Now, the bad: everything else that happened in the fourth quarter.

With just 8:14 remaining in regulation, the Pacers led 82-63. Then Indiana, particularly its interior defense, decided to take the rest of the quarter off, allowing the Magic to end the game on a 26-7 run that extended the contest into overtime. This wasn’t exactly the Grizzlies letting the Clippers come back from down 21 points with 12 minutes to play — it was, mathematically, worse. Moreover, the Magic don’t employ Chris Paul or Blake Griffin.

How in the world could this happen?

With a total defensive breakdown. And perhaps a questionable coaching decision.

The run began with two Jameer Nelson/Glen Davis pick-and-rolls that were defended equally poorly. On the first, David West (weakly) moved over to stall Nelson’s ball penetration and make no real attempt to recover as Jameer made an easy bounce pass to a rolling Davis. No other Pacer reacted either and Baby got the easy dunk. On the second, Nelson found no resistance and drove all the way to the hoop for an uncontested layup.

They switched it up after that, instead letting JJ Redick handle the ball in an end-line out of bounds play. Davis set the screen, Leandro Barbosa and Roy Hiibbert acted entirely indifferent to JJ’s drive and the former Dukie finished at the rim. Orlando wisely went with this two-man game again soon and while Hibbert played the action better, Leandro was again caught in no man’s land and nearly stumbled as he fruitlessly flailed at Big Baby as he walked his way to an easy dunk.

Indiana’s once-19-point lead was down to 11 with just over 6 minutes to play.

This was when coach Frank Vogel went small. Out went Hibbert and Tyler Hansbrough, in came Paul George and David West. West had already played the first 17 minutes of the first half and had only been resting for 1 minute and 10 seconds before checking back in. He was now the center, playing behind George Hill, Barbosa, George and Danny Granger.

The outcome of the Magic pick-and-roll was no different. The next play was more of the same.

Paul George found himself picking up Redick this time as Davis came up to set a ball-screen. West did a very good job cutting of JJ’s ability to advance the ball and George recovered well to crowd Redick. But Davis drifted towards to hoop and nobody rotated. Redick freed himself enough to throw a really nice pass. Davis caught the ball near the block. Hill finally realized what was going on and came over to help, but he was so late that it was pointless. Baby laid the ball in past the munchkin and a (late) recovering West.

The lead was 9.

The next Magic bucket was the most embarrassing of all. Stan Van Gundy has been drawing up excellent out of bounds plays all series. This was one of them. But it really only worked because it was a quick-hitter to be executed against a defense that forgot the basic fundamentals of guarding a player you learn in second grade. Fortunately for Van Gundy, Paul George complied.

The play was a loose, four-man stack from the left block going up the side of the lane all the way out above the arc. Jason Richardson was the furthest from the hoop. He started the play by running towards the baseline as Nelson popped up to the top of the arc. As George lazily trailed, J-Rich stuck up his arm like Randy Moss on a fly route. Redick threw him the ball and he laid it in. Paul George either forgot their was a basketball game going on or never learned that you should stay between your man and the basket — especially when there is nobody behind you in the paint.

Or perhaps the problem is that J-Rich is invisible. He scored another uncontested layup on the next play as no Pacers players picked him up in transition. Barbosa, somewhat confused by being surrounded by 9 other players running alongside him down a basketball court, made a half-hearted attempt. But he had his head turned to the ball as he tried to find Richardson, who ran passed him to catch a pass in the paint and lay the ball in.

Granger pumped his fist in disgust, yelling something that you probably wouldn’t want heard by that second grader to whom you were teaching the fundamentals of basketball.

The lead was 5 with 5 minutes left.

Vogel went back to the starters after small ball had allowed Orlando to cut another 6 points off the lead. It is hard to fault Vogel too much for trying to match the Magic personnel-wise. Really, the players on the court just weren’t playing any defense and it was mainly due to a lack of energy. They simply were getting beat to spots by a home team that had no interest in quitting in front of an increasingly raucous Amway Center crowd. Regardless, Vogel’s attempt to quell the floodwaters only made things worse. The Pacers were now fighting for their lives against an uber-confident Magic team, deafening fans and — most of all — the clock.

On the first defensive sequence with the starters back in, they played much better. Still, the Magic scored with excellent execution. Nelson entered the ball to Davis in the high post and he ran two screen/rolls with Redick. The first was cut off. The second featured a “got em” moment as JJ came off a great pick towards the baseline and Baby ducked down towards to the block. The weakside help was again unhelpful. West and Granger were both, perhaps rightfully so, more concerned with Hedo Turkoglu and Richardson, respectively, who were spacing the floor well by spotting up behind the arc. Danny did make it over in time to challenge Davis’ layup, but he was too large and too dialed in for it to deter him from making the layup.

Pacers next blunder was not getting back in defense quickly enough to challenge a Turkoglu tip in. Nelson had made a nice steal and he and Redick were off to the races for a text-book two-on-one fastbreak. Only Redick missed the layup. And it seems the fleet-footed Hedo was the one most interested in being there for any potential miss. He tipped the ball back in as soon as it rolled off the rim. He beat both George and West down the court.

The lead was 3 with 3 and a half minutes to go.

On the strength of a huge Hill three-pointer and a crafty Granger layup — and the help of Redick and J-Rich missing two wide-open threes — the Pacers were able to extend their edge to 8.

Don’t worry though: the Pacers would again help push this game towards overtime with more terrible defense on an in-bounds play. Van Gundy drew up, I believe, the exact same play he ran to spring Richardson for a three late in Game One. Worse still, it was a sideline out-of-bounds play that some Magic reporters told me after the game that Orlando runs almost every game. Basically, the guards converge in the paint and one runs up the paint through a double screen to spot up at the top of the key. This one was perfectly executed against a Pacers team that has already seen it in this series and has undoubtedly seen it many times on film.

