NBA PLAYOFFS - Round 1, Game 1: Miami Heat vs. Indiana Pacers

[Jake0890]

(5) Miami Heat vs. (4) Indiana Pacers
Tuesday, August 18th
4:00 PM ET

Injury Report
PACERS
- TJ Warren (plantar fasciitis) - Day-to-day
- Domantas Sabonis (plantar fasciitis) - OUT'
- Jeremy Lamb (knee) - OUT
- Myles Turner (wrist sprain) - Day-to-day

HEAT
- Derrick Jones Jr. (neck strain) - Questionable
- Jimmy Butler, Jae Crowder, Bam Adebayo, and Goran Dragic, who all sat out Friday's game, should be good to go for the playoffs.

---------------------------

Current Vegas odds sit at Miami -3.5 despite the Pacers' home-court advantage.

The Pacers have a strong shot in this series as long as their bench continues to play at a high level. Myles needs to contain Bam defensively and hopefully Jimmy stays ice-cold from the outside.

DISCUSS.

[Scoot McGroot]

(5) Miami Heat vs. (4) Indiana Pacers
Tuesday, August 18th
5:00 PM ET

Injury Report
PACERS
- TJ Warren (plantar fasciitis) - Day-to-day
- Domantas Sabonis (plantar fasciitis) - OUT'
- Jeremy Lamb (knee) - OUT
- Myles Turner (wrist sprain) - Day-to-day

HEAT
- Derrick Jones Jr. (neck strain) - Questionable
- Jimmy Butler, Jae Crowder, Bam Adebayo, and Goran Dragic, who all sat out Friday's game, should be good to go for the playoffs.

---------------------------

Current Vegas odds sit at Miami -3.5 despite the Pacers' home-court advantage.

The Pacers have a strong shot in this series as long as their bench continues to play at a high level. Myles needs to contain Bam defensively and hopefully Jimmy stays ice-cold from the outside.

DISCUSS.

I see it as 4pm eastern, on TNT and Fox Sports Indiana.

[boomershadow]

I didnt know Solomon Hill was on the Heat lol

[Scoot McGroot]

I didnt know Solomon Hill was on the Heat lol

Salary filler in the Iguodala/Crowder/Solo for Winslow/Waiters/Johnson deal midseason.

[boomershadow]

Sumner the first guy off the bench.

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[boomershadow]

Vic been on the ground a few times in pain. Kinda worrying.

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[Jake0890]

This is going to be a tight series. 7 games.

[pacers33granger]

This second half is exactly why our ceiling is limited with Nate. Absolutely no creativity whatsoever and every play devolves into iso ball when we have no one other than Warren even close to qualified to do so.

To be clear, I totally get why we kept Nate, I'm fine with it, and likely would have done the same. But this has been and will be a consistent issue.

[Scoot McGroot]

This second half is exactly why our ceiling is limited with Nate. Absolutely no creativity whatsoever and every play devolves into iso ball when we have no one other than Warren even close to qualified to do so.

To be clear, I totally get why we kept Nate, I'm fine with it, and likely would have done the same. But this has been and will be a consistent issue.

Losing Oladipo to the eye injury, Holiday in foul trouble, and Sabonis out really eliminated a ton of ball handling possibilities that we couldn’t recover from. Not sure there was much more to do there with whom we have.

[Jake0890]

This second half is exactly why our ceiling is limited with Nate. Absolutely no creativity whatsoever and every play devolves into iso ball when we have no one other than Warren even close to qualified to do so.

To be clear, I totally get why we kept Nate, I'm fine with it, and likely would have done the same. But this has been and will be a consistent issue.

Losing Oladipo to the eye injury, Holiday in foul trouble, and Sabonis out really eliminated a ton of ball handling possibilities that we couldn’t recover from. Not sure there was much more to do there with whom we have.

I don't buy that... the team had already played without Sabonis and Oladipo during the restart and has to be used to Sabonis not being there at this point. I don't think that performance was capped out by the talent that we had out there on the floor. Certainly, our bench exceeded expectations, but I think there were plenty of issues elsewhere. Turner was out there plenty and his 9 pts and 9 rebounds stands out as being pretty bad. Some of the shot selection from Brogdon and Warren was a little questionable. Our defense on Dragic and Butler was extremely soft in the 4th quarter despite how much they were torching us. We continued to let Butler get rhythm shots off unspectacular high pick-and-rolls.

