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P L A Y O F F S


THE SKINNY


The news has been all about what's wrong with the Heat. Extra attention has been paid to what was said in the sideline exchange between Coach Spo and Dwyane Wade. Lance Stephenson was in the spotlight for a while with his choke sign. What was lost was that the Pacers dismantled the Heat in the second half at home to a sellout crowd of mustard, giving the Pacers every possible advantage in the series short of being up 3-0.

THE LINEUPS



Point Guard

Mario Chalmers was the best player for the Heat, adjusting to the way the Pacers were playing their pick and roll defense. If He has a game like this in tandem with James and Wade playing up to form, then the Pacers will have plenty to worry about. Hill was just as great for the Pacers, piling on big shot after big shot. He can still improve on his turnovers, as that's been the main Pacers weakness against the Heat. It can be devastating if the Heat can exploit that better.

Shooting Guard

Paul George has been lauded by his coach for his defense on Wade. If Wade is healthy, George will be facing an angry Wade come tip-off. Wade has underperformed the entire series and given the type of player he is, it's just a question of when he will have an offensive outburst. George needs to defend without fouling, because with Wade, the foul line will fuel the fire.

Small Forward

Lebron has sent haphazard elbows towards Granger to which he takes offense to, and its resulted in two technicals for the Pacers' leading scorer. Granger has been kept relatively quiet, given that he is focusing more on containing Lebron, but there's a 20-point performance lurking around there somewhere. Lebron has folded under these situations before, but that's in the past, and he will be motivated to prove the critics wrong.

Power Forward

West is providing a firm advantage for the Pacers now that Bosh is absent. His play against Lebron seems to be evenly matched physically, but it's outside of Lebron's comfort zone, which is a good thing for the Pacers.

Center

Who knows who's in the Heat's lineup? Hibbert is coming off a beastly game, and his rebounding will be a focal point for the Heat. If he can continue to focus on being a presence while staying out of foul trouble and letting the offense come to him, the Heat will continue to struggle with consistent interior offense, which will force them to start hitting some threes every now and then.

THE BENCH






The Pacers bench still has a ways to go, and the best thing they can do to stop a Wade/Lebron takeover is hold up their end of the scoring. They have played some pretty good defense, but let the Heat take the lead in the first half of Game 3.

THE COACHES




Spoelstra is searching for answers, and questions of locker room unity are not helping. Vogel has a team that now understands it needs to take care of business at home. There will be adjustments coming from the Heat with extra days to prepare, so Vogel needs to be ready with his own adjustments.

THE INJURY REPORT



Pacers
None.

Heat
Chris Bosh: Abdominal - No.

THE HEAVY MATTERS



-Protect the ball. Converting on turnovers is something Miami is good at, but hasn't done in the Pacers wins.
-Rebound. The Heat will likely renew their efforts after being whupped soundly on the glass.
-There is still room for improvement. The bench can step it up more.

THE TRADITION: Best of 7

I think whoever wins this game takes the series. Go PacerS!

Here is to hoping Wade doesn't go completely off on us considering the prior game. Some players just have that ability regardless of how the D plays. I think Paul is playing well enough defensively to keep that from happening.

I'll admit that far too often I skim through the opening frame of these threads looking only at the pictures. I want to stop and compliment you on the first class analysis between the pictures. while that feels like claiming to read Playboy for the articles, it is no less true. good work!

Protect the home court

Wizop wrote:I'll admit that far too often I skim through the opening frame of these threads looking only at the pictures. I want to stop and compliment you on the first class analysis between the pictures. while that feels like claiming to read Playboy for the articles, it is no less true. good work!

Thank you.

Perhaps the biggest game of the series for both teams, especially for the Pacers. We would want to go to Miami in a Game 5 with nerves of steel and outstanding confidence.

Everybody thinks Wade will redeem himself big time, but really, he could be just one no-call away from getting out of his head again. And it's not far from happening considering Paul George's excellent defense on him. Their biggest weakness got exposed the last game and i expect Vogel to take advantage of that.

Let's go Pacers!!!! We can do this!!!!

"Gold Swagger".... Goldenshlager.

This is a huge game. As always thanks for putting in work M4E.

Pacers need to come out strong and assert themselves early on. The Heat will throw the kitchen sink at us in this game and the only way we win this one is if we match their intensity from begining to end.

Good luck, Pacers.

Air Poohdini wrote:Good luck, Pacers.

Thank you

Lebron's taking charge, eh? I still can't see them taking full control with Wade looking to have another off-night.

Good 1st quarter. But we have to cut down on the 3s. Half of our shots were 3s (11 3s to 22 FGAs).

^^ Yes, and we aren't converting from the perimeter. Vogel's resting our frontcourt, gotta keep the bigs fresh.

And this small line-up of ours with Lou at center makes me miss Jeff Foster.. a lot.

Excellent finish by Barbosa. Exactly why Larry brought him in.

Great half!
Wade's really trying to find ways to score but our guys will give him a hard time. They're lucky Fes is still isn't playing.
I actually like what Danny did confronting Wade. Trying to pull the trigger on another Wade meltdown.

Go Pacers!!!! Hold our ground!!!!

Great first half. We need to keep it up. Continue to make us proud, guys

PS: I also liked what Danny did, Moooose. He's standing his ground and represents the whole Pacers attitude.

Moooose wrote:And this small line-up of ours with Lou at center makes me miss Jeff Foster.. a lot.

I miss Jeff for the great guy he is but in my opinion, Lou has done more this year than Jeff has done in a few years. A taller Lou would be nice but I think for this season, he has made up for the lack of height and then some. The more I think about it though, Jeff was almost exclusively about intangibles that don't show on the box score. Lou is similar but it is a bit easier to grasp his play statistically. Consuming how the Heat have struggled with our size, a few extra inches on a big would be nice.

Random but it is incredible how much Bosh is missed. I knew he was important and underrated in some aspects but their defense, especially interior, has fallen apart for the most part. I've felt for a while that Wade and LeBron are the same player, one just happened to be blessed with nearly half a foot of additional height. In my mind, they probably would have been better off losing a healthy Wade than Bosh. Considering Wade's play this series, that is easy but I am disregarding that as we all know this is not his typical play against us. Until now, it has seemed as though he had a bad habit of eating healthy against our Pacers.