The lead was back down to 5.

They would be fooled again by an out-of-bounds play less than a minute later. George got lost in the stack trying to cover Redick and Hibbert was forced to run to him to prevent a layup. JJ retreated and nobody picked up Hibbert’s man. Big Baby dove to the hoop, caught a pass and got fouled. He made both free-throws.

The lead was 3.

Then came the are-you-kidding-me moment. You’re never going to believe this, but the Pacers gave up points on an out-of-bounds play. The Magic again took the ball out under their own hoop. J-Rich inbounded this time, which must have initially seemed like a relief to those who had been unable to keep him from scoring on out-of-bounds plays. Another advantage for Indiana was how simple this play was: Stan Van Gundy simply had Jameer vacate the strong side wing and ran Redick off a high double screen into that now-empty area. Paul George got hung up by the second pick (a moving one by Big Baby) and JJ caught the ball in space. To his credit, George did nimbly recover as Redick tried to get behind the arc to shoot the three-pointer. But he was badly fooled by a shot fake. With George now nearly in the stands, JJ had all day to take one dribble, set himself and bury the trey.

The lead was 0.

The Pacers offense looked equally futile as their final attempt at winning the game in regulation was a shot-clock violation. And it was probably only because Nelson missed while strangely trying to fadeaway for a shot after a nice individual move on Orlando’s final play that Indiana was finally able to escape with a victory in overtime.

Let’s give the Pacers credit for playing well — for the most part and especially at the start — in the extra five minutes. And George Hill hit a few huge shots to make sure that the Magic’s 26-7 run that forced overtime wasn’t a 26-2 run that won the game.

But let’s never forget that the late-game defense — especially dealing with simple pick-and-rolls and out-of-bounds plays — was a disaster.

There are a multitude of ways to view Indiana’s Game Four overtime victory. It could be a near-collapse that illustrates just how fragile this team is. It could foreshadow just how easy Miami’s route to the Eastern Conference Finals will be. It could be simply a win that counts just as much in this series as the blowout win did the other night. Or, it could be a character-building lesson in playoff basketball for an inexperienced team that will be much more valuable for future success than a run-of-the-mill 12-point win would have been.

I’m torn. But for now, I’m going with the latter. And regardless, for the NBA, it was a really fun, thrilling playoff game in a postseason that hasn’t had enough of those. That has to be good for the Pacers in some way.

Game Five will be played at 7:00 pm EST in Indiana.

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 The 3rd quarter has belonged to Indiana all series. Tonight, it was David West’s. He destroyed souls and looked like he was going to carry the Pacers on his shoulders to victory. But, then everything fell apart.
	Danny Granger Shot poorly — from an accuracy and selection standpoint — most of the night. Shot 6-for-15 through the first 3 quarters. Have to give him credit for knocking down 3 of his final 5 in winning time, however, including 2 layups in the 4th when Indy needed every point to avoid embarrassment.
	Roy Hibbert Good line, but his fifth and sixth fouls were reminiscent of the brainless ones he would collect two and three years ago. Didn’t really seem to have a big impact on the game.
	George Hill Terrible line, but delivered late. As inimitable Paul Flannery of Celtics’ weei.com tweeted: “So Spurs like.”
	Paul George Redemption in the sense that he played great defense on Glen Davis at the buzzer in OT to seal the win. But he really couldn’t get anything going. Was an afterthought most of the game and played very little good defense other than that final play.

	Leandro Barbosa Scored well in the 1st half as the bench flipped the script, carrying the starters instead of the other way around. Helped, at least in part, force Jameer Nelson to miss a short jumper on the final possession of regulation.
	Louis Amundson His foul-monster ways put the Magic in the bonus very early in the second half, which allowed Orlando to climb back by halftime.
	Tyler Hansbrough Active, pestering, pissing off Duke players.
	Darren Collison Perhaps the best he has played as Pacers, especially defensively. “It’s the playoffs—it has to be more physical,” he told 8p9s after Game 1. And ever since, his defense has been more physical than ever.

Here is the game-by-game breakdown:

Game 1: Pacers, 36 – Magic, 26
Game 2: Pacers, 50 – Magic, 28
Game 3: Pacers 42, – Magic, 22

That is a pretty staggering disparity. The Pacers had more points in the paint in their worst game than the Magic have had in any game. A lot of this is due to the fact that the Magic are so jump-shot happy. But some of it is just due to the fact that Indiana’s interior defense, led by Roy Hibbert — who had 9 blocks in Game One and is averaging 4.7 per game in just 28 minutes — has prevented the Magic from converting even the shots they do take in the paint.

Look at the numbers below, courtesy of NBA.com. Orlando is shooting a staggeringly low 48% in the restricted area. That’s where the bulk of Hibbert’s 14 series blocks have come, so that certainly has plenty to do with it. On the other end, the Pacers have only matched their regular season accuracy in the restricted area (54% compared to 55%), but they have seen a remarkable jump in those shots taken inside the paint but not in the restricted area. They have made nearly half of those (49%) compared to just 40% all season long.

Orlando in the Paint

Playoff Averages
25.3 points in the paint per game
48% (29/61) in Restricted Area
35% (9/26) in the Paint (non-RA)

Regular Season
37.7 points in the paint per game
59% (1022/1726) in Restricted Area
38% (211/553) in the Paint (non-RA)

Pacers in the Paint

Playoff Averages
42.7 points per game in the paint
54% (47/87) in Restricted Area
49% (17/35) in Paint (non-RA)

Regular Season
37.5 points in the paint per game
55% (1005/1813) in the Restricted Area
40% (355/894) in the Paint (non-RA)

During a timeout in the middle of the third quarter last night, Frank Vogel told his team that they need to go for the kill. They need to embrace their kill instinct. Step on throats. Show no mercy.

