Reports Ira Winderman:

So much for Dwyane Wade downplaying left foot. He sat out Wednesday’s shootaround leaving his status in doubt for Pacers.

Continued …

The door remains somewhat open. “I just have to be smart, come in, get more treatment today and see how I feel later,” Wade said.

Continued …

Dwyane Wade, on his decision whether to play Wednesday night against the Pacers, “Obviously, as an athlete, you learn how to play through pain. But certain things, when it’s really affecting your game, you have to take a look at it.”

Continued …

Spoelstra on Wade’s status, “With so many games in so many days, we want to be smart about it and make sure we can treat it and move on.”

Playing against LeBron and Chris Bosh is a challenge in and of itself — and I hope no one would wish injury upon anyone — but Pacers fans should be hoping Dwyane decides to take the night off. This Heat team is probably the best squad in the league but they become infinitely more beatable if the guy who keeps hitting game winners is in a suit on the bench.

No related posts.

For example, he had one rather poor stretch that directly followed his trip to the line for three free throws after Eddie House fouled him while taking a three midway through the third.

The next trip down, he was guarding Dwyane Wade, who it should be noted was fairly unguardable for most of the night on his way to 41 points on 29 shots. Dwyane utterly abused him off the dribble with a vicious crossover that he was able to set up so well because of George’s highly aggressive pressure on the ball. Again, getting smoked off the dribble by Wade isn’t the worst offense in the world, but it was how amateurish Flash made PG look.

On the other end of the court, Paul then committed one of the worst — yet least-often condemned — sins an NBA player can make: he passed up a really good shot. Rather than taking the open 10-footer he could have had, he stalled and passed off. The Pacers did not score on the play.

Then, making the prior play seem even worse, Paul pushed the ball in transition soon after and made a poor decision to try to finish the play himself. He went to the rim while being challenging by two defenders. And he didn’t go strong, instead up-faking and trying some double-clutch, dippity-do nonsense that was punched into the stands.

On back-to-back plays, he didn’t take a shot he should have and then took a shot he shouldn’t have.

With better decisions on these two offensive possessions — or simply a better move in transition on the second one — the Pacers may have gotten four points at a time when the game was feeling highly up for grabs. I’m not trying to overstate what happened on a few possessions, but when we’re talking about a team with an offense that has been as shaky as Indiana’s, every missed opportunity is significant. And after the second straight poor decision, I was thinking “Dunleavy please.” (Frank Vogel stuck with the kid, which was something that I thought might hurt the Pacers win this game but might help George long-term. It’s a tough balancing act to manage. And I think it’s safe to say that the previous coach would have made a move at this point.)

Let’s just keep our expectations realistic for the kid is all I’m saying. He’s far from perfect even as he improves everyday. He’s a rookie. Stuff like this is par for the course. There will be ups and down. Peaks and valley. Phillip Seymour Hoffmans and Nic Cages. It’s just what rookies not named Blake Griffin go through — both within the context of a season and the context of virtually every game.

On the other hand, we sure do enjoy noting Paul George’s fantastic accomplishments along with his growing pains. And this tweet from Tom Haberstroh shows just how encouraging the young’n's game has been at times. Scoring 14 points on 7 shots while slowing down one of the three best players (and perhaps the best penetrator) in the NBA on a night said player was out of his damn mind?

Yeah. That’ll work.

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1. Dwyane Wade Throws a Full-Court Alley Oop to Lebron James
2. A Photo of Paul George
3. Paul George Isn’t Paying for More Than 10 People to Watch Him Not Play Basketball

Don’t call it a comeback.

For those of you who may have just tuned in for the closing stages of the fourth quarter, the Miami Heat started the game on a 95-92 run, a lead that the Pacers (shockingly) couldn’t surmount in the final five minutes.

In a game that would decide the season series between the Heat and the Pacers (huge for a potential tiebreaker in April, you know), Miami opened up a 41-17 first quarter lead primarily off the strength of Dwyane Wade’s 22 points in the first period. Through the second quarter, however, the bench began to play a key role. At halftime, only four Heat players had scored points. Despite their early woes, the Pacers trailed by just four.

Miami emerged from the locker room, knocking down two quick early buckets that seemed to reassert its dominance. The Pacers still hung tough, however, and when Danny Granger knocked down a three with 8:33 remaining in the third quarter, it was a new game.

