Page 1 of 1

Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 8:06 pm
by Miller4ever
Image
Image

THE SKINNY

Image

Coming off a tiring and lucky overtime win over the Cavs, the Pacers immediately get on the road 20 hours later against a Pistons team desperate and hungry for its first win. The Pistons are starting to enter the area of desperate determination, and that is a highly combustible fuel.

THE LINEUPS

Image

Point Guard
ImageImage
Darren Collison and the entire Pacers ball movement was less than effectual through 4 quarters of play against the Cavaliers. Collison will be up against the bigger, strong finishing Stuckey. Most likely, Collison will be matched up against Gordon and George against Stuckey.

Shooting Guard
ImageImage
Paul George disappeared for stretches in the Cavs game a la a certain current Warrior, but his defensive presence was felt. Ben Gordon can get hot at any moment, so the Pacers need to attack him on defense and make him dribble on offense.

Small Forward
ImageImage
In the past, Prince has always seemed to get the the better of Danny, but with backup, Danny looks to take control of this matchup. The key area to watch will be the boards. Granger is on pace for a career-high season on the glass.

Power Forward
ImageImage
While it isn't happening very early, late in games is seems David West and Danny Granger both find ways to close out games. West has two double-doubles as a Pacer, and his offensive presence and veteran leadership is already apparent. He has young hustle in Jonas Jerebko to contend with.

Center
ImageImage
Roy Hibbert has turned into a strong rebounding presence, and snatched 14 of them from Monroe & Co. last meeting. The muscle added during the offseason appears to be paying off as he has become a more productive player at a higher efficiency. He's also stayed out of foul trouble. This year cold be special for Roy Hibbert.

THE BENCH

Image

ImageImage
ImageImage
ImageImage
With both teams coming off back-to-backs, depth is going to be tantamount to success. George Hill is still looking to capture some semblance of consistency, but Tyler Hansbrough is putting it together with 11 boards per game off the bench. The bench needs to improve in its field goal percentage, however, and that will be a challenge on the road.

THE COACHES

Image

ImageImage
Lawrence Frank and Frank Vogel are both young coaches. Vogel has his team in the polar opposite position, with his team finally having the skills to pull out close games. His goal is to get another convincing win over the struggling Pistons.

THE INJURY REPORT

Image

Pacers
Jeff Foster: Back - Probably not.
Jeff Pendergraph: Knee - Probably not.

Pistons
None.

THE HEAVY MATTERS

Image

-Find a way to hang on to leads. This team has shown complacency with 4th quarter leads against supposedly inferior opponents.
-Bench needs to be more solid. Dahntay brings great energy, but is a black hole, and almost no one is shooting well.

THE TRADITION

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

NO MORE COLD SHOOTING!
Image

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 9:16 pm
by Reginald Wayne
With the Pacers' early season schedule being pretty easy, I think they need to win this game to have some cushion for later in the season. I'd like to see Stephenson play some more today against the bigger stuckey. We shall see. Go Pacers!

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 9:29 pm
by Grang33r
Will be interesting to see how we play tonight. We haven't played well at all this season IMO but this is our first game on back-to-back nights, but also due to fog last night in Detroit, the Pacers had to land pretty far from Detroit, and bus to the hotel. Which, they didn't get into the hotel til about 330am.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 11:22 pm
by Aiq
Anyone else here watching the game tonight?

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 11:38 pm
by Grang33r
Im watching. Watching, pregaming and getting ready to go out for the night. So, unless something ridic happens, this will probably be my last post. Hope you guys have a great new years, let's win this game and celebrate the new year and a 4-0 start! BE SAFE everyone, and SMART, the world is over populated as is, no need for any new years ooopsies babies. lol

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sun Jan 1, 2012 1:41 am
by Miller4ever
I managed to see about half the game between cooking and catching it on League Pass. Gotta say, we looked dog-tired from the overtime game and the whole getting into the hotel at 3:30 thing.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sun Jan 1, 2012 1:42 am
by Miller4ever
We HAVE to figure out what's going on with our shot. We're getting good look and bricking. Meanwhile, Jerebko is draining contested 29-footers.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sun Jan 1, 2012 2:04 am
by Val Holliday
Well, nice effort in the 4th. Tough to come all the way back though. Hope to rebound (literally) against New Jersey.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Sun Jan 1, 2012 9:38 pm
by Solid
The extra energy and effort that it takes to play excellant D and make up for poor shooting percentages just wasn't there against the Pistons.

Our bigs were beat down and it serves to point up a lack of depth at the 5. Fifteen min. of Jeff Foster against the Cavs on friday may have preserved Hib and West enough for us to prevail tonight.

Outside shooting bigs like Jerabuko and Bargs (not to mention Dirk) will continue to be a problem for us for the time being. We should be able to overcome this with superior rebounding and more foul shots.

I'd almost never play DC on Stuckey (or Rose or Westbrook etc). Especially when we have clearly better options to defend them. This is a problem for us unless Hill proves to be a much better floor general than any of us expect.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Mon Jan 2, 2012 12:10 am
by Miller4ever
They were putting Gordon on Collison and Stuckey on George. Don't know why we didn't do something similar.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Mon Jan 2, 2012 9:32 am
by Kuq_e_Zi91
I'd like to see us play Danny at the four against outside shooting bigs like Jerebko and Bargnani. Then we can move George to the three and play Hill at the two next to Collison.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Mon Jan 2, 2012 10:39 am
by Pacersike
I'm surprised Danny didn't get any minutes at the 4 so far.
Unless he would be facing someone who is a lot bigger than him, he should be able to hold his own at the PF spot IMO

We still have Price, who is familiar with the system, on the bench to come in and move some players to a bigger position.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Tue Jan 3, 2012 12:24 am
by tsherkin
Meant to ask you guys this, why didn't Hibbert play more against Detroit?

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Tue Jan 3, 2012 12:33 am
by Indy2thaWindy
tsherkin wrote:Meant to ask you guys this, why didn't Hibbert play more against Detroit?


We got behind early, and we made a run going small. I don't think Hibbert saw the floor in the 4th. We didn't really go to him. Paul George is the only player who passes him the ball it seems. It's kind of sad really.

Re: Game 4: Pacers @ Pistons 12/31/11, 6:00 EST

Posted: Tue Jan 3, 2012 4:12 am
by tsherkin
That's a bit annoying. Same thing appeared to happen tonight. :(