There is no point in getting into the specifics of this game. The Pacers were dominated. They played well early in the sense that they were able to outscore Miami in the first quarter, but the writing was on the wall. The Heat’s pressure defense consumed the Pacers, forcing them into early turnovers and soon after completely shutting down their ability to run an offense.

It was bad. Really bad.

Indiana played bad basketball, but Miami, at its best, is just incredible.

You have to tip your cap.

But while it was an unfitting end to a tremendous season, Pacers’ fans should remain very optimistic. This team should retain all its key contributors from this year and should be even better next season.

Losing like this is the worst way to lose, but this season was a big win.

The exceeded expectations given just how young this team is, and the growth trajectory is pointing skyward.

This is the worst of times, but the long-term future couldn’t be brighter.

As soon as the sport gave Ali his license back, he got in the ring with Frazier.

The world dubbed it “The Fight of the Century.”

They fought in Madison Square Garden, and to the surprise of most, Frazier won.

It would take years for Muhammad to get his rematch. Then, as soon as it seemed like the two rivals would clash again and Ali would have another chance at the title, George Foreman emerged — and beat the snot out of Joe Frazier.

The belt now belonged to Foreman.

Ali still got his rematch with Frazier, and beat him this time, but he now had his sights set on Foreman.

When the two fought, it was a big enough deal to hold the fight in Zaire. Ali was a global icon, but Foreman was unbeatable. As in, he hadn’t been beaten as a professional. He entered the ring with a 40-0 record. 37 of those wins were knockouts.

He was the biggest, baddest man on the planet and the belief was that the aging, slowing Ali needed to dance around the ring, steering clear of big George’s brickwall swings.

This is what Spoelstra was referring to.

Ali didn’t dance. But he didn’t necessary go blow-for-blow with the big dude neither. He instead knew that he was the real Champ, the battle-tested warrior who should always be favored. He knew Foreman wasn’t ready for this stage. He knew that he could force Foreman to lose his composure and fight the fight that Ali wanted it to be.

Ali went with the rope-a-dope, letting George swing away and swing away, never connecting with any clean hits. Ali just leaned on the ropes and blocked as much of the force of each blow as he could.

It worked.

Foreman was exhausted, punching himself out in the hot Zaire weather. Ali then became the aggressor and, in no time, put George on his back. He was too tired to get up.

The Champ beat the champ.

Because he knew how to win that fight. Even Ali, arguably the most confident athlete in history, knew he couldn’t be bigger, stronger than Foreman. But he knew he was The Champ, and he knew how to beat Foreman.

That was how The Champ regained his belt.

But it wasn’t the first time he won it.

The first time came when Ali, at barely 22-years-old, flew down to Miami to fight a former biggest, baddest man on the planet: Sonny Liston.

Liston was the Foreman of his day, and didn’t seem like someone who could ever lose a fight.

Muhammad Ali, on the other hand, was a brash, young, confident kid that a lot of experts didn’t take seriously. He was more show than staying power, and he didn’t hit that hard. He danced around the ring and avoided the punches of lesser fighters. He wouldn’t be able to do that against Sonny Liston. Plus, he talked too damn much.

It didn’t matter.

Ali won. Easily.

He wasn’t a household name. Not for his fighting anyway. Many experts knew he had a great future, but many doubted his ability to win, his ability to ever be truly great.

Seven rounds later, he was the 22-year-old heavyweight champ.

He was ecstatic. He jumped on the ropes.

He yelled “I shook up the world.”

That’s all this Game 7 is about.

I love Xs and Os, and execution will have a lot to do with the outcome. But at some point, it’s just a fight. This is a bout between what are clearly the two best teams in the conference, and the winner will have a chance to win the NBA championship belt.

Will the battered, incumbent, world-famous champs overcome adversity like an old Ali and prove once again that they are the best in the sport? Or will the young, confident, upstart underdogs head down to Miami and shake up the world like a young Ali?

Rumble, young man, rumble.

He apologized about 12 hours later.

Shortly thereafter, the NBA fined Hibbert $75,000.