Over the next 17 minutes of game time, the lead was never more than a possession either way until Danny Granger missed an open, potentially game-tying three followed by LeBron putting back a miss by former Pacer great (along the same lines as Scott Haskins and Damon Bailey) Erick Dampier to stretch the Heat lead by five with just over three minutes to go.

Giving Miami a two-possession cushion with less than three minutes to go is about as advisable as going to a gentleman’s club with Stephen Jackson. The rest of the game was a formality.

Still, wasn’t what transpired in the first quarter when Miami opened up a 24-point lead in a hurry kind of what we anticipated? Didn’t a lot of basketball fans foresee Miami dominating like the Heat did in the first quarter every single night ever since “taking my talents to South Beach” entered our lexicon in July?

Of course, some of the things that Miami did in this game were beyond even the most outlandish expectations (like Jeff Van Gundy’s 74-win projection). Some of these occurrences included the following: Wade’s ninety-foot pass to LeBron with Manning-like precision, his roof-scraping arc of a shot over Paul George and Chris Bosh’s coast-to-coast drive that included a behind-the-back dribble move that made him look more like Penny Hardaway circa 1995 and less like one of the league’s most overhyped players.

Clearly, there is absolutely no combination of players that Indiana has at its disposal to counter LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Basketball, however, is never played on paper. In reality, the answer (equally shocking) was Tyler Hansbrough, Dahntay Jones, AJ Price, Paul George and Jeff Foster. In fact, the Pacers were +9 in the 17 minutes that Price played but -16 in the 31 minutes played by Darren’s Collison, who didn’t hit his first field goal until the final minute when game was over.

In such a crazy and erratic game, it’s hard to learn anything for certain, but the following is a list of things we do know…

• Tyler Hansbrough just plays hard.
• Miami’s exploitable weakness is its depth. When you have Juwan Howard (who is so old that he used to give Frank Vogel swirlies in high school) on your bench AND one of your starting guards plays 26 minutes and scores two points, that’s probably not good.
• Chris Bosh’s game is about as versatile as a folding chair, and he plays defense about as well as one too.

Recently, there has been talk that perhaps the Pacers are a bad match-up for Miami and that perhaps the Heat would rather have a different opponent in the first round. Clearly, the Heat have the better team and would be a prohibitive favorite in a seven-game series. In a couple of victories this season, however, Miami needed two Herculean efforts (Wade’s 41 and 12 tonight and LeBron’s 14-13-8 a week ago) to turn the Pacers back.

As Lloyd Christmas said in Dumb & Dumber … so you’re telling me there’s a chance!?!?

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1. Game #49 Recap – Zee Germans, Tommy
2. Game #12 Recap – All Things Considered & Game #13 Notes – Don’t Leave This on the Table
3. Game #29 Recap: Operation Nonchalance

Wade walked first though.

(More on the actual game shortly.)

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1. On Dwyane Killing Indy Last Night
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3. Britton Johnsen Dunked on LeBron, Guys

Below is Jermaine dressed as Mr. T and Marquis dressed as a man of the cloth.

Well done, gents.

You can see some other Celtic costumes here, a stellar Justin Timberlake get-up from Dwyane Wade here and an Atlanta Hawks Halloween party here. Apparently the rule in the ATL was that you had to come as a famous entertainer — unless you were drafted ahead of Chris Paul and Deron Williams, which meant you had to phone it in and pretend a stethoscope is a costume. Looking good, Marvin.

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“I watch all the teams and what they did for LeBron, and [the Heat] still have to go through the Lakers with Kobe Bryant out there, who’s been my favorite player for a long time,’’ said Pacers president Larry Bird. “And I don’t think whatever they do in the East is really going to concern him that much.’’

Honestly, I would probably be similarly surprised to hear he had a favorite food or TV show.

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————–

Not much more to add to that in terms of game recap.    You’ve undoubtedly seen the highlights.  The Typo posterizing McBob was just one of several I’m-going-to-the-basket-and-unless-you’ve-got-a-gun-there’s-nothing-you-can-do-about-it moments last night, but it was the unlikely back-to-back three’s in overtime that extinguished the Pacers’ hopes.

“Unlikely” is something of an interesting choice of words.  Let’s face facts:  Dwyane Wade is a terrible three point shooter.  Over the course of his career, Wade has only hit 29% of his shots from beyond the arc.  Through his first five seasons, he shot a putrid 26% while averaging about one chuck a night.  Over the last two season, he’s more than tripled his attempts, and he has hit about 30% of those, but that is still not good.  Basically, that means the vacuum power on his three point suckage can only move a golf ball through 25 feet of frozen garden hose instead of 50, and the days of removing the chrome from a trailer hitch are probably passed.