That is exactly what they did, destroying all hopes the Magic had as 7’2″ center Roy Hibbert finally looked like the biggest player in the series on both ends of the floor. Hibbert was swatting away shots, getting deep post position and punishing Orlando’s “big men.” He scored 12 points, grabbed 5 rebounds (4 on offense) and blocked 2 shots while changing several others in the third quarter. Of which he played every minute. As did every other Indiana starter other than Paul George.

When Vogel said he wanted to go for the kill, he wasn’t playing around. He kept his best players on the floor and they showed how much better they can be than Orlando’s best playing, starting off the third quarter with a 6-0 run and going on a13-2 stretch near the end that put the Pacers up by 23. The Magic were as good as dead.

Really, this wasn’t a shock. It’s the same thing they have been doing all series long after half time. The Pacers out-scored the Magic 32-17 last night and that gives them  a 80-43 edge so far in third quarters. And the trend goes back much further than the postseason. This mimics their success after the break all year, during which the third quarter was by far their best.

Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy is clearly frustrated. In his post-game press conference, he subtly threw his hands up regarding his starters, bemoaning their inability to get anything positive going both after half-time or to start the game. At the beginning of every half, he said, his starting lineup is putting the team in a hole that has been, a 4-minute end-of-game scoring drought for Indiana notwithstanding, too great to overcome. He sounded fed up enough that we might see a change to the starting lineup for Game Four.

If I was in his shoes, I would be saying the same thing. Because the Pacers starters are absolutely annihilating the Magic whenever they’re on the floor.

In 63 minutes, the Pacers starters have out-scored whoever Orlando has on the floor by 37.5 points per 100 possessions. They have scored 121.2 points per 100 on the strength of 49.0% shooting from the field and 42.1% from behind the arc. Perhaps more impressively, they have only given up 87.6 per 100. For those unfamiliar with the context of these numbers, both of those rates are way better than any NBA team posted this season. (For reference, the Spurs led the league by scoring 110.9 points per 100 while the Celtics were the best defensive team in the association by giving up just 98.2 points per 100.)

For more context, last year against the Bulls in the playoffs, the team’s starters (Darren Collison, Paul George, Dany Granger, Tyler Hansbrough and Roy Hibbert) only scored 87.8 points per 100 while giving up 105.5 points per 100.

After the game in a post-game interview with NBA TV’s sideline reporter, Granger seemed relieved about his team finally looking dominant. He repeatedly said that Indiana has now found themselves. Even on the road, they were able to weather a second-quarter flurry by Glen Davis and then go for the kill after the half. And oh how they executed the execution.

Well how about that? The Pacers tonight looked like the way-more-talented team that everyone thought they were headed into this series. Moreover, they regained home-court advantage while once again proving that they could really care less what gym they are playing in. In doing so, they pulled away in the third quater, out-scoring the Magic 32-17 as Roy Hibbert sent a worldwide message that this was his game: 9 other guys just happened to be playing in it. Indian now has an 80-43 edge in the three third quarters so far this series. And also, ya know, a 2-1 advantage in the series.

Game Four will be played at 2:00 pm EST in Orlando.

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 Spent a lot of the 1st half being double-teamed and not trying too hard to force through it. Obviously a garbage game statistically but he wasn’t as bad as the 2-for-9 numbers might suggest.
	Danny Granger Whaddya know: Granger can shoot after all. After a monster April, the captain had a lot of Pacers fans worried following his Game 1 meltdown and Game 2 clinic in bad shooting. Tonight, however, he was an ace marksman, dropping 26 pts on just 16 shots. TOs not cool though.
	Roy Hibbert His best game, considering the moment, as a Pacer. The 3rd quarter was all his. He blocked shots, used his size, scored buckets and generally stepped all over the collective throat of the Magic. Was a true All-Star.
	George Hill Doing stuff early and hit a great buzzer-beating jumper to close the 1st half, which otherwise wasn’t being closed sufficiently by Indiana.
	Paul George Was aggressive at times and had some very nice defensive plays. He remains a little raw and inconsistent, but the dimes and the FTAs show just how well-rounded his game can be.

	Leandro Barbosa Not a ton of stand-out production despite playing more than 23 minutes. They didn’t really need it but they’re going to need more out of the guy who should be their best bench scorer.
	Louis Amundson Active per usual and 2 blocks in just 5 minutes. But not enough time on the court to make a real difference.
	Tyler Hansbrough Surprisingly very little time after a wonderful Game 2. But that’s probably more a result of Vogel giving West every minute he could physically handle by keeping him in longer than normal in the 1st and putting him back in quickly in the 2nd.
	Darren Collison Got a breakaway dunk for the second straight game. Made shots at an excellent clip, although most (I think) came after the game was decided.
	Lance Stephenson Look who learned to hit a jump shot? Garbage-time All-Star tonight.
	Dahntay Jones Played in a playoff game.
	Jeff Pendergraph Played in a playoff game.
	A.J. Price Played in a playoff game.

Through two games, the Pacers starting lineup has murdered the Magic. According to NBA.com, they have posted a positive differential of 30.5 points per 100 possessions during their 41 minutes playing as a unit. By contrast, the Magic starters, who have played 42 minutes together, have been out-played by 24.3 points per 100.

Great news, right?

When the starters head to the bench, however, things have fallen apart.

We saw this in both Games One and Two in the first quarter. Indiana jumped out to a big lead in both. In Game One, they led 15-5. In Game Two, it was 18-7. But in both, those leads vanished as Leandro Barbosa, Tyler Hansbrough, Lou Amundson and Darren Collison filtered into the game. Orlando closed the first quarter of the Game One on a 12-3 run and closed the opening quarter of Game Two on a 9-2 run.

