Game 4

[MNPacersfan]

Sorry to re-hash so late... I've been busy...

Watching the first quarter of game 4 I saw something different from the Pacers that I hadn't seen in games 1-3.
Nervous anticipation

I felt like the Pacers were all business for the first 3 teams and then somewhere in that first quarter of game 4 when the Pacers were off to a hot start and the Heat's heads were down the guys seemed to collectively say, "Holy @#$&, we're going to win this," and that's when it started crashing down. It feels like a timeout could have helped, but it just felt like the Pacers had a chance to be up 20 at halftime and crush Miami's spirit. Once up 3-1... Well, 3 chances to win 1 game would seem to be pretty good odds.

Did anyone else see that?

[MNPacersfan]

By the way, did anyone else wonder what Barbosa was doing on the floor so much? Why not just play Dahntay Jones and hope that his defense is a bigger help than Barbosa's perceived offense?

I'm trying to find a Bill Simmons article from a few years ago in which he explained that he was afraid of Barbosa because he's the guy that has the great regular season game from time to time, but in the end you still can't trust him in the playoffs because you never know when he's going to "crap the bed." I'm not finding it though...

[Wizop]

I did think Vogel was a little stubborn in sticking with his second unit when it wasn't working. if you watch Vogel's end of season press conference from this morning though, he was very high on Barbosa not just for what he did on the floor but for his locker room leadership. personally I think the real problem in game 4 was the coaching session Wade got from Tom Crean which lit a fire under him and got him playing much more aggressively but within the team concept. if they said "Holy @#$%" it was probably followed not by "we could win this" but by "oh, no, DWade and LeBron both have their A games going now."

[Boneman2]

Miami lobbied for the Pacers to change their confident demeanor in games 2 & 3. By game 4 they were subdued and submissive.

Nice observation.