“While Roy has issued an apology, which is no doubt sincere, a fine is necessary to reinforce that such offensive comments will not be tolerated by the NBA,” said league Commissioner David Stern in a statement.

After a dominant performance in a win that further showed the world how great Roy Hibbert has become during the past month, big dude spoke to the media.

In doing so, he offered a rare window into how professional athletes really talk.

Most of the time, when talking to the press, these motherfuckers are guarded, remaining keenly aware of how their words will be conveyed when read in newsprint, where there are no vocal tones and body language to help convey meaning. Usually, these motherfuckers remember to erect a screen of say-nothingness that shields them from being misconstrued.

They talk as little as possible and say even less.

If makes the job of being a beat writer hard as balls.

How do you comb through all the bullshit lies and truth parsing that players spew and turn that into a story that makes any damn sense?

It’s the worst.

The fucking worst.

Remember that shit next time you have an issue with column written by Mike Wells or any of these other excellent, hard-working beat writers out there. The people they have to report about everyday almost never say shit that’s actually worth writing down. It is a job I have never done and never wish to.

But with two remarks after Game 6, Roy illustrated two things: why many fans will always want to know their favorite players more intimately and why others like to view athletes as cartoon characters they root for rather than the flawed humans they are.

In expressing one sentiment, Roy aptly summed up something many of us who write about the NBA on the internet already know: Some of the these motherfuckers in the media who vote for the end-of-season player accolades don’t watch near-as-shit enough basketball to have an informed opinion about who deserves those awards.

This came after some poor bastard — who was at work just before midnight on a Saturday — asked Roy why he finished so low (tenth) in the Defensive Player of the Year award voting.

Roy’s response may not have been aimed at the inquisitor directly, but he generally told everyone in the room that they, as a category of workers, can go fuck an beehive.

“You know what, ’cause y’all motherfuckers don’t watch us play throughout the year, to tell you the truth. All right? So, that’s fine. Ya know. I’mma be real with you. And I don’t care if I get fined. All right? Because, you know what, we play, we’re not on TV all the time, and reporters are the ones that are voting. And, it is what it is. If I don’t make it, that’s fine.”

Realest shit he’s ever said.

You gotta love the “motherfucker” drop. That’s that realness. That’s what really conveys his meaning.

For those of you who don’t like what he said, fuck off.

We’re all adults here. I’m sure there were a few elementary school students watching NBA TV or the NBA.com live stream where it aired, but put those little shits to bed next time. It was almost midnight for fuck-all sake.

I have adopted Lewis Black’s thoughts on this matter. Listen to him tell explain, in the above video, why you’re a wee bit oversensitive if you get squeamish when someone says the word fuck.

Some background about the video: Black was relaying the difficulty he once had while preparing to host the White House Correspondents Dinner, an annual banquet hosted by a comedian who ribs the sitting president, other politicians and media members in attendance. This was tough for Black because the event organizers wish for the show to remain civilized and without the use of so-called bad language.

Which led to this classic Lewis Black rant:

“There is no such thing as bad language. I don’t believe that anymore. It’s ridiculous. They call it debasing the language. No. We are adults. These are the words that we use to express frustration, rage, anger — in order that we don’t pick up a tire iron and beat the shit out of somebody.

“What do people say? What is the ‘good’language’ you’re supposed to use that’s supposed to help you overcome certain things? What do people say who don’t use those words? Somebody who, after 40 years, loses their job — is fired, let’s say? Or ‘let go’? And they lose their pension and their welfare and their benefits. They lose everything. Do they sit on the couch all day going ‘Oh, pussyfeathers. Sassafras, sassafras, sassafras’?”

Now that that shit is settled …

The other reason it was refreshing and enlightening to hear: Roy wasn’t lying.

The canned, expected, boring-as-shit answer to the question would have been something along the lines of, “I just try to get better everyday and don’t really worry about anything else. My teammates have helped me improve, and they’re the only people whose opinions matter to me.”

Which would have been a whole cargo van full of camel shit.

