27 shooting.
“Great fight,” George said after the win. “We didn’t give up. We didn’t quit. I’m supposed to be trusted in these situations. That’s the guy I want to be for this team.”
His coach agrees: “We want ball movement, but when the game is on the line, we want that ball in Paul’s hands,” McMillan said.
Thaddeus Young had a monster night for the Pacers as well, scoring 24 points on 9-of-13 shooting. He hit six 3-pointers in this game, after only making seven 3-pointers all of last season.
“We just kept believing,” Young said. “We felt terrible, to be honest. We were tired. But we kept fighting.” Young added: “Their bigs were playing in the paint, and I just had to shoot with confidence.”
Portland made 15 of their first 25 3-pointers on the night, but only made one of their final 12 attempts. They were led by C.J. McCollum who scored 34 points, followed by Damian Lillard with 33. Indiana ended a five-game losing streak in the head-to-head series with Portland.
The question now is, will this be the game that sparks this Pacers team? When fans think they’ve turned it around, they have lost against bad teams. When fans have lost a little hope, they’ve won big games.
At 12-12, the Pacers are tied for the 8th-seed in the Eastern Conference, but are only two games behind the 3rd-seed in the bunched up standings. Is this the team that gave up 71 points in the first half, or the team that gave up just 40 points and showed so much fight in the second? Or, will they continue to be “consistently, inconsistent” as Aaron Brooks said a few days ago?
Only time will tell.
