Rather than waste your time – or mine – with a lot of discussion, I’ll just leave you with a picture of the game flow from last night that articulately describes the game.

They aren’t ready.

Fair enough.

Still, it was basketball, and it was a Pacers win (128-124 in overtime), and there were glimpses of things worth mentioning.  Tonight’s game showed us what could be – both good and bad.

• The Good – Brandon Rush responded to his opportunity by being aggressive in the first half.  He scored 13 points on 6 of 7 shooting from the floor.  This Brandon Rush could be a key rotational player or starter, helping out at both ends.
• The Bad – He missed all five second half shots, going scoreless and fouling out in the fourth quarter.  This Brandon Rush could be costing himself the $2.9 million on his fourth year option.

• The Good – James Posey hit four of seven three pointers, including a big one with 38 seconds left in the OT to give the Pacers the lead for good.  He also got a big rebound and coolly drained four free throws in the last 10 seconds of the game.  This James Posey could provide the veteran leadership and presence this young team needs desperately.
• The Bad – His one turnover threatened not only to cost the Pacers the game, but he quite possibly could have taken Roy Hibbert’s head off with his errant fastball.  This James Posey could be a little too old and a little too slow for the amount of the trust that O’Brien is going to be tempted to give him.

• The Good – The Pacers hit 16 three pointers, taking 35 of them, while still getting 19 shots and 10 FTA’s for Roy Hibbert.  This Pacer team could be pretty potent offensively.
• The Bad – The Pacers missed a third of their FTA’s and turned the ball over 21 times.  This Pacer team could lose a lot of close games.

• The Good – Rookie 1st rounder Paul George scored 17 points and drained three treys in the last four minutes of the fourth quarter.  This Paul George could be the personification of a bright and shiny future coming sooner than expected.
• The Bad – The other young guys – Darren Collison, Josh McRoberts, Tyler Hansbrough – really struggled.  McRoberts fouled out in 27 minutes, and Collison was punished by both Luke Ridnour and Sebastian Telfair.  These young Pacers could experience a lot of growing pains this year, manifesting itself in another big hole in the standings early in the season.

• The Good – Roy Hibbert’s line was absolutely ridiculous.  Ridiculous.  27 points.  16 boards.  6 assists.  If you’d told me when the Pacers drafted him, that he’d put up a line like that – even in the preseason – I would have said, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hibbert.  You’ve raised a very nice young man.”  This Roy Hibbert could be the key to the future.
• The Bad – Nope.  Gonna finish on a positive note.  Hibbert was a bad mutha (shut yo mouth) tonight.

Who’s the cat that won’t cop out, when there’s danger all about.  Why, Roy Hibbert, sir.  Thanks for asking.

Reports Mike Wells:

Rush will start the final two preseason games — tonight at Minnesota and Friday at Chicago — because Danny Granger is out with an ankle injury. O’Brien said he wants to continue using Paul George as the first wing player off the bench.

“I was real surprised when I found out I would be starting,” Rush said. “I thought I was done playing because of my suspension.”

Coach O’Brien says he will be looking to see “what he can give.”

The shot chart for the third quarter last night looked like this:

The four makes at the top are all Vince Carter, with three of them in succession giving Orlando their first double digit lead.  This shot chart is why the game flow from last night looked like this:

From a 49-49 tie, the Pacers fell behind by 20 with dizzying speed, a third quarter performance reminiscent of their alarming pattern of two years ago.  The game was within reach, and then it was gone.  Lost amid of flurry of Orlando 3′s and Pacer misses.  The final score of the game is without meaning, but here’s some of what I saw:

Follow Ups (from Yesterday’s Post)

The Young Guys – The line up over the last 8 minutes featured A.J. Price, Lance Stephenson, Paul George, Tyler Hansbrough, and Magnum Rolle.  They outscored Orlando 20-9, but it was pretty much garbage time.  Price scored 15 points in 19 minutes, and did look pretty healthy for a guy who had a major knee injury this summer.  Lance Stephenson looks like an NBA-level scorer, but he’s still a one-on-one guy, and he seems a long way away from knowing how to play within the framework of a team.  Magnum Rolle is definitely…ummm….slender, but he was active and had a very, very nice block.  Also, the guy has incredible hands.  My brother first pointed out to me during the summer league, but last night, he one-handed a fastball Stephenson whipped at him from about 6 feet away.  I’ll speak to George and Hansbrough later.