Finishing tenth in the voting obviously upset Roy on some level. He made that known. I now know that he cares about that and that he probably also cares that his team, one of just three left with a chance to win the NBA title, doesn’t get much media attention.

Players are rarely so candid. They rarely reveal emotions like that.

A few weeks ago, for instance, Conrad Brunner, a reporter with 1070 The Fan, asked David West a question about the media focusing almost entirely on the Knicks during the Indiana/New York series.

Here is the full transcript of that exchange.

Brunner: “Do you guys watch at all [the] national perspective, the national attention? It seems as though the perspective is: When you win, it’s actually the Knicks lose — the Pacers don’t have an influence on this series. Do you guys use that at all?”

David West: “Naaahhh. We can’t get caught up in that. We know who we are. We know what we’ve been all year. We’re just going to continue to keep that focus. We have an opportunity to go out and perform and play well; we try do to that and don’t worry if someone is patting us on the back or not. It’s not a big deal.”

Now, I actually don’t think West is lying here.

I think he’s shielding the truth a little bit, but I think he’s being straight up, by and large, about his own opinion on the matter. I’m sure the Pacers’ players have had discussions about this topic, their relative obscurity compared to other teams and Indiana’s lack of national exposure. But I gather that it’s not some shit he, personally, gives a flying fuck about, and it’s quite possible that it never came up as something the team would “use” as a rallying cry or whatever.

Either way, it’s a boring-ass answer — to the point that it was said on the record in front of more than a dozen reporters all hungry to find a unique angle on an over-covered series, and this is probably the first time the comment has been published anywhere by anybody. West went with typical athlete speak that isn’t interesting and reveals almost nothing.

I’m sure Brunner could have written a much more widely read story after that practice had West said something like, “Shit yea we use that to fuel us. Our whole mentality has been ‘Fuck the Knicks’ and now we’re like ‘Fuck ESPN,’ too.”

That’s closer to what Roy did.

He showed us how players actually talk when the microphones aren’t recording, and he did it while also talking like an adult talks. The lack of attention seems like a clear point of frustration for Roy, and he expressed that frustration like a grown-ass frustrated man would.

It was genuine, motherfucking moment. It’s the whole reason this daily routine of question asking happens: so that once or twice a season, something real will comes out. It’s why a lot of fans pay any attention to this stuff at all.

So who really cares if some uptight shitbirds are going to instead hype Roy’s genuine, motherfucking moment into his “motherfucking” moment?

I have less than zero fucks to give about an adult using an adult word in public.

It was his other comment that was I found disturbing.

It was his other comment that showed why hearing how players actually talk is something many fans might not want to ever do.

It was his “no homo” comment that was the problem.

Because “no homo” is part of the problem.

While describing how he tries to prevent LeBron James from scoring, Roy made an innocuous comment about basketball Xs and Os strategy. And in the midst of explaining, he said “no homo.”

If you’re not familiar with “no homo” as a comedic device, well, aren’t you a lucky sumbitch.

It has become a somewhat common phrase over the past decade that is used in the same manner as “that’s what she said,” a Michael Scott classic, but only when the sexual innuendo is homosexual in nature. After a man inadvertently says something that, through double entendre or euphemism, could be construed as a comment insinuating they are sexually attracted to another man, they say “no homo.”

This is done to ensure that people listening don’t think they like to fuck dudes, of course. Because that is a natural concern of insecure men who think being attracted to men is a weird, abnormal thing.

Here’s how a hypothetical “no homo” drop might go:

Steve: So if your car broke down, how did you get to the work?

Bob: John gave me a ride. No homo.

The rationale for saying “no homo” there would exist because Bob did not fuck John (give him “a ride,” wink wink), he merely was a passenger in his car.

It’s all very clever.

In another instance, it could actually be somewhat funny. But by and large it has just become something certain people say a lot even when there is nobody who would ever confuse the words spoken as having a homosexual context. That absurdity, for some “no homo” sayers, is part of the fun.