Frank Vogel seemed to realize this might happen in the second game, keeping four of his five starters out on the court for nearly the first nine minutes. Paul George checked out for Barbosa about a minute before that, but David West, who played 42 minutes, stayed on the court about two minutes longer than he typically does. Vogel’s strategy did delay the fall-off, but that is all it did.

And this isn’t just a first-quarter issue.

Vogel has gone to a nine-man rotation in the playoffs, so there has always been at least one starter on the floor throughout both games in Indiana. But there have been plenty of lineups that do feature just one. (Danny Granger, for instance, has been the lone starter to play the whole first quarter in both games. Although this was very common in the regular season as well.) And those lineups are getting out-played.

The Collison, Barbosa, George, Hansbrough and Amundson lineup, in its 8 minutes played together through two games, is getting out-scored at a rate of 42.7 point per 100 possessions. Sample size and all, but that is a ton. When you note that the lineup is shooting 35.7% and hasn’t made a single three-pointer, the differential basically explains itself. This lineup can’t put any points on the board.

Swap Granger for George and the reserves have been even worse. Collison, Barbosa, Granger, Hansbrough and Amundson have been outscored by 102.4 points per 100 in their 6 minutes together. Again, sample size has to be factored in here. One lucky bounce can obviously skew the numbers greatly in just 6 minutes. But this unit has shot 1-for-7 outside of the paint and 1-for-5 at the rim. That actually isn’t the worse distribution location-wise (although the 5 mid-range attempts aren’t ideal). It is, however, pathetic. How do you miss 4 of 5 shots in the restricted area?

So far in the playoffs, these are the 2nd and 5th most common lineups the Pacers have run out there. Most teams struggle when their 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th men are on the court, so the Pacers shouldn’t expect anything amazing. They do need these bench units to at least hold the score even though. If they can’t start doing so soon, the team is going to have real problems. The starters cannot be expected to build a big lead, watch it disappear while sitting on the bench and then have to reconstruct it time and time again. Asking them to do so isn’t sustainable and is a big reason Indiana will be fighting to regain home-court advantage tonight. The starters came out of halftime in Game Two and blew the doors off their Orlando counterparts, sure. But we saw at the end of Game One that sometimes that will not work.

The bench needs to do more for this team to win in Orlando. Poor offense can be excused somewhat, but what the reserves simply cannot allow is the Magic reserves to gain confidence and quickly light up the scoreboard with triples. For a team like the Magic, shooting accuracy can be contagious and they stick long-range bombs in bunches. In Game Three, playing in front of an Orlando crowd, the second unit simply cannot let the the building turn into mayhem as fans cheer JJ Redick and Quentin Richardson threes.

All season long this team has preached “depth as a weapon.” With performance like this it is.

A grenade.

That’s going off in their own hands.

UPDATE: Just seeing that Indy Cornrows has a post on the same topic. Some really good stuff from Tom Lewis here, which starts off with a quote reported by Conrad Brunner of Pacers.com.

“We need our second unit,” Coach Frank Vogel said. “We can’t play our starters the full game. It has come and gone throughout the year. Sometimes our starters are the guys that are struggling and the second unit picks them up. We’ll keep the normal rotation and if a certain unit isn’t getting it done, then we’ll adjust.”

In the second half of Game 2, Vogel emulsified the second unit into the action, adding them into the action one at a time. First, Hansbrough, then Barbosa and finally Collison which allows one player to get in the flow of the game before adding another. That’s in contrast to bringing in four fresh players within a possession or two and hoping they are ready to go.

The importance of Game 3 suggests Vogel will continue with the latter approach, leaning more on his starting unit which, despite plenty of room for improvement, has played well overall against Orlando.

(Screen shots via NBA.com. Head over there to play around with stats for the different lineups.)

The onslaught reached force in the third quarter, when — for the first time — this series felt like the mismatch that most experts had predicted. The Pacers did jump out on the Magic early as well in game two last night, busing out the gates to quickly build a 20-10 lead, but like in Game One, that early scoring flurry was soon erased, and Indiana once again looked like a team that was going to allow Orlando to dictate the tempo.

Way more troubling than that initial recovery, however, was the fact that their opponent, led by the vertically challenged Glen Davis, was punishing the Pacers front court. It became Big Baby’s game; Indiana was just along for the ride.

In the NBA, much is made about energy levels, aggressiveness and imposing physicality. Sometimes this is just cliched rubbish spun by hack writers who spent more of the game feverishly writing their post-game report pre-buzzer than truly paying attention. After all, it is really easy to just throw out overarching generalities (“TMac was never great … he couldn’t make it to the second round”) and be accurate without being correct.

But in this case, it’s the only way to explain what actually happened. The Magic, in the second quarter, wanted it more.

After falling down early, the Magic simply decided to be tougher than the Pacers. It led to them being able to do whatever they wanted. Jameer Nelson dribbled around freely, Davis was the largest presence on the court. Even NBA nobodies Chris Duhon and Earl Clark were making Indiana’s look like the ones who are fringe pros at best. And it wasn’t even so much that Orlando was running any great sets or converting buckets at an impressive rate. But they were able to get enough second-chance points to supersede the fact that their offensive execution was subpar. It was clear why: the Pacers were intimidated and became indecisive, passive and reactionary. Every Pacer fan watching must have been thinking the same thing: “Indiana isn’t making the second round.” It was that one-sided from an aggression standpoint.

Then a funny thing happened in the locker room.

The Pacers came out in the third quarter and completely flipped the script. David West made the decision that the team would no longer get pushed around. He became the catalyst for aggression, doing his best Bruce Banner impression starting right after half time (and continuing through the 23 and a half minutes he would play in the second half).

Indiana started to take control.

Then Tyler Hansbrough checked in. And he put on a clinic.

