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Detroit Pistons

Game #76 Recap: Pacers Handle Pistons

by Alex Yovanovich on March 30, 2011 at 11:19 pm · 0 comments

The Indiana Pacers looked great in handling the Pistons 111-101 on Wednesday night. Darren Collison led the attack with 20 points, Danny Granger added 17 and Josh McRoberts had a career-best with 13 rebounds to add to an effective 15-point night. Mike Dunleavy inspired the troops by making a triumphant return from injury to score 9 points. It was truly a night when no one on the Pacers played poorly.

On nights like these it’s easy to envision the Pacers as a worthy playoff team, despite their 34-42 record. Play well and the Pacers should easily be able to steal a game in a likely first round match-up against Chicago. Pushing a Chicago series to five games would be a noteworthy accomplishment for this group and set the franchise on the right path for the future. With the impending cap room the Pacers are about to enjoy this would be the icing on the cake.

All seems right with the world. The Pacers just spanked the Pistons. They continue to have a one-game lead for the 8th and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Keep playing like this and the regular season business will soon turn into the postseason bonus.

Which makes the cynic in me wonder — based on how things have gone this season — how far does the pendulum now swing in the other direction?

A quick glance at the Pacers closing schedule shows that there aren’t many teams like Detroit left on the slate. In fact, I count only one sure win, next Wednesday against Washington. It all starts with a game against Milwaukee, which will be looking at a last gasp effort on Friday to stay in the playoff race by beating the Pacers.

Here’s the Pacers remaining schedule:

Friday, April 1 – Milwaukee (30-44)
Sunday, April 3 – at New Orleans (42-32)
Wednesday, April 6 – Washington (18-56)
Friday, April 8 – Atlanta (42-32)
Sunday, April 10 – New York (36-38)
Wednesday, April 13 – at Orlando (47-28)

While things look a little daunting, it could be easier than anticipated if Atlanta, New York and Orlando all are locked into their playoff spots and decide that they have nothing to play for down the stretch.

On the surface, Charlotte has more games that they should win. Their closing schedule includes several bad teams in Washington, Cleveland, Detroit and New Jersey.

Here’s the Bobcats remaining schedule:

Friday, April 1 – at Orlando (47-28)
Sunday, April 3 – Washington (18-56)
Tuesday, April 5 – at Cleveland (15-59)
Wednesday, April 6 – Orlando (47-28)
Friday, April 8 – at Miami (52-23)
Sunday, April 10 – Detroit (26-48)
Monday, April 11 – at New Jersey (23-50)
Wednesday, April 13 – Atlanta (42-32)

Before their latest Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine, I really thought making the playoffs would be a relatively easy proposition for the Pacers. As Tim Donahue pointed out in recent article, the Pacers should have been home free after thoroughly dismantling the Bobcats last week.

Instead, they find themselves in a fight for their lives. Michael Jordan essentially made it public that Charlotte did not want to be the 7th or 8th seed in the East when he traded away his key pieces before the February deadline. Somehow, the Charlotte players ignored all that and have gone on to win four games in a row since the Pacers blew them out on their home court.

Meanwhile, the Pacers somehow managed to lose by double-digits to both Sacramento and Detroit before putting together a great effort to beat Boston.

The Pacers are a hard team to figure out. They have beaten teams they shouldn’t be able to beat, but they have lost in blowouts many more times to teams they should beat consistently.

If the Pacers recent trend of beating teams that are headed to the playoffs holds true, they should be in good shape. That would mean at least four wins down the stretch and the blue and gold would be playoff bound.

Given the wild swings of inconsistency this year, that is probably too much to ask …

But I’ll cross my fingers anyway.

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Detroit, Indiana, Fans, Apathy and an Odd Future

by Ronald Eugene on March 30, 2011 at 1:03 pm · 8 comments

Recently, I entered the House the Bad Boys Built and Ron Artest nearly tore down: the Palace of Auburn Hills. Expecting to perhaps be threatened or harassed for my preferred outcome of Saturday’s Pacers/Pistons game in Motown, I was instead disturbed for entirely different reasons.

It wasn’t the fact that I was in Detroit during Spring Break, the free throw shooting of my favored team or even the final result that upset me. The problem was the atmosphere of the game.

In a city far removed from its team’s latest championship, the Detroit crowd was lively and responsive. The Pistons played a good game — certainly helped by their opponent’s 7-of-19 performance from the free throw line — and the crowd fed them energy.

Why does it matter that Detroit had a good crowd on a Saturday night home game in March? Great question. I’m glad that you asked.

