RealGM

7pm Bankers Life Fieldhouse

Probable starters

Atlanta
Teague
Stevenson
Korver
Smith
Horford

Indiana
Hill
Stephenson
George
Hansbrough
Hibbert

Starters are

Teague
Jones
Smith
Horford
Petro

Augustin
Green
George
Hansbrough
Hibbert

Pacers have more injuries than expected. Hope they don't get too happy too see a depleated team.

edit: NVM

Rough half but josh can help start a run

We were outrebounded 23-16 in the first half.

It makes less sense than normal because Petro is starting and has a game high 5 rebounds.

The Pacers are just making a more concerted effort across the board as a team.

Game ball goes to the 2nd unit

The bench is doing one hell of a job. Only down by 6 with 2 minutes left. Let's get it!

Shameful outing by our starters. They just didn't show up. They deserved this embarrassment from our bench.

Kudos to our bench - they were amazing. Ultimately, gravity pulled them back down.

Highlights:

2nd smart game from Josh in a row. No bad shots, no stupid passes, no trying to do too much. Not great at the free throw line, but was getting there.

The bench confidence has to be riding high. They not only kicked the crap out of the Pacers bench, they continued kicking the starters butt when they came in.

What I HOPE Drew takes away: Hustle and effort will out play a slight size advantage any day. There was no reason to start Petro and go back to the Al at the 4/Josh at the 3 lineup. Sure, we broke even in the opening quarter with that lineup, but its not a great lineup no matter who we are playing.

Also, Jenkins should be a consistant fixture in the lineup. He didn't touch the court until the 4th. His hustle along with Ivan, and Macks were a difference maker there.

Rip, he was smart but lifeless. At this point, I'm wondering if he had words with Drew, was told to play a certain way - and just went through the motions. Either this team is tired or something (an argument?) sucked the life out of them.

I would go with tired on the back end of a back to back where the starters played alot of minutes I guess.

But Smith, he might have lacked the "fire" but to me he has been more active defensivly lately while on offense he kinda is walking around(still setting solid picks and looking for the right play, but there is no pep in his step).

For me, he can be pepless all he wants as long as he makes the plays that he needs to make to win without the boneheaded plays.

Of the starters last night, he played the best(I realize that is like being the shallowest stab wound...best case scenario its still stab wound) but they basically all took a game off and had no energy. The bench played at 100 mph, which I loved. There are always games like this during a season. We have just had 1-2 too many.