No, he didn’t score much or even grab any rebounds. But he used a Tazmanian-devil-with-rabies-intensity to ensure that whatever chance the Magic had of even scoring — let along getting back in the game — would end soon. As Tyler blitzed ball-handler, recovered to find his man and furiously rotated with speed and precision that I can’t ever recall seeing, a 2-point half-time deficit became a 15-point lead. The Pacers went on a 21-3 run that may have been even more one-sided than those numbers suggest. The Magic offense came to a halt. And there is very little we can look to aside from two power forwards deciding that their team was no longer going to get pushed around.

The effect spread throughout the roster. George Hill didn’t miss a shot in the quarter, scoring 12 of his 18 in the third. Even Danny Granger, who was wretched shooting-wise in the period and the game, got swept up in the crescendo, netting a few buckets, which was enough to put him in cocky head-nod mode. The whole team played with an exuberance and passion of, well, a team that just realized they aren’t going to fall down 0-2 at home to a team full of jumpshooters.

The Magic never recovered.

All this reminded me of something completely unrelated.

I’ve been playing a lot of chess lately. I’m not particularly good, but I’m competent and can win a little more than half the time against similarly middling players. The more I’ve played in recent months, the more it has become apparent that aggressiveness is a much larger factor of the game than I have ever realized. While games can go on for a while, there really aren’t that many moves in the average game (that I play anyway). Most game go around 30 to 35 moves before one side’s king is trapped. That is quite a few back-and-forths, but really not that many.

And I’ve learned that while the tactical strategy is indeed important (out-witting the other player by stealing their attacking pieces) and execution is paramount (basically, not allowing yourself to get trapped and simply not making blunders), there is another realm that usually dictates the tone of the game: who controls the board.

Generally, one player is forcing the other to react to his moves rather than mount any sort of planned attack. One player is back on their heels. One player is wasting moves retreating while the other is slowly advancing, spreading his pieces and setting himself up to later attack in various ways that keep the more reactive player off balance for the rest of the game. Keep the opponent uncomfortable, and the strategic and execution-based parts of the game become that much easier.

That’s what we saw last night, at different times, from both teams.

For the Magic, this aggression (along with some three-pointers) is really the only way they can beat a more talented opponent. They cannot just run their normal offense and rely on pick-and-rolls and expect to out-score an Indiana team that is just has more skilled players on both ends of the floor. But they have plenty of pride and don’t care about talent. They’re just going to impose themselves on this series regardless. This second quarter will not be the last time they try to bully the Pacers into surrender.

Ultimately, it’s a good fight for this Pacers team to be in. Tim Donahue wrote a nice piece for TrueHoop discussing how Indiana is going through some on-the-job playoff basketball training as we speak. They don’t even know their full identify yet and now they’re trying to both find that while they figure out how to play playoff basketball. As we saw in the second and third quarters last night, this is not the regular season. Haymakers are being exchanged. The Pacers took one on the chin in game one and went down. In game two, they got chin-checked again. But they were able to shake it off and come back strong in the third.

Nobody likes to catch a left cross to the jaw.

But doing so can teach you that fighting back is the only solution.

That will do. The third quarter was tremendous as Indiana put up 30 points while more impressively holding Orlando to 13. Seems like the Pacers must actually be pretty excited about the fact that there is only one day off before the get to play this Magic team again, eh? Smell some blood in the water now, you would hope. 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 The double-double, the dimes and the defensive stats. Sure. But the 42 minutes. MAAAAaaaan. The 42 minutes. Pushing people around early and often and the guy who exerted the physicality tsunami on Orlando in the 3rd. Said George Hill: “We are riding the coattails of David West right now.”
	Danny Granger Yikes. Couldn’t hit much. Was 5-for-19 (26.3%) before a dunk and layup in the final, largely meaningless minutes. Still, wasn’t actually horrible as much as he was just missing everything and got a little ornery as the team was pulling away.
	Roy Hibbert You don’t wanna rip on a guy who grabbed 13 boards in 23 mins despite foul trouble. So I won’t talk about his offense.
	George Hill Starter off the game letting Jameer Nelson be way too comfortable. Then took over in the 3rd quarter, scoring a mess of points and doing stuff all over. Good, good stuff.
	Paul George Also struggled early with some thoughtless turnovers and general coma-tose-looking play. Then got a tip-dunk, got out in transition and, before you knew it, was hitting fadeaway stepbacks with the shot clock expiring.

	Leandro Barbosa Was NOT bashful to catch-and-shoot from anywhere regardless of whether or not he was on balance. But scored at the rim and generally helped kick-start a team in the 2nd half that had otherwise looked on Ambien.
	Louis Amundson DIdn’t really do much. His energy actually looked pedestrian what with David West out-there lumber-jacking the whole Midwest. Not to mention …
	Tyler Hansbrough TYLER HANSBROUGH HANSBRO’ING ABOUT TOWN. I SHOULD CALM DOWN??? WHY DON’T you CALM DOWN. Best example in recent memory of a stat sheet being irrelevant. No Pacer was better outside of West and, probably, Hill.
	Darren Collison Unmemorable.

The proximate causes of the Pacers’ game one loss have been well discussed. Missed shots, turnovers, missed free throws, and a four-minute scoreless stretch to end the game by Indy conspired with a couple of plays beautifully designed by Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy to give home court advantage to the underdog Magic. However, to me, most of those were just things that happened. Disappointing, sure, and certainly harmful to the Pacer playoff goals, but I didn’t find them particularly troubling. I was more bothered by the way the game was played than by any individual plays. Specifically, it bothered me how slowly this game was played.