Paul George – Going from 2-for-9 to 1-for-8 isn’t exactly what you call a positive trend.  He seemed to be “aiming” his shot, and definitely adjusting to the NBA game.  He had a very nice stop-and-go that was for naught as he seemed almost surprised to have a wide open 10 footer that he tried to guide into the goal, instead of just shooting it.  Defensively, he was active and looked to have the tools to be a good defender, but didn’t have a great sense of where to be.  He gave up a couple of second quarter jumpers to Vince Carter, when he got ball gawking, and couldn’t get back when the ball reversed.  There’s a lot to like there, but I don’t know how quickly he’ll put it together.

The Post and the Pick – I charted the first half, before I succumbed to my desire to just sit and watch.  (I did, however, raise a few Snakebites later at Claddagh in honor of the guys who do the thankless job for sites like Hoopdata and Synergy.)  In any case, the news about the Post is pretty positive.  In terms of pure touches, it seems O’Brien is serious about Hibbert being important.  I counted 9 touches for Roy in the high post, where his role will be as a passer and jump shooter.  He also had 9 touches in the low post, scoring 8 points and drawing two fouls.  The Pick had less success, as I saw several ball screens, but only three that constituted real PnR action.  To me, it seemed that the players were still getting used to where each other was going to be on the floor.  I can think of three separate occasions where a pretty pick, a pretty move, and a pretty pass resulted in a turnover because those involved were just the tiniest bit out of sync.  Hopefully, this will settle in as the players get to know each other better.

Josh-a-Roy – What I saw looked good.  These two look like a very good pairing at the big position.  Unfortunately, McRoberts missed the entire second half with a neck injury.  This is concerning, as he is not making the trip to Houston tonight.  Hopefully, this will not cost him a lot of time.  The five-man unit of Hibbert-McRoberts-Granger-Dunleavy-Collison has looked promising, but they really need time together on the court to gel.

The Glass – Half-empty would be an optimistic measure.  The Pacers were pounded on the glass last night, 53-40.  James Posey and Paul George were tied for team high with 5 apiece, but Jim O’Brien and Larry Bird were forced to buy back their bigs from Ryan Anderson for a couple of cartons of Luckies.  This was just a rough count on my part, but Ryan Anderson had 4,356 rebounds last night.

What I didn’t like/What I liked

What I didn’t like about the Defense – First and foremost, it is ultimately self-defeating if you force misses, but you cannot get the rebound.  The 72% is an improvement over the 63% from the other night, but not good enough is not good enough.  Also, I’m concerned about a potential design flaw.  The weakside players for the Pacers’ D were sagging very deep, cheating often to the block, and occasionally actually crossing the imaginary line that runs from rim to rim.  As a result, they were burned on reversals several times.  I cannot tell how much of this is actual design, and how much is execution.  Granger, Dunleavy, and George all were guilty of this.   It seems pretty risky to me.

What I liked about the Defense - In the first half, the team was very agressive and active.  I didn’t track them, but in the second quarter, it seemed like the Pacers were getting deflections almost every time down the floor.

What I didn’t like about the Offense - Only 12 assists.  The main point guards – Collison and Price – combined for 2 assists against 21 shots.  The team did a very poor job of creating shots.  Mike Dunleavy seemed be doing an homage to the absent Brandon Rush (still no clue why), as he only managed on FGA in 27 minutes of play.  Not acceptable from the shooting guard position.

What I liked about the Offense – I loved that they focused on getting the ball to Hibbert so much.  With Collison, Price, and Stephenson, the Pacers have more players capable of creating shots for themselves than they’ve had in years.  The first unit showed a lot of promise in the post, the PnR, and overall movement.

