The video above depicts the moment when the Pacers completely lost all control of the game. The descent began a little earlier, but this beastly, and-one finish by Tyreke Evans hyped up the Kings faithful and pushed all the momentum to the Sacramento side of the ledge. It’s only fitting that ‘Reke’s flurry to the hoop was spurred on by the two critical elements of Indy’s collapse: an offensive board and a Paul George mistake. It’s not that this is a horrible gamble for a steal here by George; it’s just that it was a failed one and it seemed to incite Evans to dash to the abandon his plans to just calmly reset the offense in favor of ‘Reking havoc, if you will. (You shouldn’t.)
Of course, the Pacers meltdown is the only real takeaway from this game. But there actually were three other quarters prior to that. Here are a few thoughts from the parts of the game that nobody will ever remember.
- The first two possessions led to two power post moves for effortless buckets by Roy Hibbert. Later in the first quarter, he made an even more savvy decision, splitting a double-team with a step-through to the rim for a lay-up.
- David West was not good early. He had two turnovers in the first three minutes of the game — one of which would have led to a sure two points after a nice look-ahead pass by Paul George — and followed that up by missing a reverse layup.
- On offense, Indiana attached the paint early to a degree that was shocking. Their first field goal attempt outside the lane didn’t come until Darren Collison hit a 20-footer with 5:28 to play in the 1st quarter. Before that bucket, they were leading 15-10 on the strength of their 6-for-11 shooing in the paint (plus 3-for-3 at the line). It looked like a concerted effort. Here’s their shot chart at that point.
- Other than the guards dumping it down for those nice post moves from Hibbert, part of this trend was Danny Granger getting into the restricted area. His first three shots were right around at the rim and he made two of them, including one he converted into three-point play. The rest of his first stint of the game didn’t go so well, however, as he only managed to hit those 2 out of his first 7 shots.
- The Pacers held the Kings to 33.3% (18-for-54) shooting in first half. But they once again couldn’t turn that good defense into “finished possessions,” instead allowing Sacramento to grab 19 first-half ORBs on their 36 misses. That percentageis WAY too high. The board work was mostly being done by DeMarcus Cousins (who was an absolute animal, grabbing 10 ORBs and getting his hands on many others) and Jason Thompson (who collected 5 of Sacto’s misses). The Pacers were pretty decent on the offensive glass themselves, which isn’t surprising since these two teams were the third- and fourth-best offensive rebounding squads in the association going into the game. As Tim noted on Twitter: “22 of the first 46 rebounds in the Pacers-Kings game have been offensive. Kings 3rd in ORB%, Pacers 4th.”
- In Indiana’s defense, they also did seem to be trying to find ways to exploit Sacramento’s aggressiveness on the glass. Twice in the first half, Pacer players successfully leaked out and got breakaway scores. (It would have been three times but there’s that West mishandle in the video above.) The Lance full-court outlet to George Hill is just amazing. If that had been Dwyane to LeBron, it would have been all over SportsCenter. West to George for the dunk with flair was also nice.
- Granger opened the second half in a completely opposite way from how he started the game. He began with a horrible step-back for a long two-pointer that missed badly. Then, on a Collison-led 3-on-2 break, DC gave Danny the ball on the wing. He dribbled towards the rim then bounced it off his foot into a turnover.
- After that, however, the third quarter was all gold for the Pacers. During the period, they had a 7-0 run, a 6-0 run, a 5-0 run and a 6-1 run.
- A ton of this had to do with Collison, who played the whole quarter and ran the team so well that I would argue it might have been his best 12-minute stretch so far as a Pacer. If not that, at least his most steady and mistake-free. He did no wrong and scored 13 points on 5-for-6 FG and 2-for-2 FT. He took a charge. He only had 1 assist but a lot of offense-producing passes. DC also has 0 turnovers for the game. Going into the fourth, he was a +17.