This video breaks it down well, explaining the general usage and how it became popularized in the early 2000s by the pink-clothes-wearing, heterosexual rapper Cam’Ron from Harlem. It, along with its sister phrase “pause,” has become a staple among many rappers.

Roy was apparently making a truly absurd attempt at “no homo” humor while discussing LeBron’s ability to score on the Pacers in Game 3. (Here it is on Vine.)

“I really felt that I let Paul down in terms of having his back when LeBron was scoring in the post or getting to the paint, because they stretched me out so much — no homo.”

I’m not exactly sure what dumb-ass comedy was going on in Roy’s head.

It’s certainly not very funny regardless. Not even as funny as that hilarious Bob hypothetical used above anyway.

More than anything, it just seems super juvenile, and perhaps Roy was doing a Super Troopers-like “meow” dare with himself during a press conference.

It doesn’t actually matter what the joke was supposed to be nor why Roy said it.

All that matters is that he said it.

There are only two real reasons that somebody would say something like that on television: They are a cruel person who likes to hurt the feelings of others or they don’t actually understand how their words will be heard by some people.

I don’t know Roy Hibbert, the person.

We have had a maybe two dozen conversations over the past three years, all about basketball. He almost certainly has no idea who I am, and these talks were — in every instance — short, at-work conversations for both of us. But he seems like a nice enough young man, and I have heard a ton of respected people say a ton of nice things about Roy’s character and values.

I also don’t know know Roy Hibbert’s feelings on homosexuality. If he harbors any negativity towards gay people, he has never made such feelings public, to my knowledge. Roy actually even supported, through a Twitter message, Jason Collins’ recent decision to come out of the closet.

Even lacking full knowledge, I don’t believe Roy, when he said “no homo” in public, in front of a giant global audience, meant anything derogatory. I don’t think he intended to ridicule or discriminate against a core aspect of millions of people’s lives.

He’s simply ignorant.

He doesn’t know what those words say about homosexuals.

To him, it was a playful joke, one that made him giggle probably more for its inappropriateness in that setting than for its actual humor. But to many others, it was an unnecessary reminder that mainstream society in the United States sees being gay as an abnormal, weird, negative characteristic that no man should want to associate himself with.

That is the foundation of “no homo.” It is telling listeners that, “in case you misconstrued what I said there, I just feel the need to point out to you that I am not homosexual, as that would of course be disgusting, and I am a normal, heterosexual man.”

It’s basically saying “don’t worry, bro, I’m not weird.”

As if there is anything strange or weird about a dude wanting to have sex with another dude.

That’s the implication.

It’s not a playful joke.

Maybe in your own circle of friends, in a private environment in which everyone knows that no ill will towards gay men exists, there is a place for that. It really just isn’t good comedy, but I understand that sex remains funny in that sophomoric way; its forbidden and this started as a Puritan nation and we still don’t show boobs on TV and it makes us giggle. So if you really can’t resist — hell, I mockingly drop a “that’s what she said” on occasion among close friends even though it has some similar, sexist overtones — go for it.

Really, try not to.

It’s basically the same a saying “it was gay” when giving your opinion of a bad movie.

It’s fucking dumb behavior. Really, really fucking dumb.

Just don’t say it.

If you absolutely can’t not say it cause it’s just so goddamn funny to you, sure as shit don’t say it out loud at a restaurant where people who don’t know your intention may overhear it and feel even further alienated than they already do while living in a society that makes them feel like weirdos just because of where they like to put their dick.

And for fuck all, if you’re ever on national fuck television, don’t say that shit under any goddamn circumstances whatsoever.

Are you fucking high?

Teenagers in this country slit their wrists over how difficult it is to be an abnormal sexual being living in a straight society. They jump off fucking bridges. They shoot themselves in the fucking head.

It happens all the damn time.

Is some kid going to kill himself because some insensitive NBA player said something that he found hurtful on TV? Probably not. Shit. I hope to hell not.

But saying “no homo” is part of the problem.