Past as Prologue

The Pacers were supposed to handle the shorthanded — and just plain short — Magic in short order. When 8p9s posted our predictions, we weren’t any more optimistic about Indiana’s advantage than most third-party projections. A “gentleman’s sweep” was widely predicted. And 8p9s, I, and the rest of the NBA prognosticating world made that prediction despite Orlando’s 3-1 record over Indiana in the regular season series. There was one very clear and valid reason: those games had Dwight Howard, and these games would most certainly not.

So, it was pretty much my worst-case scenario when I found myself watching a game on Saturday night that looked very much like the regular season contests between these squads. In fact, it had an almost startling resemblance a game played on another Saturday night way back in February. The night before the Super Bowl, Orlando beat Indy 85-81 in a game where the Pacers held the Magic to only 92 points per hundred possessions but could muster only 88 per themselves. You’ll forgive me thinking I’ve seen a ghost when I watch Orlando win 81-77 in a game during which they were held to a little over 92 per, but only permitted the Pacers to score 88 per hundred.

All night long, all I could think was, “Too slow.”

When asked about it on Sunday, Paul George acknowledged that the players felt it, too. “Yeah. We wanted to make [running] an emphasis,” he said. “Coming into the game, we wanted to run more and really challenge them to guard us in the open court. They did a good job of running to get back.”

This was a common refrain among the Pacer players. “We do have to continue to push the pace a little bit more,” said Darren Collison. “We’ve got to use our speed to our advantage. We played right into Orlando’s hands with that type of pace.”

Danny Granger said the Pacers had discussed tempo after the loss. “Honestly, [tempo] was another issue that we talked about why we lost.”

Your Move, Pacers

Pacer coach Frank Vogel touched on this subject before the game on Saturday. “Tempo is always important,” he said. “No matter who we’re playing, we want to run. Stan Van Gundy is one of the best coaches in the NBA. He has his team prepared — no matter who’s in uniform — to handle what your team’s strengths are. It’s going to be a series of adjustments.”

And after losing home court advantage a mere 48 minutes into the postseason, it is Vogel’s Pacers who have to make the first adjustments. My instinct gravitated towards speeding up the game, because it seemed more in line with what made the Pacers successful this season. But on Sunday, Granger outlined the pitfalls of relying too heavily on a half-court attack at this time of year.

“In the playoffs, everybody knows everyone’s plays,” said Danny. ” You know what’s coming before it even happens, and the only thing that separates the teams is the ability to execute.”

That response was specifically regarding the Pacers’ lack of execution in their half-court offense, but it also dovetails into the idea of pace. Granger continued. “We like to push the break, and when we don’t, and we rely on the half-court offense, especially in the playoffs, when the defense is so locked into what you’re doing, it makes it even more difficult to score.”

So, the obvious adjustment is to play faster. The question is, “How?”

Is That All?

I asked, and the first few answers I got didn’t fill me with confidence. George Hill’s response: “I don’t know. We’ve just got to continue to play. I don’t think there’s anything we can do to keep changing a lot of things. We’ve just got to play basketball and hope everything works out for the best.”

On Saturday night, Collison and Leandro Barbosa both spoke non-specifically about playing with speed. Their comments pretty much foreshadowed Paul George’s statement on Sunday afternoon, “It’s going to take more or a commitment on running and speeding the tempo up,” said George.

Once, in a performance review at work, my manager told me that one thing I need to improve upon was my patience. When I asked for direction on ways I could enhance that skill, I was answered with a shrug. “Well, you know. You should just … you know … be more patient.” Discussing how the Pacers could dictate the tempo for the rest of the series strongly reminded me of this.

Vogel’s take was both more of the same, but also something else. “We’ve got to commit to the running game,” the coach said. But then he went on. “We’ve come and gone with that throughout the year. When we’ve run, we’ve been lethal. We didn’t run last night. You try to play half-court basketball against a great defensive team like [the Magic] are, and you’re gonna struggle.”

My background is in operational planning and analysis. My instinct is to look for a concrete plan of action and mistrust generic platitudes. However, I’ve also learned that sometimes a generic platitude is simply the easiest, most direct way of stating the truth. And the truth is that the Pacers need to commit to the running game.

But, still, as I walked away from the Pacer coach on Sunday afternoon, I asked Fox Sports Indiana’s Chris Denari, “Is it really that simple?” He shrugged, and brought up players not running with the point guards. ”Early in the game, I thought they looked to create transition opportunities,” said Denari, “but after awhile, George [Hill] saw nobody was coming with him, so he started walking the ball up.”

This problem has plagued the Pacer transition game all year long, and it fits with Vogel’s characterization that their commitment to running has “come and gone.”

However, Denari didn’t dismiss the Pacers’ need to “commit” out of hand. In fact, after speaking to him, I came to conclude that the problem was actually less about the practical, concrete mechanics of the Pacer running game. While there are areas like defensive rebounding and outlet passing and awareness that can be improved, the limiting factor on tempo really is commitment. They just don’t consistently prioritize dictating the tempo.

Who Do You Want To Be?

The players all see the value of running. Many are well aware that they actually play better in an uptempo game. Vogel is a true believer in tempo. If you spend any amount of time speaking to the man, it becomes readily apparent that he is a philosophical disciple of Rick Pitino. So what’s the obstacle?

Well, it can be found in something that appears to be a conflict, but really doesn’t need to be. In my opinion, it’s driven by the self-imposed cognitive dissonance of a team whose identity is really more of an idea than a fact.

When Paul George spoke about more commitment to the running game, he didn’t stop there. “But at the same time, we’ve got two power post guys,” he said, “and we definitely want to play through them.”

The “power post guys” are, of course, Roy Hibbert and David West. Neither of these two are going to change ends quickly, and the natural instinct is to assume that more uptempo means less Roy and David. And that concern, particularly when playing against a small team like Orlando, hinders the commitment to running.