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Pacers 4th Quarter Collapse vs. the Kings – A Total Team Effort
by Tim Donahue on January 19, 2012 at 10:57 am · 1 comment
With 0:28 left in the third quarter, Tyler Hansbrough missed a wide open 17-footer. However, when King’s swingman Francisco Garcia bobbled the rebound, Tyler made a Tyler play, swooping in, snatching the ball, and two-handing it through the rim to give Indiana a game-high 16-point lead. All that was needed to lock up the Pacers’ 10th victory in 13 games was a marginally competent fourth quarter.
Apparently, that was asking too much.
Over the last 12 1/2 minutes of the game, Sacramento outscored Indiana by 20 points, walking out with an improbable victory and leaving Frank Vogel and his Pacers to try to sort out what went wrong, and who was responsible.
The short answer on those are: everything and every one.
While some key Paul George miscues stood out on a visceral level, the truth is that the second year swing man was just one of the guys on the team — all of whom were rowing in the same direction in the fatal fourth.
It’s a common occurrence when reviewing box scores and other stat reports for numbers to jump out at you. It is not a common occurrence have those numbers jump out at you, beat you up, take your wallet, and leave you bleeding and unconscious in the gutter.
These numbers do. The eight offensive rebounds allowed daze you (they’d allowed less than three per quarter in the first dozen games). The nine turnovers (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9) vs. eight points (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8…that’s it?) knock you to the ground and leave you whimpering.
But, the numbers that absolutely curb-stomp you into a coma are 6-for-25. The Sacramento Kings shot 24% in the fourth quarter – and outscored the Pacers by 18. I have no idea how to research this, but I would be willing to bet all of your money that the last time this happened was … never.
Again, Paul George had three relatively memorable turnovers, but if you look at each individual line in the fourth quarter box, all you see is a whole lotta nothin’.
In the third quarter, the Pacers were dominant, outscoring the Kings 30-21 and out-rebounding them 13 to 5. Darren Collison (13 points) was the star, but pretty much every one contributed.
In the fourth quarter, Indiana was dominated — and pretty much every one contributed.
This will go down as a bad loss – perhaps the worst loss of the season, when all is said and done — but it’s far from certain that it will have any long-reaching ramifications. There was the continuation of two disturbing trends (poor shooting from the floor and susceptibility on their defensive glass). Also, there’s the matter of the Pacer zone offense.
Kings coach Keith Smart switched his charges into a zone defense that utterly baffled the Pacers. To be honest, I think the early fourth quarter Pacer troubles stem from what I call, “Getting on the plane too early.” The third quarter had been so easy, that it looked like the Pacers assumed this one was in the bag. Hard to blame them – I felt the same way.
But, even after the Kings regained the Pacers’ full attention, Indy’s offense was clueless. Limited movement, passing the ball around the perimeter, forcing shots and action too much when they did get into the middle of the zone, and general indecision led to bad shots and bad turnovers.
After the game, the Pacers’ utter failure against the zone sure looked like the type of thing that would be noted by scouts and coaches from other teams. Vogel disagreed, saying that Indy’s had been successful against zones this year, but I can’t recall them playing against one for any meaningful stretch earlier. My sole recollection is when the Bobcats threw a token 2-2-1 three-quarter court press at them, and the Pacer players looked at the defensive alignment as if all of their opponents had just sprouted bright, colorful plumage from their heads.
In any case, it — along with the game-long incompetence (and season-long vulnerability) on the defensive glass — is something that Vogel and his staff will need to address. I have seen some criticism of Vogel’s decision to go small over the last 5-1/2 minutes of the game, but I don’t think it has any real merit. The Pacers had given away 12 of their 14-point lead with a more “traditional” lineup in the first half of the fourth, and the simple truth of the matter is that any lineup without Hibbert (or perhaps Foster) is actually small.
No, the only real sin Vogel committed last night was the bane of coaches everywhere: his players didn’t get the job done. This was a players’ loss — all of the players — but, hey, at least they did it as a unit.
Related Topics: Offensive Woes, Popcorn Machine, Sacramento Kings
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