The real problem is that it was a more energetic game than any of the dozen that I have been to in Indianapolis all year. This came in the building of a team that is effectively out of the playoff race and has very few, if any, long term answers.

As the regular season draws to a close, and the postseason vaguely threatens to disappear entirely, it is not unreasonable to take a quick glance to the Pacers’ future.

Mike Dunleavy ($10.5 million), T.J. Ford ($8.5 million) and Jamaal Tinsley ($5.5 million) all have contributed about equal amounts since the switch to Frank Vogel, and all will be off the Pacers’ cap next year. This gives the team a considerable amount of wiggle room to sign new free agents to complement the assumed existing core of Darren Collison, Danny Granger, Roy Hibbert, Tyler Hansbrough and Paul George.

In a rapidly changing NBA, the question becomes: what will bring the players to Indiana?

We’ve seen from the recent migrations of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Carmelo Anthony that money isn’t enough in every circumstance. Oftentimes it comes down to the existing players on the roster (also known as the “Miami Cheat” or “LeBron White Flag”) or location (also known as “Carmelo Takes Denver Hostage”). Unfortunately, the Pacers really don’t have either advantage on their side.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve lived in Indiana my entire life, and with the exception of a few months-long excursions to perfect my Spanish, I don’t expect to leave anytime soon. But I’m not an NBA free agent, the majority of whom aren’t from the Midwest.

So if money isn’t enough to bring a big-time free agent to Indianapolis, what’s getting him here?

See, the problem in Indiana may be the weather: the cold-weather tendencies of the winter and the fair-weather tendencies of the fans. The Colts even had some trouble selling out this year’s home playoff game initially, and the Pacers can’t get a full house without help from either LeBron or fans from Chicago.

If I’m an NBA player, I’ve noticed this in my past trips to Indiana over the years. I’m not entirely sure that I want to spend the next three to five years of my career playing in front of a Conseco Fieldhouse half-full of lethargic supporters. I don’t know what the small market of Indianapolis, a city where the bars close at 2:00 and the winter lasts a full three months, has to offer me other than a paycheck. I’m going to think twice about playing almost 50 games a year over six months in an arena in the self-proclaimed capital of basketball where the fans can’t match the energy level of a destitute team in a city that just set a national record for population decrease.

If you’re reading this thinking that sounds ridiculously immature and shortsighted, you may not completely understand the mind of a millionaire athletic phenomenon in his 20s.

On November 19, 2004, Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson ran into the stands at the Palace of Auburn Hills; the Pacers have never been relevant since. As I sat less than a hundred feet from that very spot six years and change later listening to an invigorated Detroit crowd celebrate a fundamentally meaningless victory, I worried about how my team could ever return to what it once was if the fans just don’t really care.

Related Topics: Detroit Pistons, Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson

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Game #74 Recap: Losing By Double-Digits to Detroit

by Jared Wade on March 27, 2011 at 1:43 am · 2 comments

How did you spend your Saturday night? Danny Granger, Tyler Hansbrough, Roy Hibbert, Darren Collison, Paul George and a few other guys spent theirs losing by double-digits to Detroit, largely due to a terrible third quarter in which they turned the ball over 8 times and allowed the Pistons to go on a 20-3 run at one point.

The starters whose first name isn’t Tyler shot a combined 34.3% on 12-for-13 shooting. The starters whose first name is Paul played a combined 4 minutes in the first half because of foul trouble and only saw 12 minutes of action in total. No matter there really, however, as Brandon Rush came through with some hot shooting off the bench, sticking 4 of the 6 treys he took on his way to 19 points on 10 shots. It was Rush’s best scoring night since January 12. Nice evening for him. McRoberts played pretty good, t0o, flushing two alley-opps for 4 of his 8 points. He added 8 boards and was generally active in a good way in his 21 minutes.

Ultimately, you would think two good bench performances on the road would be enough to win in the Palace of Auburn Hills, the home of the NBA’s 7th worst team by record. Nope. Not a on a night when the starters barely made a dent on the score sheet.

This was Indiana’s 26th double-digit loss of the year, and it comes on the heels of a 17-point loss to a Sacramento team that currently has 19 wins and a poor showing (albeit in a win) against a New Jersey with 23 wins.

That’s all I’ll say on this one as you should just go read Tim’s recent and completely excellent breakdown of what’s increasingly looks like a broken team. All the same issues he raised were once again on display. And reading that will tell you a lot more about this team than me attempting to understand the reasons that these guys couldn’t stop Charlie Villanueva in the 4th quarter, anyone in the 3rd quarter or Rip Hamilton at any point in the game.

The Pacers play the Celtics on Monday.

Should be a barrel of fun.

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