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Getting Inside

The Pacers will get their first look at the player that helped them win 61 games several years ago when they take on the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday.

Forward Jermaine O’Neal spent eight seasons in Indiana where he was third in the MVP voting in 2004 and a six-time All Star. Injuries kept O’Neal from continuing to put up All-Star numbers.

The more he was injured and the more the Pacers continued to lose, the more his relationship with Pacers president Larry Bird soured. O’Neal mentioned several times over the past few offseasons that he and the Pacers should part ways if they couldn’t get back to being an elite team.

Bird sent O’Neal packing in June when he sent him to Toronto for point guard T.J. Ford, center Rasho Nesterovic and forward Maceo Baston.

O’Neal, who is All-Star Chris Bosh’s sidekick in Canada, is averaging 12.2 points and 8.1 rebounds with the Raptors.

Celtics 122, Pacers 117: The Pacers were a missed rebound away from handing the Celtics their third loss of the season. The Celtics took advantage of the Pacers’ inability to rebound by getting a Paul Pierce three-pointer to send the game into overtime and eventually hand the Pacers their fifth loss in the past six games. Guard Marquis Daniels led the Pacers with 26 points. Forward Danny Granger added 20 points on 7-of-22 shooting.

Notes, Quotes

• The Pacers have allowed their last five opponents to shoot at least 50 percent from the field and have given up an average of 112 points, including 122 to Boston, in that same span. The Pacers are 1-4 in those games.

• The Pacers are 0-3 in overtime games this season. The problem the Pacers are dealing with is their inability to hold onto leads. They’ve had leads late in the fourth quarter of each of those games only to squander it and having it eventually cost them.

• The Pacers shot at least 50 percent from the field for just the second time this season when they made 51 percent of their shots against the Celtics. The other time the Pacers shot at least 50 percent was when they were 44-of-80 (55 percent) against Atlanta on Nov. 18.

Quote To Note: “We came out with a lot of energy and focus. We just didn’t close it out. We hustled, gave it our best and we must learn from these games.”—Guard Marquis Daniels.

Player Notes:

• F Jeff Foster grabbed five rebounds to move past Darnell Hillman for ninth place on the franchise’s all-time career list. Foster has 4,373 rebounds in his career.

• G Marquis Daniels continues to do his best to make Mike Dunleavy’s absence less noticeable. Daniels had his fifth game of at least 20 points when he scored a season-high 26 points on 11-of-16 shooting.

• G Brandon Rush got his first DNP-Coach’s Decision. Coach Jim O’Brien is giving Stephen Graham Rush’s minutes because he feels like the rookie out of Kansas is struggling right now. O’Brien added that Rush is going to have a good year, he just needs to sit and watch for the time being.

• F Danny Granger didn’t have a great shooting night—7-of-22—but he had a team-high six assists and a season-high three steals. Granger finished with 20 points in 41 minutes.

Medical Watch:

• G Mike Dunleavy (knee) is sidelined indefinitely because of tendinitis in his right knee. Dunleavy, the Pacers second leading scorer last season, played just 12 minutes in the preseason and has only taken part in one practice since training camp started in late September.

Getting Inside

The Raptors could use some talent but they could also use a break from the schedule as they try to adapt to a new coach with a new system and snap a four-game losing streak.

Their next game—Tuesday in Cleveland—begins a stretch of five games in seven days, all against teams with records better than theirs.

“It’s going to be tough,” interim coach Jay Triano said. “Our practices are going to be the games as well. We have to take the stuff in games and go back and show them. A lot of practice might not be physical in the next little bit.”

A pasting in Salt Lake City in Triano’s first game and a narrow loss to Portland in his second have shown that’s going to take time for the Raptors to find the kind of read-and-react flow Triano wants and a sea change on defense that will see them try to deal with opponents in a diametrically different way than they did under Sam Mitchell.

And time is something they don’t have.

They play in Cleveland on Tuesday and back home on Wednesday. They go to New Jersey on Friday and return home for a back-to-back home set at the Air Canada Centre a week from Monday and Tuesday so the best they’ll get is three days in the gym—and one of them will be after playing on consecutive nights—to implement anything new.

“We’ve got to have practice time, you have to have games,” said Chris Bosh, who was rather ordinary in an 18-point, 11-assist outing against the Jazz. “There’s just so many different things you have to do and, I mean, making changes on the fly, that’s tough.

“But there’s no excuse for us. We still have to come out and play basketball games and we still expect to win every time we come out on the court.”

Blazers 98, Raptors 97: Chris Bosh missed a running lay-up at the buzzer and Steve Blake’s three-pointer with 8.4 seconds left was the difference as Portland extended Toronto’s losing streak to four.

Brandon Roy’s jumper with 48.2 seconds pulled Portland into a 95-95 tie before Bosh hit an 18-footer jumper with 27.4 seconds left to put Toronto up two. Bosh only got the shot because he rebounded his first attempt—a lay-up blocked by Greg Oden and kicked the ball out to Jose Calderon, who passed up an open three to give the ball to Toronto’s top offensive threat.

But the Blazers stole the lead on a scrambled play with less than 10 seconds left as Steve Blake tracked down a loose ball, may have pushed off on Calderon to create some space and hit a huge three-pointer to give the Blazers the lead.

Bosh was isolated on LaMarcus Aldridge with the game on the line and he took the ball to the rim but the imposing presence of Greg Oden forced Bosh to put the ball high off the glass and it missed.

Notes, Quotes

• Toronto was hammered 48-31 on the boards by Portland on Sunday afternoon, the eighth straight game in which the Raptors were out-rebounded. If it’s frustrating to the players, Chris Bosh doesn’t want to hear it.

“I’d like everybody to do me a favor and stop saying ‘frustrating,’” Bosh asked. “Everybody always says frustrating and how frustrating it is. We got out-rebounded. That’s the point about it, we know we have to get better at rebounding, it’s not frustrating—we just have to get better at it.”

• Toronto drew a season-low crowd of 17,681 for Portland’s lone visit of the season to the Air Canada Centre.

Quote To Note: “We need to just win one game to have the confidence back and everything is going to come. I think you saw, we are a much different team than a couple of games ago. That’s the way we want to play, that is our team right now.”—Jose Calderon.

Player Notes:

• G Jose Calderon should have more responsibility in the new offense that interim head coach Jay Triano wants to implement, which relies more on reading and reacting than on scripted plays. Calderon responded with a 13-assist effort in the second game under the new regime.

“I really like that,” he said. “That’s how I used to play when I was in Europe, we just have to read a bit more. We don’t have to call a lot of plays and that’s good.”

• F Joey Graham has played more than 20 minutes in each of the first two games under new coach Jay Triano. It’s the first time he’s had such a workload in consecutive games this year.

• F Jason Kapono had 10 field-goal attempts Sunday, the third time in five games he’s had that many shots. His being under-utilized was one of the big criticisms of now-fired coach Sam Mitchell.

Medical Watch:

• C Kris Humphries (right knee tendinitis) was on the active list but unavailable for Sunday’s game against Portland. He’s listed as day-to-day.

• C Nathan Jawai (cardiac issue) has yet to take part in so much as a workout after he was found to have some kind of unspecified cardiac problem in pre-training camp testing. It’s unclear when he will be able to play.

C_Money wrote:I want TJ to drop 50 on Calderon just so Bryan Colangelo realizes that talent > personality.

The Boshpit! wrote:Key to beating the Raptors: let them build a 16 point lead.