It’s normalizing the tolerance of making gay people feel abnormal. And that can destroy people over time as they are confronted by that societal belief with such frequency. It is ever pressent and never-ending, a constant drumbeat from everywhere, day after day after day.

Shit like this. Which I didn’t even seek out. It just appeared on my Twitter time line as I was writing this sentence. (Note to self: Must unfollow Huffington Post.)

This one instance of “no homo” may just be a drop of rain in the ocean of shit gay people have to deal with every fucking day.

But it’s part of the problem.

Don’t be part of the problem, Roy Hibbert. I don’t think you want to be. Shit, I don’t even think you know that’s what you just became.

But, fucking A, man.

Charles Barkley is right: You don’t have to be a role model.

But don’t go out of your way to fuck up some kid’s day who was just trying to watch a damn press conference.

That’s just straight-up asshole behavior.

Like those media members who didn’t watch you play all year and didn’t give you credit for being an elite defender, I presume this is all out of ignorance.

You don’t know any better.

Well, I’m not going to presume you’re reading this. But I’m guessing somebody, hopefully somebody employed by the Pacers, will explain all this to you soon. At least explain some version of why it’s wrong to say.

So now you know.

Don’t lose your candor, but speak like a man young fans — no matter who they want to fuck — can respect. Speak like a man who isn’t insinuating that dudes who fuck dudes are abnormal.

Cut the motherfucking shit.

David West has a cold.

Here is how each guy played individually tonight. Agree? Disagree? Express your thoughts below in the comments or yell at me (@8pts9secs) or Tim (@TimDonahue8p9s) on Twitter.

	David West, PF 36 MIN | 5-14 FG | 1-2 FT | 14 REB | 4 AST | 1 STL | 2 BLK | 2 TO | 11 PTS | +18 Brutal shooting start and he looked like his fever/respiratory infection would get the best of him. But he was moving the ball well and rebounding. Then, he pepped up after halftime and started to pour in some buckets. In the fourth quarter, me made 4 of his 6 shots, and he grabbed one of the two misses for a follow dunk. The jumper he stuck with Indiana up just 6 after Mike Miller hit two 3-pointers was particularly big. He may have been sick, but the dude was ill.
	Paul George, SF 43 MIN | 11-19 FG | 3-4 FT | 8 REB | 5 AST | 3 STL | 0 BLK | 6 TO | 28 PTS | +12 Playoff career-high scoring night for the 23-year-old who dropped his 28 points on just 19 shots. More encouraging than the volume, however, was the approach. There were three or four instances when I thought he was about to pull up for a jumper, but he didn’t, instead hesitating and continuing on towards the rim. He didn’t settle. He was relentless. And it was all in the flow of the offense. Growing up.
	Roy Hibbert, C 42 MIN | 11-20 FG | 2-4 FT | 11 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 2 TO | 24 PTS | +12 I’ve run out of compliments, I think. He is just so good now. So much better than he has ever been. It’s like he had a full body transplant while also undergoing some Clockwork Orange video conditioning that now makes him want to dunk everything. Alongside that ferocious demeanor, however, he remains calm and able to make nuanced, timing moves. He was glorious.
	George Hill, PG 43 MIN | 6-12 FG | 2-2 FT | 2 REB | 6 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 16 PTS | +16 The Pacers are now 9-1 this postseason when Hill scores at least 15 points. He was aggressive, ran the offense well most of the time and played pretty good defense.
	Lance Stephenson, SG 40 MIN | 1-4 FG | 2-2 FT | 12 REB | 4 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 4 TO | 4 PTS | +18 The stats aren’t impressive aside from the rebounding, but I thought his early activity helped get the team going. Some of the plays didn’t lead to points, but he got into the paint, found teammates and pushed the ball in transition. He did Lance stuff.