So that’s why, when – in the midst of an 18-point, 6-for-9 3rd Quarter – Wade pulled up for a three ball early in the shot clock and trailing by four, I quipped, “Dwyane (pronouncing it DWY- Ann), buddy, that’s a turnover.”  When the ball clanged off the side of the rim, showering rebounders with chips of orange paint, the guys I was at the game with all laughed appreciatively.   Later, after another one of those (see clever, but inordinately long description above) drives, I loudly said I’d sag off Wade and throw money at him until he shot the three, drawing grunts of agreement.

I am so very, very clever.

Unfortunately, Flash isn’t just a bad three-point shooter.  He is also a Great Player.  I’m not talking small “g” great, an appellation that gets passed around on the internet more than Prissy Catlow down the Point.  I’m talking about honest-to-God great.  Difference maker.  Special.

And that’s why there was no clever quip when Flash pulled up for a trey in OT with the Pacers trailing by two.  I simply thought, “Firetruck.”  (Not really, that’s just the euphemism I learned as an adolescent for my brother-in-law Vince’s favorite word.)  Then, when he launched the second attempt a scant 30 seconds later, I thought, “Mother Firetruck,” and closed my eyes.  The loud cheer that went up from the way-too-many Heat fans in Conseco told me what I already knew:  the game was over.

All of the information and data in my head told me that he’d miss that shot two times out of three, and that maybe one time in twelve would he hit back-to-back triples.  All of the knowledge in my head told me he was going to hit ‘em.  Sure, I was hoping they’d miss, and that the Pacers would run back and take control of the game.  It wasn’t real hope, though.  It was a kind of desperate hope.  Like the kind you have when your car is sliding on slick pavement towards a light pole.  You hope that either the car will stop in time or that the light pole will manage to jump out of the way.  You view each with equivalent likelihood.

Wade hit the threes, and the Pacers were gut shot.  All that was left was the slow, lingering agony that comes with knowing the inevitable.

So, about “unlikely.”  That’s one of those phrases that is technically correct, but not even vaguely accurate (or honest, even).  However, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Pacer fan, never pretending to be anything different.  Therefore, it’s my prerogative, perhaps even duty, to be petty, small-minded, spiteful, and bitter.  I upheld that duty last night, saying after Wade’s first trey,  “Oh man, you could take that shot 99 times and not hit it again.”  I may have even gone so far as to yell, “Shoot it! Shoot it!” at Wade before the second one.  I can’t quite recall.  At that point in time, my judgment and discretion had already left the Fieldhouse and was walking down the street to O’Reilly’s to see if there was a table for four, leaving only “the fan.”  Never a pretty sight.

So…”Unlikely” it is.

I am so very, very childish.

Oh, I guess you might want some actual game notes

• It was readily apparent that the Pacers’ transformation from possibly the worst Pacer squad ever to a competitive and somewhat enjoyable to watch team continued.  Not that this necessarily means anything long term, but when you’ve looked forward to a night out with your brother, nephew, and lifelong friend all week, it’s really, really nice to have some good basketball to go with it.   The Pacers and Heat didn’t disappoint, providing as close to playoff basketball as Pacer fans will see in Conseco this year.  The tight nature of the game was a big step up for the Pacers, who had been completely and totally owned by Miami in the first three matchups.  The average margin of defeat had been 32 in Miami, and it had been a not-as-close-as-the-final-score-indicated 13-point difference in Conseco’s earlier contest.  The Heat’s athleticism and physicality creates headaches for Indy, which generally has had neither all year long.  However, the Pacers clawed and scratched and helped all night.  Effort, movement, and intensity that would have been really nice to see, oh, say all year long.

• My recap of the Hawks game last Sunday pointed out a major difference in the game by showing a picture of the shot charts of Roy Hibbert and Al Horford.  Looking at this comparison of Dwyane and Danny’s output gives a good indication of the difference between Big “G” and small “g” greatness.

• The two point guards, Earl Watson and A.J. Price, came up big down the stretch.  They both made big plays down the stretch.  It’s not a combination that’s going to bring the Larry O’Brien to Indy, but it is sound.  For the second year in a row, the Pacers figured out a PG rotation that works after it was too late.  This is going to be a big decision this summer.  In my mind, there is no way they can bring T.J. Ford back into camp next year.  Once again, we will probably have T.J.’s contract preventing us from keeping the PG we’d prefer to keep (though much shorter term and cheaper in Earl’s case than in Jarret’s).  I don’t think Price is ready for starter’s minutes, and I don’t think he’ll ever really be good enough to deserve them.  We’re into our second decade of being unsettled at the point guard.