The Pacers played just okay tonight. It was a totally winnable game though.

[Scoot McGroot]

This second half is exactly why our ceiling is limited with Nate. Absolutely no creativity whatsoever and every play devolves into iso ball when we have no one other than Warren even close to qualified to do so.

To be clear, I totally get why we kept Nate, I'm fine with it, and likely would have done the same. But this has been and will be a consistent issue.

Losing Oladipo to the eye injury, Holiday in foul trouble, and Sabonis out really eliminated a ton of ball handling possibilities that we couldn’t recover from. Not sure there was much more to do there with whom we have.

I don't buy that... the team had already played without Sabonis and Oladipo during the restart and has to be used to Sabonis not being there at this point. I don't think that performance was capped out by the talent that we had out there on the floor. Certainly, our bench exceeded expectations, but I think there were plenty of issues elsewhere. Turner was out there plenty and his 9 pts and 9 rebounds stands out as being pretty bad. Some of the shot selection from Brogdon and Warren was a little questionable. Our defense on Dragic and Butler was extremely soft in the 4th quarter despite how much they were torching us. We continued to let Butler get rhythm shots off unspectacular high pick-and-rolls.

The Pacers played just okay tonight. It was a totally winnable game though.

We collapsed yes. But, if we only have Brogdon in the lineup as a ball handler in the 4th, there’s not much options other than ISO’s and the like.

[pacers33granger]

This second half is exactly why our ceiling is limited with Nate. Absolutely no creativity whatsoever and every play devolves into iso ball when we have no one other than Warren even close to qualified to do so.

To be clear, I totally get why we kept Nate, I'm fine with it, and likely would have done the same. But this has been and will be a consistent issue.

Losing Oladipo to the eye injury, Holiday in foul trouble, and Sabonis out really eliminated a ton of ball handling possibilities that we couldn’t recover from. Not sure there was much more to do there with whom we have.

I know we don't have a lot of creation, but that's where coaching comes in.

I don't give much benefit of the doubt for Dipo going out early. The stagnant offense has been a problem for a long time and it wouldn't have changed the 2nd half if the injury didn't happen. Domas was known to be out. Foul trouble happens.

Bottom line to me is that we have Brogdon and McConnell at least. There should be no reason that the ball isn't moving more. Even though we're missing some big pieces, we should be doing more than moving it across the perimeter for half a shot clock before letting someone iso. Too often our offense has a single option and if it doesn't work out, no one knows what to do.

I did not expect to win today. I liked the performances individually given the situation from a lot of the vets. And to be fair I don't think some of those performances happen without Nate as a coach. He gets a lot out of guys and he motivates them. The offense will always be a problem for us though.

[Topofthekey]

This game was just so sad

The 3rd stringers like Jakarr Sampson and Edmund Sumner really stepped up and played with a lot of hustle and gave the team quality backup minutes. Justin Holiday did well too, and TJM got a few big buckets as well

But it felt like the team just gave up in the 4th quarter during the last few minutes when the Heat made their run

The offense really stagnated towards the end of the game, such a bad time to go on an offensive drought. It was like the team knew they were in trouble, everyone could sense the collapse taking place, but no one knew what to do. They double teamed Warren whenever he touched the ball, but Brogdon looked like he either checked out early, or just wasn't up to the task

Aaron played well at the start, but once he got into foul trouble and Nate pulled him out of the game he just seemed unable to get back his rhythm the rest of the way

Such a winnable game to let slip away

[Gremz]

Miami Cheat with the dodgy Ric Flair "Thumb To The Eye" tactics on poor Vic. Hurts my feelings.

[Pacersike]

This second half is exactly why our ceiling is limited with Nate. Absolutely no creativity whatsoever and every play devolves into iso ball when we have no one other than Warren even close to qualified to do so.

To be clear, I totally get why we kept Nate, I'm fine with it, and likely would have done the same. But this has been and will be a consistent issue.

Losing Oladipo to the eye injury, Holiday in foul trouble, and Sabonis out really eliminated a ton of ball handling possibilities that we couldn’t recover from. Not sure there was much more to do there with whom we have.

