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Danny Granger

There was a mini-dust-up between Danny Granger and Kevin Love late in the third quarter during Indiana’s 109-99 win over Minnesota earlier tonight. It was most likely one of those “he-did-he-thought” things. Love clearly reached out and smacked Granger with his arm extended and also sorta grabbed Granger’s shoulder while he was fouling him and lost his balance. But Danny, not having eyes in the back of his head (as anyone who has seen him pass can attest … ZING), thought Kevin was doing it more-on-purpose than he likely was. Perhaps he was up to something a little more nefarious. Love said it was a “hard foul.”

Either way, nobody was harmed, Danny yelled, Love just sorta stood there, Michael Beasley and Frank Vogel rushed over, and nothing really happened. But then something did happen.

Granger, who was already having a whale of a third quarter (15 points in the period up to that point), scored 14 more points following the fracas as his team pulled away. And he was ultra-physical and aggressive while waging his little one-man army campaign in a way that you know he was all sorts of charged up. As the philosopher Billy Hoyle once prophesized, Danny, unlike most guys, seems to play better when he’s mad.

After the win, Roy Hibbert wanted to make sure the rest of the NBA knew that Love had erred in his ways. So as a word of advice, he took to Twitter let everyone know they shouldn’t make the same mistake of angering his captain.

Great win tonight. Lesson to the league don’t get @dgranger33 mad. Y’all been warned!!

So take that to heart, league. You’re on notice about getting Danny Granger mad, according to Roy Hibbert.

The foul that started it all.

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After the Pacers beat the Bulls in Chicago last week, Derrick Rose took exception to Indiana’s over-exuberance in celebrating the win. “I can’t wait to play them again,” he said, vowing revenge. Pacers Coach Frank Vogel later jabbed the Bulls back with some words, which my mom told me, unlike sticks and stone, can never hurt me. Thus, a sorta-feud was born.

Now, another young, usually mild-mannered NBA All-Star is lashing out at the team from the Hoosier State after getting beat on his home court. Look at how much Kevin Love doesn’t like the Pacers. (My emphasis added)

I’ve said all along,” Love said, “I don’t like the Pacers.”

Love and Pacers forward Danny Granger almost came to blows with 23.7 seconds remaining the third quarter after Love was whistled for a foul and Granger approached him aggressively.

Players bumped into each other, with Michael Beasley and Martell Webster helping separate the pair. But like just about every fight in the NBA, it was all talking and no punching.

“I know that none of them were going to do anything,” said Love, who finished with 21 points. “Just play ball. It’s part of the game — a hard foul, everybody is getting fouled out there.”

The escalating feud between the two teams extends back to last season, when they split a pair of physical contests with each team winning on their home court.

“(They think) they are so tough,” Love said. “They take those pills and they got all that toughness. I don’t know where that comes from. They all think they are tough guys. I just don’t know where that comes from. It just blows my mind. They are all tough and that makes me laugh.”

The teams won’t play each other again until April 16 at Indiana, but it appears Love is already looking forward to it.

“I guarantee the next time we play them, it will be just as physical,” he said.

I’m not sure what pills he is referring to but he is clearly an authority on who is and who is not a tough guy. He has a scraggly beard and all, you know.

UPDATE: Danny Granger responded to Kevin Love on Twitter.

In response to @kevinlove’s “pacer toughness” comments… We don’t act tough, we just play hard. If we have to be tough then we will be…

In addition to wins, these Pacers sure are racking up the feuds.

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Danny Granger has made 26 of his past 52 shots. By using my fingers and toes, I’ve discovered that that equals 50% from the field. If you go back even further, to include his past six games, he has made 45 of his past 95 shots. That’s a little worse but still good for 47.4%, which is almost 3 percentage points above his career average FG%. Better still, he has been sticking his threes of late. In that six-game stretch, he has his 14 of his 31 shots (45.2%) from behind the arc. Sharp shooting.

While this is all good news, his season-long numbers are so heavily weighted down by his early season struggles that they remain gross. Danny’s eFG% is only 44.1%. His career average is 48.6%, so he reamins s 4.5 percentage points below what we should expect. Given that his low point this season was after 7 games, when his eFG% was 36.4%. however, it’s notable that he has picked up about 7.7 percentage points over his past 11 outings.

As far as where on the court he is hitting from, according to Hoopdata, Danny is still shooting below average at the rim and in the mid-range. His shooting rates at the rim, from 10-15 feet and from 16-23 feet are 1.4, 1.7, and 2,8 points against league average, respectively.

Again, things are trending northward, however. Since his low point after game 7, Granger picked up 15.7 percentage points at the rim, 10.7 percentage points from 10-15, and 16.3 percentage points from 16-23 feet. (The only place he’s fallen back is from 3-9 feet, where he’s given back 16.6 points. However, he’s still shooting well there objectively, with 47.1% success rate vs. a league average of 40.0%.)

Interestingly, this change in effectiveness has come without much of a change in shot selection. He has hoisted up at least 13 shots in each of his last 6 games and the location distribution has held pretty steady. Since that low point after the first 7 games, he has increased his shooting volume about 2.5% from the 3-9 range and 0.7% at the rim. But those are negligible changes within this sample size.

In short, Granger’s recent shooting improvement isn’t coming from a better shot selection.

It’s coming from better shot making.

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Unlike during the fourth quarter collapse in Sacramento last Wednesday, the Pacers most certainly didn’t play small ball last night while closing out the Warriors. David West is likely happier than he was the other day, as he spent all but 15 seconds of the final period on the floor and Roy Hibbert played the final 6 minutes. Roy only took one shot (which he did make) and West launched some terrible ones so it wasn’t exactly like their presence lit up the scoreboard. But the big guys did leave their mark in other ways

Below are two really good screens that Hibbert set in the fourth that gave Pacers’ shooters wide-open looks. How’s your face feeling Dorell Wright?

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