• Roy Hibbert would like to apologize for missing last night’s game.  As it turns out, a group of rabid Michigan State fans mistook him for Butler Bulldog star Gordon Hayward.  He spent the evening tied up in the bed of a burnt orange metallic Chevy SUT, but was released around midnight when they discovered their mistake.  Confusing Hibbert for Hayward?   I know, I know, but, whaddaya want?  They’re Michigan State fans.

• Speaking of Hayward, d’ya ‘spose there be any way we could orchestrate a secret swap of him for Mike Dunleavy?  He could just play out Junior’s contract, wearing #17 and everything.  Michael could go matriculate at Butler.  I don’t know about you, but I’m growing weary of the Weekend at Bernie’s routine the Pacers are doing with Junior’s corpse.

• Downtown in Indy was the place to be last night.  A beautiful, breezy night with the temperatures comfortably in the 60′s.   Lots of people and lots of electricity.  Indianapolis converts so easily to a college town feel when the Final Four’s in town.

Sure, you won the game, and your de-pantsing of Brandon Rush followed by your vicious posterization of Josh McRoberts drew plenty of “Oooh’s and Aaah’s,” but this fella (Blue 2, Butler’s mascot) got the biggest ovation from the crowd all night long.  So, yeah.  Suck it, Dwyane.

(Personal note:  Butler is the alma mater of my father and one of my lifelong friends.  I even attended for a year, before I decided that it was too expensive for me not to go to class.  I have spent many a drunken evening on their quiet little campus, and I am pulling for them with every fiber of my being.  Don’t lump these guys in with the GMU’s of the world.  They belong here, and they’ve got a real shot.)

No related posts.

————-

Samuel Dalembert comes to Indianapolis tonight, and a meaningless basketball game will hopefully provide him with a short distraction from real life. See, Samuel is Haitian and has struggled to sleep or concentrate on anything other than the tragedy that struck his country for the past 10 days, during which time he visited his country to see what he could do to help.

All this has pushed him to the front of the NBA’s admirable relief efforts since the quake (which TJ Ford and Josh McRoberts have contributed to), and his heartfelt remarks after his recent return from his demolished homeland provide the league with a first-hand account of the horror — and the unfathomable challenges facing those trying save lives and repair infrastructure.

“I’m doing my best,” he says. “I’ll take another trip with UNICEF. So we can try to get all those children out there … you know, we have parents who have been trying to adopt for two or three years.”

At this point, tears are streaming down Dalembert’s face. “You know and … that’s frustrating me … you’re asking people to help. And kids have parents over there who want to adopt them. I’ve got a hundred parents, and you have a bunch of guys sitting down with the freaking papers. All it takes is one hour to go over everything, you know what I’m saying?

“I saw somebody’s leg amputated in front of me. Surgeries performed on a kitchen table … I’m talking about a folding kitchen table … I have some disturbing pictures. And it hurts. … There was no surgery room … You heard him screaming. … Not enough alcohol. Things we take for granted, you know. They try to make one bottle of alcohol last …

“And I’m going to do something in Philly. I will have a plane come in here, in Philly, and collect stuff next week … and I will have the plane take the stuff over there. Also I will let people know that if doctors want to give their time, that plane can go over there bringing doctors over there. Hopefully we’ll make huge progress. Hopefully we’ll save more lives.”

Samuel’s ongoing efforts are truly noble.

And they make all efforts into anything related to sports and entertainment inconsequential. Even as I type this, for example, I feel worthless for spending so much time over the past two weeks going on about my merry life and putting time into writing about the Pacers while millions suffer unthinkable calamities.

But this is what I do, so it is what I have done.

In fact, last week marked the six-month anniversary of this blog’s existence and me having been doing this. I didn’t even notice until just now, and while six months certainly isn’t that big of a deal, it does present a small opportunity for me to urge you to help people in dire need of help.

I know we haven’t always provided the timeliest or greatest or funniest or consistentest or [insert superlative here] coverage of the Pacers. We’re still learning the ropes and have made a lot of mistakes over the half-year. But we have put in a lot of effort and, presumably, at least a few of you have enjoyed our coverage — our coverage that is free to you and for which I don’t get paid.

I’m fine with that. I would never ask for payment from readers for this drivel.