What I didn’t like about Tyler Hansbrough – In my mind, there is no other word for the way Tyler played than “scared.”  Yeah.  I know.   Shocked me, too.  He was tentative, bordering on passive, and looked completely lost.  Arguably, this is understandable given the nature of his injury/illness, and the amount of time he’s missed.  However, this is Tyler Hansbrough.  Scared, tentative, and passive are words I’d never thought I’d use to describe a guy I christened “Buckaroo Banzai” last season.

What I liked about Tyler Hansbrough – In the fourth quarter, it seemed he got out of his head, and played much better.  True, he was playing against Orlando’s C squad, but he was aggressive and forceful.  He took a lob from Hibbert for a layup in a nice high-low play that has promise with Roy and both Tyler and McRoberts.  He’ll get another long look tonight at Houston, and that could tell us a lot about both his game and his recovery.

What I didn’t like about the game in general - Vince Carter…I never liked Vince Carter.  James Posey looks very, very slow, and he is almost exclusively a spot up three-point shooter at this point.  There were two technicals on players in the second quarter, both amazingly cheap.  I’m hoping that this will just be a sharp wrap on the nose for the preseason, but they’ll tone it down come the real games.  It’s going to be really, really irritating, otherwise.

What I liked about the game in general – The first unit looks sound, and Roy Hibbert and Darren Collison are establishing themselves as foundation players on this roster.  If this team gets good, then Area 55 will irritate the living she-poopie out of visiting teams.

Visiting Houston

I don’t have a lot on tonight’s game.  It’s regrettable that Josh McRoberts won’t be available, but most of the things we want to find out about the team are standing questions.  Every game brings more chances for us to understand the team, and for the team to understand itself.  Going from bad to good will be an evolution, not a revolution for the Pacers.

Two guys who I’m thrilled to see back on a basketball court.  Injuries suck.

Sadly, no.

You see, no matter how artfully Mark Boyle and Slick Leonard describe any Pacer game, I have mental block when it comes to listening to basketball on the radio.  I don’t picture the action as being relayed by Mark.  Instead, I picture a ’70′s-era arena – a court surrounded by darkness, faceless players – and the entire game, I’m mentally watching Mark & Slick talk about the game.  I have fleeting images of the action or the players, but mostly, it’s about Mark & Slick.

From that, the biggest mental images I have from last night is of Slick shaking his head and largely looking disappointed with Danny Granger – at both ends.  I can see him prodding Danny to get out on Rudy Gay after Gay nailed his jumpers.  I can see him nodding in agreement with Jim O’Brien’s anger over Danny taking (and missing) a poor shot, then neglecting to get back on D, resulting in an And-1 for Rudy Gay at the other end.

It’s most certainly a molehill, but Danny really did struggle last night.  He’s going to have to adjust to an offense where he’s not going to be options 1, 2, and 3.  Roy Hibbert and his post play will hopefully become the focal point of the half court, while Darren Collison and even Josh McRoberts will handle the ball more than guys like Watson and Murphy did.  This adjustment means that he can – and must – put more emphasis on playing defense and hitting the glass.  On the plus side, only 3 of his 9 shots were three-pointers.  On the downside, he missed all six of his two-point attempts, and the only trip to the line he earned was when he was fouled on a trey.

It’s far from damning news that he still needs to adjust to the new situation.  It is, after all, only the first preseason game.  However, these are adjustments that he has to make successfully, and early, if this team is going to have any shot at the the playoffs.

Some other notes:

• In some ways, last night’s game was like the beginning of TV shows, when the voice over says, “Previously on the West Wing,” then proceeds to show clips from earliers shows.  Like last year, the Pacers shot horribly,  committed a lot of fouls, and got pounded on the boards.   Most will point to the 31% shooting on 29 threes – which is most certainly too many takes and not enough makes.  However, I’m more concerned about the 42% shooting on two point shots, which would have been even more abysmal had Roy Hibbert and Josh McRoberts not combined to go 11-for-15 on 2pt FG’s.   This is where not having a telecast hurts us most, because I can’t tell anything about the quality of the shots or the strength of the defense.  With Hibbert in the post and Collison in the PnR as real options, we should be able to get a pretty decent shot selection.