	Tyler Hansbrough, PF 12 MIN | 1-2 FG | 1-4 FT | 4 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 3 PTS | -4 Didn’t do much but filled in well enough for a gassed West.
	Sam Young, SF 7 MIN | 1-2 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 3 PTS | +3 Played some defense, hit a three.
	Ian Mahinmi, C 6 MIN | 0-0 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 0 PTS | +2 Played 6 minutes.
	D.J. Augustin, PG 10 MIN | 1-1 FG | 0-0 FT | 0 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 2 PTS | -8 Sick little floater he hit. Can’t really run the offense.
	Orlando Johnson, SG 1 MIN | 0-0 FG | 0-0 FT | 0 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 0 PTS | +1 Garbage minute.

As Brian Windhorst notes, this now makes two years running that a Heat player will miss a Game 6 against the Pacers for hitting Hansbrough. He’s just got one of those faces, I guess.

In case you forgot. Heat’s Udonis Haslem was suspended for Game 6 vs. Pacers last year. Also for a hit on Tyler Hansbrough.

— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) May 31, 2013

According to Howard Beck, the league says that the suspension was levied because Andersen ”knocked Indiana Pacers forward Tyler Hansbrough to the floor, escalated the altercation by shoving Hansbrough, and resisted efforts to bring the altercation to an end.”

The league also rescinded the technical foul that was given to Hansbrough at the time.

Dan Devine’s got the scoop on Tyler’s take.

Asked for comment on the suspension, Tyler Hansbrough breathed heavily with his jaw slack for three straight minutes. — Dan Devine (@YourManDevine) May 31, 2013

In more serious news …For reasons highlighted by Pacers.com’s Scott Agness, this is good news for Indiana.

Chris “Birdman” Andersen hasn’t missed a shot against the Pacers this series. He’s 15-for-15, and made 18-straight going back to semifinals. — Scott Agness (@ScottAgness) May 31, 2013

Then again, Indiana’s offense, specifically the play of Roy Hibbert, has actually been better when Birdman has played.

Hibbert has a -6 Net Rating with Birdman on the bench, and a positive mark of 14.3 while Birdman is on the court. @ctowerscbs — Cole Patty (@Cole_Patty) May 31, 2013

Really, though, the best take on the matter came from Steve Aschburner.

Would verdict in Birdman-Hansbrough incident [on.nba.com/15pS9NA ] have been different w. this switcheroo? twitter.com/AschNBA/status…

— Steve Aschburner (@AschNBA) May 31, 2013

Now, that, son, is sensational Photoshop’ing.

LeBron took over the game in the third quarter. He took complete ownership. You could argue that the Pacers relinquished control, playing a terrible brand of offense throughout the quarter as Miami ramped up its aggressive pressure, but it the game’s best player simply became unstoppable.

He scored at will and remained as calm as a docile Pacific Ocean, finding teammates for open jumpers whenever the Pacers defense collapsed on his as he entered the paint. It wasn’t even bad Indiana defense. At some point, after Udonis Haslem hits jumper after jumper, you probably have to mix it up, but as much as LeBron was in control, he would have probably scored on those drives if the defense didn’t collapse.

The Pacers stuck to the scheme, cutting off his drives and making him take jumpshots. And then, when he did get by his defender and get into the lane, they prioritized cutting off the layup as opposed to going all out on denying shooters. It’s a sound strategy, over the long term, and what they’ve don all year.

But Miami hit 9-of-13 outside the paint (including 6-for-7 in the midrange) in the third quarter while shooting 72.2% overall in the period.

Here is the Heat’s third-quarter shot chart.

That’s just insane. And it was mostly created by LeBron James being LeBron James.

The Pacers knew they might be in for that: an unbelievable performance from the four-time MVP.

Unfortunately, the Heat used this offensive onslaught to move their confidence needle to the red line, and proceeded to also start playing a suffocating, pressure defense that took the Pacers out of everything they wanted to do.

If you want to blame the back court for their bad play — criticism George Hill and Lance Stephenson definitely deserve — blame them mostly for their inability to initiate offense in the third quarter.

Here is the Pacers’ third-quarter shot chart.

They made just 3-of-14 shots (21.4%) while committing 5 turnovers (that led to 9 Heat points).

Hill’s foul trouble was a factor. He was forced to sit for nearly 7 minutes in the period, and D.J. Augustin added no production nor ran the offense well while on the floor.