But if you have ever even for a quick second wanted to give us thanks for any of the content we’ve created for the Pacers community thus far, please give $10 to the relief efforts in Haiti. All you have to do is text “Haiti” to 90999 and $10 will go to the Red Cross and be added to your next phone bill. Or even if you think we are doing terrible, terrible work here — or have know idea who I am — and are for some reason reading this sentence anyway, please, still send $10.

It’s literally the least we can do.

Thanks for reading, and please watch the video below that shows how President Clinton has partnered with the NBA for relief efforts, which are also being greatly advanced by Dwyane Wade and Alonzo Mourning.

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The Pacers might have actually been glad to see Dwyane Wade make his first 3-pointer of the game Tuesday night. Much like with LeBron James prior to this season or Allen Iverson always, the best defense against an elite penetrator who too often settles for jump shots often can be to just let him shoot. The last thing you want a guy called Flash to do is try to dribble by you, so if he becomes enamored with the long stuff early, you might have him right where you want him — away from the paint.

And Wade, who was shooting 27.4 percent from behind the arc on 3.2 3-point attempts per game going into Tuesday night, is definitely someone Pacers coach Jim O’Brien likes to see standing 25 feet from the hoop.

But this wasn’t O’Brien’s night. It was Wade’s night.

After hitting his first 3 less than two minutes after the tip, Wade would hit two more triples in the quarter and tallied 18 of his game-high 32 points before the first period ended. In the second quarter — by which point the game already seemed over, and Miami was adding to a lead that would eventually reach 31 points — Wade added a layup that put him over the 11,000-point mark for his career. The way things were going, it felt like he might eclipse the 12,000-point plateau before the half.

Indiana had come back to win after being down 23 against Toronto just last week and followed that up by erasing a 24-point deficit to beat Phoenix two days later, so there was still hope. But similar fortune would not return. Not on a night when the Pacers were playing in Miami instead of Indianapolis. Not on a night when Danny Granger shot 2-for-16. And not when Michael Beasley was playing Robin to Flash’s … well … Flash.

Let’s hope they have better luck against the other Florida team tonight.

(Full preview to come shortly)

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Post-Game Essentials: Box Score | PM Game Flow | Play-By-Play | Shot Chart | Behind the Box Score | Indy Star Recap | Cornrows Recap | AP Recap | Pacer’s Digest Post Game

During one of approximately 101 non-pivotal Heat possessions last night, Dwyane Wade found himself with the ball at the top of the key. Per always against Indiana, the only thing preventing him from scoring was a slower, less athletic, less skilled Pacer. So Flash just sized up the man in front of him, took a few hard dribbles to the right and rose up for the 17-foot jumper.

It’s a pull-up move he has made hundreds — perhaps thousands — of times in his career. And one of the main things that makes Dwyane’s mid-range game so lethal is his focus. He has an uncanny ability to immediately stop advancing with incredible precision while the defender keeps retreating. Then he lifts off the floor, usually with a slight fade back or to the side, intently staring at the rim throughout his jumper, accentuating his follow through on the release and, finally, taking an excited little half-hop as he admires his work after landing back on the ground. Throughout the entire process he never breaks his concentration until the ball drops safely through the rim.

That didn’t happen on this possession.

Instead, he just released the jumper, turned and walked back down the court, assuming the ball would swish through the net. But the ball hit iron and bounced around the cylinder, making it seem as though Wade had been overly nonchalant in his assumption that the shot would go done. By the time Flash finally turned to look back, he was near half-court and well out of position to be a factor in any offensive rebound action if the ball bounced out. It looked as if his over-confidence was about to prove as silly as mine often is when I’m bowling and turn around to pose for my lane mates while expecting an impending strike — only to later turn and see three pins still standing.

But it didn’t matter. Just as presumed, the ball eventually dropped through after a few fortuitous bounces around the rim.

That whole sequence was a microcosm for this game — and, really, the whole Pacers season at this point.

The Heat — like any other .500-caliber team — did not need to do much but show up, go through the motions and win despite a half-interested, nonchalant approach. Playing the Pacers right now is not quite as comforting as having a night off, but the Heat certainly looked about as uncomfortable dunking their way to a blowout during this one as I assume they do during their pre-game shootarounds.

And increasingly, the look I see on the faces of opposing players makes me think that their pregame meeting consisted of only the team captain saying: “C’mon, coach. Let’s just go shoot around already. We got this. It’s the Pacers.”

This loss marks the lowest point in a season full of nearly nothing but.

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