Post-Game Grades: Reality Returns to Indiana in 108-87 Loss
By Ben Gibson
Back to life, back to reality.
After a pair of wins for the Indiana Pacers they dropped an ugly loss at home and it was perhaps their worst performance of the season. Hopefully for Indiana’s sake this isn’t their reality, but fans have to worry that performances like this one are more likely than the one the Pacers gave to get a win in Miami on Wednesday. Were the positives we’ve seen so far this year fool’s gold or gold swagger?
The Good: The Denver Nuggets picked up their second win of the season as the Pacers didn’t show up at Bankers Life Fieldhouse ready to play. The Nuggets were due for a win, but Indiana made it much too easy and didn’t look good in any phase of the game.
The Bad: Pretty much everything the Pacers did. Poor defensive effort against a team that hasn’t played well all year-long. This was the Pacers worst performance of the season and more embarrassingly, it happened at home.
MVP: Arron Affalo and Ty Lawson torched Indiana’s guards as Affalo had 17 points and Lawson got the offense moving with 10 assists. We had seen good things from Solomon Hill and Donald Sloan earlier in the season, but that wasn’t the case tonight.
LVP: Chris Copeland only knocked down one shot and didn’t even get to the foul line so he could miss shots from there too.
X-Factor: The Nuggets have relied on scoring in the paint as they’ve led the league with 63.6% of their points coming from there. Against Indiana on Friday only 40.7 percent came from there but that wasn’t a problem as the Pacers allowed them to knockdown their mid-range shots.
 | Luis Scola, PF 14 MIN | 3-5 FG | 0-2 FT | 1 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 0 TO | 6 PTS | -4Could only play 14 minutes against Faried and company, but at least he made his shots. |  |
Chris Copeland, SF 24 MIN | 1-10 FG | 0-0 FT | 5 REB | 1 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 4 TO | 3 PTS | -14Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss. Make. Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss.Chris Nopeland.
I have no more Chris Copland jokes.
Solomon Hill, SF 37 MIN | 5-16 FG | 1-2 FT | 5 REB | 2 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 12 PTS | -15Solomon got his 12 point per a game average… on 16 shots. If you take more shots than your total points, I can’t say anything nice about you.
Roy Hibbert, C 25 MIN | 3-9 FG | 3-4 FT | 4 REB | 1 AST | 0 STL | 2 BLK | 1 TO | 9 PTS | -27A +/- of -27, worst on the team. That isn’t all on him, but he can’t shoot so poorly and be so ineffective.
Donald Sloan, PG 27 MIN | 4-8 FG | 2-2 FT | 2 REB | 4 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 12 PTS | -20Meh. Not terrible, not good. Just another part of a terrible night.
Shayne Whittington, PF 12 MIN | 1-3 FG | 0-0 FT | 5 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 3 PTS | +4His second appearance of the year and grabbed five rebounds. So job, good effort.
Lavoy Allen, PF 22 MIN | 6-12 FG | 0-1 FT | 8 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 0 TO | 12 PTS | -21Congratulations on getting over the 1,000 point mark in your career. Actually a pretty good performance for Allen. Not great defense though.
Damjan Rudez, SF 28 MIN | 3-7 FG | 0-2 FT | 0 REB | 3 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 7 PTS | -9When Damo plays more than 20 minutes, usually something has gone very wrong.
Ian Mahinmi, C 23 MIN | 3-3 FG | 1-4 FT | 10 REB | 2 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 2 TO | 7 PTS | +6A normal Mahinmi performance
A.J. Price, PG 24 MIN | 5-9 FG | 2-3 FT | 2 REB | 4 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 14 PTS | +1Not headed to China… yet.
C.J. Miles, SG 4 MIN | 0-2 FG | 2-2 FT | 0 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 2 PTS | -6Injured again.
Frank VogelWhat the hell Frank? Did you tell them to tank?