I know we don't have a lot of creation, but that's where coaching comes in.

I don't give much benefit of the doubt for Dipo going out early. The stagnant offense has been a problem for a long time and it wouldn't have changed the 2nd half if the injury didn't happen. Domas was known to be out. Foul trouble happens.

Bottom line to me is that we have Brogdon and McConnell at least. There should be no reason that the ball isn't moving more. Even though we're missing some big pieces, we should be doing more than moving it across the perimeter for half a shot clock before letting someone iso. Too often our offense has a single option and if it doesn't work out, no one knows what to do.

I did not expect to win today. I liked the performances individually given the situation from a lot of the vets. And to be fair I don't think some of those performances happen without Nate as a coach. He gets a lot out of guys and he motivates them. The offense will always be a problem for us though.

While I agree we could use an upgrade on offensive schemes coaching, those offensive masterminds are very hard to get/find and at the end of the day, also depend a lot on the capabilities of our players.

Frank Vogel would have similar difficulties squeezing offense out of our healthy roster facing playoffs D. Even with Sabonis healthy, we know it will be much harder for him to create, because these are the games our opponents play with more energy and often have the length/athleticism advantage.

It is what is, anything can happen in this series. Ask the Bucks or Lakers. We can beat every team, as long as they don't poke us in the eye. Pacers for the win!

[pacers33granger]

While I agree we could use an upgrade on offensive schemes coaching, those offensive masterminds are very hard to get/find and at the end of the day, also depend a lot on the capabilities of our players.

Frank Vogel would have similar difficulties squeezing offense out of our healthy roster facing playoffs D. Even with Sabonis healthy, we know it will be much harder for him to create, because these are the games our opponents play with more energy and often have the length/athleticism advantage.

I

Agreed and that is why I've been fine with Nate in general. I'm sure there are genius assistants or G-League coaches out there, but I don't know of them and it's a risky bet that it will work out. The head coaches who fit that criteria likely aren't available at all. Frank had similar strengths and weaknesses and also deployed a simplistic offense.

We just shouldn't be running large parts of games like we have Lebron on our team though. We attacked Bam 9 times in isolation situations yesterday and got 8 points out of it. I don't think we drew any fouls. I legitimately do not know why we did this given Bam is one of the best in the league at switching onto guards. Beyond it being an inefficient play, it lets the other 4 defenders stand around.

[Scoot McGroot]

While I agree we could use an upgrade on offensive schemes coaching, those offensive masterminds are very hard to get/find and at the end of the day, also depend a lot on the capabilities of our players.

Frank Vogel would have similar difficulties squeezing offense out of our healthy roster facing playoffs D. Even with Sabonis healthy, we know it will be much harder for him to create, because these are the games our opponents play with more energy and often have the length/athleticism advantage.

I

Agreed and that is why I've been fine with Nate in general. I'm sure there are genius assistants or G-League coaches out there, but I don't know of them and it's a risky bet that it will work out. The head coaches who fit that criteria likely aren't available at all. Frank had similar strengths and weaknesses and also deployed a simplistic offense.

We just shouldn't be running large parts of games like we have Lebron on our team though. We attacked Bam 9 times in isolation situations yesterday and got 8 points out of it. I don't think we drew any fouls. I legitimately do not know why we did this given Bam is one of the best in the league at switching onto guards. Beyond it being an inefficient play, it lets the other 4 defenders stand around.

Yeah. From what I read, the idea was to attack Bam because he’s a bit worse solo than when he can rotate over and collapse the offense as a second guy.

Clearly, a bad idea.

[Pacers_Freak]

I've got a feeling we bounce back today and even things up. Ultimately lose the series. But, got a good feeling about today.

[Topofthekey]

There's no game 2 thread, so this goes here

Damn it, it's only a bit over 2 minutes into the game, and I'm already face-palming

They're just shuffling the ball around the perimeter, before taking a tough/bad shot

Brogdon isn't doing any facilitating, and Vic's just, to be honest, terrible


EDIT:
COME ON. What a BS call against Myles. DJJ got beat by Myles on defense and he ran into Myles in desperation and the foul is on Myles??

[Scoot McGroot]

Crowded and Butler are being allowed a ton of body contact so far. None of our guys. Super early though. Waiting for those calls to swing to level out.