Sometimes, interesting things can be inferred from the way someone answers a question. I had spent most of the media availability session Sunday asking Pacer players about how they could speed up the game. Each response informed how I questioned the next interviewee. By the time Danny was available, the conflict between pace and power post was near the forefront of my mind.

I asked Danny if he thought there was a tug-of-war between the fact that Indiana has an advantage when they run, and an advantage in the post. ”You have to balance it,” he said. “Because if you get heavy doses of either one without the other, it will be bad news for you.”

And there I had it. The quote that nicely rounded out my preconceived conclusion. The Pacers had fallen in love with the post too much on Saturday, and by getting away from an important part of their game, put themselves in a position to lose.

Then, however, Granger kept speaking,

“[But] I think if we just constantly run the ball up and get quick shots, and tried to take ‘em in transition, we wouldn’t be taking advantage of Roy, 7-2, and David. They don’t have really big post players, and that’s our advantage in the series.”

I had just outlined the Pacers’ five fastbreak points and the fact that Orlando dictated the pace. Granger had just agreed that Indy’s inability to push the tempo was a contributing factor to the loss. Yet, when Danny talked about the need for balance, his expressed fear was about running too much.

 The Power of And

This piece started out to be both a plea to the Pacers to play faster, and a dire warning of the consequences of allowing Orlando to control the pace in this series. However, as I listened over and over to what the Pacer players and coaches were saying and thinking, and bounced ideas off of others, I was forcefully reminded of a few things.

First, this team is only 12 months removed from being an 8th seed with a losing record. One of their most important players — David West — has only been a Pacer for five months. Their starting point guard has only had the job for about three weeks, and their backup point guard got almost no meaningful time with second unit due to injury. Their best bench scorer — Leandro Barbosa — has been a Pacer for about six weeks.

However, most importantly, they have never had a real training camp or offseason with their coach. Vogel was hired on an interim basis, and by the time his job became officially permanent, the players were locked out.

This is a team still trying to figure out who and what they are. Their outstanding regular season performance has probably obscured the fact that their actual identity is still a work in progress. In some ways, I’m not even sure that they collectively understand what they want to be. West said so directly, although in a different context, less than two months ago.

I think Vogel clearly knows this, but his players are still adapting. I’m sure that if you were to ask Vogel if he wanted his team to be a “power post, smash-mouth” basketball team, or an uptempo team that changes ends quickly, his answer would be simple: “Yes.”

To Frank Vogel, the two are not mutually exclusive. He wants an uptempo power post team. And I agree with him that this would maximize this team’s chances to win. I mean, I spent the 1980s watching the Lakers and the Celtics win eight titles doing exactly that.

In a lot of ways, the Pacers are the team equivalent of Paul George: young, bright, and talented with a diverse skill set. They are more talented than a lot of their opponents, but they still need to become better than their opponents. They have to grow into what they can become, and to do that, they have to embrace “The Power of And.” They need to hold seemingly contradictory styles as equals, and learn how to blend them together. Running first doesn’t mean running most.

This is one area where Orlando has Indiana at a disadvantage. The Magic know who they are, and how they have to play to succeed. The Pacers, to a degree, are fighting themselves. If they shy away from one advantage (pushing the tempo) for fear of damaging another (their size and post presence) then Indiana is doing part of Orlando’s job for them.

Down 1-0 to the Magic, the rest of this series becomes not only one of adjustments, but also on-the-job training for a team trying to get from the things they do to the things they really should.

It really was a team-wide failure in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, but let’s first recap just how bad Granger was. The beginning of the demise essentially began with his foolish back-court violation.

The Pacers weren’t exactly looking like world-beaters on offense, but some nice play from the front court (namely Tyler Hansbrough and David West) had built them enough of a cushion that they should have been able to win fairly comfortably. They were playing excellent defense, having held the Magic to just 21 points in 21 minutes of second-half play. At that point their 5-point lead felt fairly secure.

Then Granger tried to run a top-of-the-key pick-and-roll with Roy Hibbert. But instead of doing anything useful with the ball, he allowed Hedo Turkoglu and Glen Davis, two guys who are both slower than him and were playing injured, to blitz him with a double team and force him to passively retreat backwards. Instead of making a strong move to attack or even just give up the ball, he waddled around and spun his way into the back court. Which is illegal. Turnover.

Still, Indiana had a five-point lead and Orlando looked like they might not score 5 more points, so it didn’t seem like much more than a brain fart, a gaffe that nobody would remember as soon as tomorrow. We couldn’t possibly conceive at the time that the Pacers wouldn’t score again.

Danny continued to help in that regard, missing a 3-foot shot in the paint on the team’s next possession. In fairness, it was a good individual post-up by Granger that got him the nice look in the first place. But after backing down Jameer Nelson and splitting a double that came too late to help, he rimmed out a shot that would have put his team up 7 with less than 3 minutes to play.

Fast forward two minutes, and the lead was down to 2. Granger did a good job finding Darren Collison in the corner for a jumper. The now-backup point guard, who was presumably still in the game because of the top-shelf defense he had been playing on Nelson, missed. But Indy slapped around the rebound and it led to two Granger free throws. He stepped to the line with 1:14 left and his team up by 2. He missed the first. Then he missed second.

Ouch.

But, hey, that happens to everyone not named Reggie Miller, Larry Bird or Steve Nash at some point.

The team was still ahead.

The next trip back on offense, with Indiana now down 2, Granger got himself the ball in an iso set on the wing and started backing down Turkoglu. He quickly gained the advantage and worked his way down to the block, where he easily spun baseline for a shot near the rim. Again, he missed, rimming out a shot that most of the people reading this would make at least 8 out of 10 times.

Things just kept getting worse.

But the real worst was yet to come.

