Post-Game Grades: Pacers Miss Potential Game Winner vs. Bulls

The Good: The comeback. The Indiana Pacers fell to the Chicago Bulls at home, and it looked like this was headed to blowout city as the hometown squad fell down by 20 points. But the team stuck with it and fought back valiantly behind a heroic effort from Chris Copeland — of all people. He ruled the day early in the fourth quarter as Indiana mounted a miraculous 20-0 run and took a lead.

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The Bad: Falling down so, so far. The Pacers actually played excellent defense, more or less, through the first 18 minutes. The Bulls sat at just 30 points, putting them on pace to finish the game with just 80. Then they blitzed Indiana for 17 points in the final 6 minutes of the first half and the once-stout defense completely came unraveled after the break. Indiana started to score better, but still lost the third 34-30.

MVP: Chris Copeland. At one point in the fourth quarter, he had 13 points by himself while the Bulls had only 6 as a team. He would play quite poorly down the stretch after that — giving away 3 turnovers and making a poor decision to double off a 3-point shooter — but the Pacers would have just lost by double digits instead of in a heartbreaker if it wasn’t for Cope. (In a less-Pacers focused recap, the MVP would obviously be Jimmy Butler. He was tremendous and should be pretty high in everyone’s NBA MVP list for the whole season.)

LVP: Derrick Rose. He made a few Oh My plays, but by and large was not a scary presence on the court. His 1-for-7 shooting from behind the arc showed how little he was able to disrupt the teeth of the Pacers defense, which was happy to watch him miss jumpers from midrange and beyond.

X-Factor: The refs. The Pacers “got a stop” (in quotes because Rose rimmed out a good midrange look on Chicago’s last possession) with about 2.5 seconds to go. Luis Scola grabbed the board. On the sideline, Frank Vogel was screaming at a referee for a timeout, and that ref should have been (a) expecting Indiana to call for time (every team always does in that situation), and (b) able to hear him easily since he was merely a few feet away. Looking back at the tape, it’s obvious that Indiana should have been granted a timeout with at least 1.5 seconds to play. But the ref was late to recognize the timeout request, and by the time he finally blew his whistle only 0.5 seconds remained.

So Indiana got the ball at half court, trailing by 2 points, with 0.5 to play. Vogel even set up a play that worked to perfection and got C.J. Watson a wide-open look in the corner. Unfortunately, Watson doesn’t have the quickest release and he had to rush to get it off. Despite the clean attempt, the ball didn’t even come close to going in.

By falling behind by so much and then playing poorly in the final few minutes, the Pacers put themselves in a position where one tough break could end their chances. And while they still did get screwed a bit by an official failing to grant a routine timeout request quickly, that’s what can happen when you procrastinate playing well for too long. The slow call was also likely exacerbated by the late-game inexperience of the players on the court. Vogel stuck with the backups who closed the gap down the stretch, and the players on the court should have been more demonstrative about calling a timeout.