But that poor execution was the difference.

Given LeBron’s domination and Miami’s hot shooting in the quarter, it’s doubtful the Pacers end the third ahead no matter how well they run their offense. But by completely falling apart, they gave themselves not chance to survive the MVP’s onslaught.

He was that good. Indiana’s offense was that bad.

Moving backwards, you have to like what the Pacers did in half one.

Indiana’s front court combined for 39 points on just 28 shots in the first 24 minutes. They were getting the looks they wanted and were in control of the game. Had a few more layups gone down — Indiana shot 6-for-15 in the restricted area in quarters one and two — they could have gone into the break up by double digits.

But they didn’t.

And that left the door open for LeBron to do his thing.

How did he ever.

Indiana did show some resilience in the fourth quarter, cutting what was a 13-point deficit down to 8. In fact, what made it just an 8-point game was a rugged Tyler Hansbrough putback. But on the play Hansbrough landed awkwardly on (I believe) Shane Battier, and was forced to the locker room.

It was a 5-0 Pacers run to start the fourth.

But the subsequent timeout brought LeBron back in to the game, because Spoelstra had had enough, and West back into the game because Hansbrough was injured.

I don’t think West was ready to re-enter the game, stamina-wise.

He needed another minute of two.

West looked gassed late, and while that was by no means the primary cause of Miami out-scoring Indiana 20-17 the rest of the way, it may have had some effect. Moreover, the Pacers were just in too big of a hole to climb back. In a perfect world, it was possible, but not with Indiana’s offense looking as stagnant as it became and not with LeBron being as in control of the game as he was.

So, yeah, that was the difference.

The third.

The Pacers now need to win Saturday night in Indiana to force a Game 7.

They have the horses to do it, no doubt.

They just need to execute much better than they did in the third and not miss as many good looks as they did in the first half.

Really nothing that needs to be said here. Just Zak Boisvert breaking down a ton of the plays that the Pacers run for HoopSpeak. Must-watch video to understand this team’s offense.

Amazing stuff.

A note from the site’s editor.

The nomenclature in this video is Boisvert’s. I’m guessing (but not sure) the Pacers don’t have a play called “Jungle Will Wing Duck POP,” though I have been fooled before. Each play name is a compilation of the involved actions. Where Boisvert sees something for the first time, he credits the team. EG– a dribble handoff is just “DHO,” a new look might be called “Indiana.”

Enjoy.

Good stuff from Beckley Mason of HoopSpeak on Roy Hibbert’s rebounding against Miami.

Here is one of his thoughts.

Coaches should show this video of Hibbert to young bigs as an example of what happens when you follow your shot. When Heat players challenge Hibbert’s shot, they often leap to contest the shot then turn to see where the ball went, but by the time Hibbert has let the ball go, he’s back on the ground and bulldozing his way to the rim, looking for a put-back. For most people, not jumping very high isn’t a good basketball strategy, but it seems to work out pretty well for Hibbert. His single-mindedness is amazing, and the Heat big men have not been able to match it defensively.

The Team Rebound also broke down how Hibbert dominated the glass in Game 4 for 8p9s.

They stay floppin’ in a box
They stay floppin’ with a fox.
They stay floppin’ in a house.
They stay floppin’ with a mouse.
They stay floppin’ here or there.
They stay floppin’ anywhere.
They stay floppin’, you will see.
They stay floppin’, it’s all fakery.

LeBron James, David West and Lance Stephenson have all been fined $5,000 — making this, essentially, the millionaire equivalent of fumbling a dime on a hot day while getting change for an ice cream you bought and thinking to yourself, “Hmmm … nahhh,” and walking away without picking it up off the ground — for flopping in Game 4.

Well, not so much for Lance Stephenson. It’s actually 0.6% of his take gross pay this year, according to ShamSports salary figures.

The horror.

Here’s the West/James bozo routine. (via Ball Don’t Lie)

Here’s Lance making stuff up. (via CBS Sports)