• The Pacers allowed 29 FTA’s last nights, which was equal to just under 41% of the FGA’s they allowed.  The league average last season was about 30%, and the Pacers were 28th at around 35%.  One game does not make a trend, but this spike is on the wrong side.  Additionally, if we’re hoping for a more mobile Hibbert to protect the rim, consider these numbers – last season, Hibbert blocked 131 shots, but committed 200 shooting fouls.  Most of the rest of the top 10 in shotblocking actually had more blocked shots than shooting fouls.  If Roy’s shot blocking is to have a presence, he will need to do the same.  Last night, he was credited with 2 blocks and 3 shooting fouls.

• Overall, the Pacers were outrebounded 49-35 last night.  They held their own on their offensive glass, grabbing 26.5% of the available rebounds, but that was largely due to great work at that end by Roy Hibbert (6 in 31 minutes) and rookie Magnum Rolle (3 in 8 minutes).  However, the Grizzlies pounded the Pacers at the other end, and Indy could only grab 63% of the available rebounds.   It’s often been argued that Murphy’s rebounding numbers were artificially high, and that’s true to some degree.  However, this was a glaring weaknees in a 2-point loss, so this will bear watching.

• Paul George is another reason I would have loved to see video on the game.  His only two made baskets were dunks, so that means he was 0-for-7 from outside of one inch.  Still, he did have three steals in his 26 minutes of play.  Based on the extremely limited sample of the summer league, the six days of training camp, and this one game, it seems to me that Paul’s defensive game is well ahead of his offensive game.  This surprises me a great deal, but it seems to have captured O’Brien’s attention.

• George played 26 minutes, while Dunleavy had 16, Dahntay Jones 12, and Brandon Rush only 9.  You can’t read a great deal into the rotations in the preseason, as it’s just as likely that the distribution be inverted in the next game.  Still, this isn’t something that can be making Brandon comfortable.  There has been ample talk out of the Pacers’ camp that Mike Dunleavy is fully healthy again, and Paul George is impressing coaches.  Additionally, it seems that there were a number of messages to be taken from the Pacers picking up Roy Hibbert’s option early, but not Brandon’s (though I still expect them to pick it up by Oct 31st.)  Brandon just might be sitting at the bottom of a very large hole that he’s dug for himself.  He needs to start climbing out, or he’ll be following the unfortunate career paths of his brothers.

• It seems that O’Brien wasn’t kidding when he said that Josh McRoberts was the best player in camp.  In 25 minutes last night, he posted 14 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and a block.  For good measure, he nailed two of his four three-point attempts.  This is definitely a more complete, more coherent Josh McRoberts, even when compared to the one getting steady rotation minutes last season.

• Most of the other guys making Pacer debuts were largely non-descript.  Collison had 5 assists and 2 steals, but struggled to finish and committed 3 turnovers.  All four of Posey’s shots were threes (he hit one).  Lance Stephenson played 12 minutes, mostly at point, but almost all of the damage he did (4 points, 2 of 3 fouls) came in barely more than his first minute of floor time.  Rolle saw 8 minutes, grabbing 4 rebounds, but the team was -5 during that stretch.

• It’s hard not to think of Memphis as, well…the Grizzlies.  I mean, after all , this is a franchise that hasn’t won a single playoff game in their history.  Still, that’s really unfair these days.  They have come a long way in just the last year, and at this point, they are probably further along than the Pacers are.  Rudy Gay probably won’t earn out that ridiculous contract, but he’s still a very talented player who may have pulled himself past Danny Granger with his great experience/performance at the World Championships this summer.  Zach Randolph has apparently matured, and Marc Gasol is a very good young center.  Whether they’re a playoff team in the West or not is an open question, but I think they’ve elevated themselves comfortably above doormat status.  Good on them.

Next game is Friday night.  If you want to see other reactions, you can check out the AP Report, or our friends at IndyCornows.  And, of course, check out our True Hoop Colleagues over at 3 Shades of Blue for the view from the dark side.  Surprisingly (not), they thought it was kind of a sloppy performance, but writer Matthew Noe did have some nice words for Roy Hibbert.