12/15/12
The 76ers were coming off a tough loss at home against the
Chicago Bulls and they had to fly to Indianapolis to face the Pacers. The
Pacers and the 76ers are two similar teams; they both play scrappy defense and
they both have terrible offenses. Also, both of their teams don’t have their
star players healthy. Andrew Bynum has been injured for the 76ers while Danny
Granger has been injured for the Pacers. Both have knee injuries. The
difference between the two teams is that the Pacers have size and length. That
size and length includes Roy Hibbert, David West, and Paul George. The 76ers
were without their emerging star player Jrue Holiday with a sprained foot.
Lance Stephenson was not playing for the Pacers due to an ankle sprain.
The first half went exactly as advertised with tough defense
and a lack of offense. Kwame Brown was surprisingly inserted into the starting
lineup replacing Lavoy Allen. I’m sure that change was made because Brown has the
size to defend Hibbert. Brown played his role well in which he provided tough
defense on Hibbert. However, the problem was not Brown’s defense; it was
Hibbert’s shooting touch that was on fire. The Pacers did make a bonehead play
in the second quarter. With four seconds left to go in the quarter, West tried
to throw a hail mary inbounds pass to the 76ers side of the court. That pass
was blocked by Thaddeus Young and found Evan Turner to tie the game at 42. Then
West tried to inbound the ball again and did another bad pass in which the
76ers called timeout with one second left to go in the quarter. Dorell Wright
inbounded the ball to Spencer Hawes and he made a buzzer-beating shot to make
the 76ers have the lead at halftime 44-42. Thaddeus Young led the 76ers with 10
points in the half while Paul George led the Pacers with 11 points.
In the second half, the Pacers used their home court crowd as momentum and it
showed when they dominated the 76ers in all facets of the game. They were
clearly the more aggressive team in this half. They dominated the rebounding and
Paul George had the half of his life. Turner played some of this half angry
when he got whistled for a technical foul. He was arguing a call that he
thought was a terrible call, but replays showed that the call made by the
official was the correct call. After Turner vented his frustration to the
officials, he tried to rally his team from behind. They came close, but it was
not good enough to solidify a win. The Pacers held on to win the game 95-85.
Turner had a double-double in the game. He scored 22 points and grabbed 10
rebounds. Sixteen of those 22 points were scored in the second half. Hawes
finished with 18 points coming off the bench. Thaddeus Young ended the game
with 12 points and seven rebounds. For the Pacers, Paul George finished with 28
points, 17 of those points were scored in the second half. Hibbert had a
double-double. He scored 19 points and collected 13 rebounds. George Hill had a
quiet triple-double in the game. He finished with 15 points, 10 rebounds, and
10 assists. He scored 10 of his 15 points in the second half. West ended with
14 points.
Overall, I was not surprised that the 76ers lost this game.
They got manhandled in the rebounding department by the Pacers’ big men. The
76ers once again are having a difficult time making three pointers. That has to
be fixed along with Jason Richardson’s shooting slump. Nick Young replaced
Holiday in the starting lineup and was his typical streaky shooting self. One
of these days he’s going to have a complete game. The question is when will
that happen?
Was Jrue Holiday
badly missed in the game last night? Sound off and stay tuned on Sunday when
the 76ers host the Los Angeles Lakers. I will be at that game too.
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