The Good: The Indiana Pacers had a chance to send the game into overtime on their final possession, and that’s never a complete catastrophe for a team like the Pacers on the road. They didn’t play well throughout the evening but they had a chance to win and could have gotten a victory if the ball bounced their way a few times.
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The Bad: The entire game. It was a struggle to watch the offense on both ends. Neither the Pacers nor the Nuggets ever got into a rhythm offensively, and the Pacers scoring just seemed to come off of random made shots as opposed to any systematic creations. Indiana shot 27-for-88 (30.7%), which is just unfathomably bad. Denver wasn’t much better at 30-for-82 (36.6%).
MVP: David West. He wasn’t good down the stretch, so it’s strange to give him this honor. But it’s also hard to imagine where the team would have gotten points tonight if he didn’t start off the game with some hot shooting. He scored the team’s first 7 points and 11 in the opening quarter. For perspective: The whole team scored 12 in the second quarter and it barely improved in the fourth (18 points).
LVP: Roy Hibbert was awful.
X-Factor: Danilo Galinari. He was the player of the game off the bench for Denver, tying David West for a game-high 19 points.
 | David West, PF 32 MIN | 8-22 FG | 2-5 FT | 10 REB | 5 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 2 TO | 19 PTS | +5 |
Early buckets, late misses and bad decision making.
Solomon Hill, SF 28 MIN | 3-7 FG | 3-4 FT | 3 REB | 1 AST | 2 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 11 PTS | -3Fine.
Roy Hibbert, C 24 MIN | 0-4 FG | 0-0 FT | 5 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 4 TO | 0 PTS | 0His December-long disappearing act continues as he yet again ties his career-low point total.
Rodney Stuckey, PG 35 MIN | 1-10 FG | 2-2 FT | 2 REB | 3 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 4 PTS | -7Made one more shot that Roy.
Donald Sloan, PG 36 MIN | 4-11 FG | 0-0 FT | 7 REB | 4 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 9 PTS | +1Was the one Pacer who played relatively well all game long.
Luis Scola, PF 16 MIN | 1-7 FG | 1-2 FT | 7 REB | 1 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 3 PTS | -8Not good shooting.
Lavoy Allen, PF 24 MIN | 2-3 FG | 2-2 FT | 10 REB | 3 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 6 PTS | -3Rebounds seem cool, and definitely had good effort. But don’t forget that Denver missed 52 shots and Indiana missed 59.
Damjan Rudez, SF 14 MIN | 2-5 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 5 PTS | -1Fine.
C.J. Miles, SG 32 MIN | 6-19 FG | 2-2 FT | 5 REB | 0 AST | 2 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 16 PTS | +1Missed 6 of his first 7 shots then netted a few to keep the Pacers hanging around.