The Good: The Indiana Pacers played a sloppy, fundamental horror show of an outing to fall at home to the lowly Milwaukee Bucks. So there isn’t much to take away from this D-League action parading as professional ball. The Pacers were down by 17 points at their worst. But some individual players looked really good at stretches. Solomon Hill started off the game very strongly, as did Roy Hibbert — at both ends. Chris Copeland was the whole offense later and Lavoy Allen continues to look like a solid rotation player.
The Bad: Turnovers and free throws. The Pacers coughed up 19 turnovers, which led to 28 Bucks points, and made just 13-of-22 free-throw attempts. Those numbers can’t happen. If Indiana just held on to the ball a bit better or made a few more gimmes, this would have been more of a contest.
MVP: Brandon Knight. One hilarious turnover aside, he played a solid game and put up 23 points on 10-for-16 shooting to go with 7 boards. He also hit the biggest shot of the game to close the door on Indiana’s final comeback attempt, putting the Bucks back up 5 with 21 seconds left to play.
LVP: C.J. Miles. He missed all 8 of the shots he took and … do you really need any more evidence?
X-Factor: It was an all-around good night of production for the Bucks, but Khris Middleton stepped in to play some solid minutes, scoring 8 points and finishing with a plus/minus of +8, the highest of any Milwaukee reserve.
 | Luis Scola, PF 18 MIN | 1-4 FG | 0-0 FT | 9 REB | 1 AST | 2 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 2 PTS | -14 |
Boards are nice but there were a ton of misses while he was on the court. Lavoy Allen is outplaying him now and got minutes late as Vogel opted to go with a smaller lineup.
Solomon Hill, SF 29 MIN | 5-11 FG | 1-2 FT | 5 REB | 0 AST | 2 STL | 0 BLK | 4 TO | 12 PTS | -12Really promising start to the game, scoring early and doing so with confidence. That’s more important for Solo now than any numbers.
Roy Hibbert, C 35 MIN | 7-10 FG | 2-4 FT | 7 REB | 1 AST | 0 STL | 5 BLK | 2 TO | 16 PTS | 0Looked great for stretches, and you can only look at his line and feel sorry he has to suffer through these dismal days until West, Hill, and Watson return.
Donald Sloan, PG 31 MIN | 2-7 FG | 0-0 FT | 2 REB | 6 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 3 TO | 5 PTS | -20Not his finest hours, but this is getting absurd. He can’t be asked to do so much and then be flayed for failing. The Pacers need to find someone else to come in and run the offense for stretches, especially with this four-games-in-five-nights stretch.
C.J. Miles, SG 29 MIN | 0-8 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 1 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 2 TO | 0 PTS | -16Yikes.
Lavoy Allen, PF 29 MIN | 4-7 FG | 0-0 FT | 12 REB | 1 AST | 0 STL | 2 BLK | 0 TO | 8 PTS | +7Solid contribution yet again, making some nifty passes and not letting his limitations get in the way of doing his job.
Chris Copeland, SF 25 MIN | 6-15 FG | 3-6 FT | 5 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 19 PTS | +8Still has warts, but he was the only reason the Pacers didn’t lose by double digits.
Damjan Rudez, SF 19 MIN | 1-3 FG | 2-3 FT | 2 REB | 1 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 4 PTS | +6Starting to show signs. Had a crafty bucket around the hoop that made me think of his countryman Dino Radja.
Ian Mahinmi, C 8 MIN | 2-2 FG | 2-3 FT | 3 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 6 PTS | -2Ian’d it up out there, but only in limited time since Vogel went small. Had a pretty swat on the Greek Freak.
Rodney Stuckey, PG 18 MIN | 3-11 FG | 3-4 FT | 1 REB | 3 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 9 PTS | +13Couldn’t find the net and made some bad decisions, but was the one guy hitting his free throws, more or less, and got to the line enough to keep his efficiency within the bounds of acceptability even on a rough night.