Paul George was inbounding the ball with 12 seconds left and the Pacers down 3. It wasn’t easy. It looked like he was on the verge of a five-second violation when he finally tossed it in to Granger. Danny was back near half court and started to make a move. Given his history, you know he was thinking about either pulling up for a long three or faking a move and launching a step-back three. Apparently even he couldn’t decide which move to make because he confused himself enough that shuffled his feet without dribbling. Which is illegal. He was whistled for traveling and turned the ball over.

With 7 seconds left. In a 3-point game. In the playoff game his team had been waiting months to play.

That embarrassing.

To recap: that makes two missed shots within 3 feet, two rarely-seen turnovers and two missed free throws all in the final 3:30 of the game. Silver lining: At least he didn’t score on the wrong basket.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s not let his teammates off the hook completely. They were also garbage. Granger’s blunders, much like Dahntay Jones’ failings in the team’s regular season loss to Miami, stand out for obvious reasons. But it takes a true collective effort to not put a single point on the board for over 4 minutes. Paul George, for one, was right there along with Danny.

His sins were less glaring but equally unhelpful to winning. On offense he missed two open threes. That is certainly forgivable. You would love to see him knock at least one down since they were both such good looks that came out of two unusually effective (considering how the offense was going) possessions. But sometimes the ball doesn’t go down.

Much worse was his inability to stay with Jason Richardson.

Coming out of a timeout, with the Pacers up 2, J-Rich hit a triple from the top of the key. I’m going to give George a pass on this one mostly, however. It was more a good play call by Stan Van Gundy and excellent execution by the Magic than it was bad defense. They decoyed the real action and eventually ran Jason up from the baseline through a double-screen (by Big Baby and Ryan Anderson no less) to get him the ball in space. George tried to fight through but just got caught up.

Again, it happens.

But the next Richardson three was less forgivable — especially if you remember what happened in the second quarter. Back then is when the Magic really started to break out and punch the Pacers in the mouth for the first time. And it was largely because of three J-Rich triples. He was running George all over the court and generally just out-witting the young defender with crafty cuts. And that is again what he did with Orlando down 75-77 and 1:04 left in the game. Coming just after Granger’s missed free throws, Richardson only had to make a few cuts out beyond the arc and straight shook George off a pick to free himself up for a long-range shot. Of course, he stuck it.

The Magic now had a lead they would never relinquish.

And just like that, they stole home-court advantage from the Pacers.

We can continue to break down all the crunch-time screw-ups (the last major one being a poor decision by Collison to take a pull-up, long two-pointer with 13 seconds left and his team down three). But I have to think that the ending to this game was an anomaly that we won’t see again. You have to believe it was somewhat due to a young, excited team having jitters more so than some sign of things to come. Last year against the Bulls, the Pacers were famously unable to generate any offense down the stretch. So perhaps that same trouble could plague them again. The team is simply better this year so it probably won’t be as bad as it was against Chicago. But even it if is all postseason, it can’t be s bad as this performance tonight. No matter how much they “choke.” NBA teams simply cannot regularly go 4-plus minutes without scoring no matter how inexperienced or ineffective they are.

So this was a worst-case scenario that required both unprecedented boneheadedness from the team captain as well as Jason Richardson stepping up huge (when nobody else on the Magic was doing so) to drill two long shots. It is possible that those things happen again. But it’s unlikely.

Perhaps more troubling then is the lackluster second quarter, which was really the product of the Pacers inability to dictate the tempo of the game. Orlando has been the second-slowest team in the league this season. Part of that was a product of Dwight Howard, but even without their center, this remains a team that wants to spread it out in the half court and bomb away. They have a lot of shooters, and they are more than willing to pass the ball around. That creates long rotations that require sustained discipline and proper close-outs to challenge deep shots. Even with the length Indiana has, that is difficult to do, particularly considering that Hibbert and West are neither speedy nor accustomed to guarding snipers 20 feet from the hoop.

So you know the Magic are going to get some in the half court. As they did in the second quarter.

The best way to counter that is to get them out of their comfort zone: Push the ball and exploit guys like Hedo and Anderson and even Richardson for their inability to keep up in a foot race. The Pacers, for whatever reason, did not do that. They scored just 5 fast-break points. This, compared to the 13 they averaged this season and 14.4 they averaged over their final 15 games of the regular season. That is just not going to get it done.

You know what else isn’t going to get it done? Shooting 13-for-22 from the free-throw line.

Fans love to harp on the refs awarding one team favorable calls. But generally it is the more aggressive team that gets the benefit of the doubt, if there is one. In this series, that will be the Pacers. As mentioned, the Magic will just sit back and take long jumpers all game. That style will not get you to the line. There is a reason Orlando only shot 11 freebies tonight. The Pacers should have had a big advantage since they took 22 free throws. But since the Magic made 8 of their 11 while the Pacers made just 13 of their 22, the edge became negligible. Indiana cannot let that continue.

Ultimately, Pacers fans shouldn’t be overly concerned about this meltdown, as ugly and embarrassing as it must have been to watch your favorite team, a team you thought was legit, vomit all over itself on national TV. If it happens again, yeah, this Pacers team might just not actually be good. But it probably cannot be as bad as it was tonight in crunch time, and the Pacers weren’t even playing particularly well even before the collapse. They shot 34.5% in the game, for example, and that is as unlikely to happen again as not scoring for the final four minutes or shooting below 60% from the line. Sure, they might lose game two and that would be panic time, but they won’t lose it like this.

In short, the series is not yet in jeopardy. The Pacers just need to come out and show why they are more talented on Monday. With nine blocks and general mastery of the defensive paint, Hibbert has shown that he can dominate the interior on one end of the floor. Now he and his teammates need to make sure that it happens on both ends.

Do that, get a few more run-outs in tranisiton, make some free throws, and they should be back on the right track.

As long as, ya know, they don’t have another historic collapse.