RealGM

May 7, 2014
7:00 PM EST
Bankers Life Fieldhouse - Indianapolis, IN

The Skinny

After nearly being one of the few #1 seeds to ever lose to an 8 seed, Pacer fans had hope that the team had finally broken the downward slide the team has been on since the All-Star break. But unfortunately, after a disappointing loss at home in game 1, for the 2nd time this playoffs, the Pacers are playing catchup. Game 2 is now a must win for the Pacers, the team simply can't afford to head to Washington down 2-0. This time around. if the Pacers want to even out the series, Roy Hibbert and Ian Mahinmi must be able to control Marcin Gortat and Nene on the boards and the guards must be able to slow down John Wall. Will the Pacers finally be able to regain consistency in their play, or will Wall and co. simply be on their way to another 5 game series win?

The Lineups

Point Guard

John all killed the Pacers in game 1 with 13 points and dishing 9 assists. Every time the Wiz grabbed a rebound, he was off to the races creating a crazy amount of open jumpshots for Trevor Ariza and Bradley Beal as the Pacers just couldn't get back on defense fast enough. The key to this game will be George Hill slowing him down, at least enough so the rest of the team can get back on defense.

Shooting Guard

Bradley Beal was the leading scorer of game 1 and absolutely abused Lance, who shot a dreadful 4/13 from the field. Beal had 5 steals and 7 rebounds to go along with his career performance and it seemed every time the Pacers would make a run Beal would hit a dagger 3 to keep the Wizards in it. Whether Beal was contested or not, he hit damn near everything. He'll eventually cool off, just like the Hawks did, the question is when.

Small Forward

After an incredible first round of the playoffs where Paul George carried the team on his back. he took 10 steps backwards in game 1. Shooting 4/17 (< 25%!) is unacceptable as an NBA player, let alone a star player on a #1 seeded team. For the Wizards, Ariza hit 6/6 threes and 7/10 from the field. Paul George needs to be the player dominating the SF position this series if the Pacers want a chance.

Power Forward

David West was the Pacers MVP in game 1 with 15 points and 12 rebounds, and this might have been the only positional matchup we won. That said, Nene abused our bench big men when West had to leave the floor and had 15 points of his own. West has to continue to be our rock.

Center

We haven't had an official report on whether Roy will start, but given Vogel's set in stone lineups, Roy Hibbert might remain in the starting lineup. Marcin Gortat killed Roy in every sense of the word in game 1. With no rebound and no points, Roy Hibbert caught a lot of flack from the fans around Indy after his pitiful performance and we're still waiting for him to turn it around... hopefully he decides to show up sometime.

The Bench





Other than Luis Scola and Garrett Temple, both benches were a no-show last night, the starters did most of the heavy lifting. Scola hit a ton of mid range jumpers, but Ian Mahinmi got destroyed by Nene and Gortat and CJ just couldn't get anything to fall last night. CJ has been crucial for this team with Hill struggling with a hip injury, so CJ has to start hitting his shots for us to win this series.

Injury Report

Pacers
None

Wizards
None

The Tradition

Definitely gotta win this one.

Hopefully you guys like this format more than my normal game threads.

Go Pacers!

Looks familiar (except you gotta resize images to be 600 px wide and not put tradition behind a spoiler)

Miller4ever wrote:Looks familiar (except you gotta resize images to be 600 px wide and not put tradition behind a spoiler)

Alright, ill keep the size in mind next time.

As for the tradition, I put it behind a spoiler because its a pain to scroll past every time, and although I like looking at the pictures, some might not. Spoilers allow people who want to look to be able to, but those that don't want to don't have to.

Only other change I made was to alter the pic at the very top to the picture pacers.com puts up for every game because I think it just looks better than 2 logos side by side. Preference, I guess.

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Thanks jake. Looks great.

If we win, it will probably be ugly. Usually is. Won't build any confidence for players or fans.

Thanks Jake.

Interested to see what Hibbert shows up tonight.

Thanks Jake, despite knowing better I am staying up for this one as well. I am predicting a 10-8-2-2 game for Hibbert. Tek it to em LAD!

Hate to say this: but told you so. Finally looking for Roy inside and look, what is happening?

No need to do it all game, but do it enough to keep the Wiz honest and we have this game and probably the series.

Roy looks good so far, but we also saw this in game 7, but that didn't last long.

Jake0890 wrote:Roy looks good so far, but we also saw this in game 7, but that didn't last long.

Still looking good, looks like Bynum was indeed a factor in Roy's head.

Team playing well, but we just can't build a lead whatsoever.

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Don't worry, we have this. Think back of the early season - establish in paint first half, hit them from the wings in Q3 and then readjust to what is needed at that point in Q4.

Stephenson needs to see the ball go down.

Hibbert is killing it.

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Miller4ever wrote:Stephenson needs to see the ball go down.

PG needs to next, he had a poor game 1 and is hiding in this game. Ariza has his number.

prince hibbert

PG is just forcing it now. 3 bad shots in a row.

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Yeah, he has to come off...

Dodging some bullets in crunch time.

Man, these wasted possessions have to stop. No more iso and waiting until the last few seconds to shoot the ball. Cmon PG.

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