Post-Game Grades: Pacers Lose a Heartbreaker in Cleveland

The Indiana Pacers were on the short end of a reversed call late that made getting a win in Cleveland even tougher than it normally is.

The Good: The Indiana Pacers have now lost three straight games, and while that is not cool in a vacuum, this team once again showed that it can compete with the league’s elite. Obviously, losses suck and the Cavs aren’t exactly playing like the 1986 Celtics right now. But this was playoff physicality in a hostile atmosphere, and a team that has come unglued a lot this year kept it together enough that the difference between a loss and getting one their biggest wins of the year was a strange shot-clock violation that negated a 3-pointer minutes after the fact and changed everything about the tenor of crunch time.

Paul George originally hit a game-tying 3 on a nice Ian Mahinmi kickout with just under 5 minutes to go. But because the review process doesn’t happen until the next dead ball — and there was no stoppage in an increasingly intense game — for several minutes, what the Pacers thought was a 4-point lead became just a 1-point advantage. Naturally, a team shouldn’t completely change how they play based on 3 points, and the Pacers didn’t seem to sit on that lead. But learning that they were not in fact in command, around the two-minute mark clearly a deflating blow that players really never have to deal with. And the Cavs then stepped up their play.

Throw in the fact that, in my eyes, Monta Ellis and George Hill both got fouled while driving in the final minute amid swallowed whistles, and it’s hard to kick the Pacers in the teeth too hard about this loss. Could they have done more? Of course. But Paul George and, especially, Monta Ellis were dynamite in the second half.

Indiana played well and lost. It happens. But that first is more meaningful in a bounce-back performance after a lackluster showing on Sunday against the Blazers that led Paul George to question his team’s toughness and effort. They shot well from the line and 3-point land, their two best players brought it, and they protected the ball.

All that heading into Cleveland on a back-to-back while withstanding a 21-point first half in a monster LeBron game and still perhaps only losing due to some spotty late calls isn’t so bad.

The Bad: The luck, the big man shooting.

MVP: Monta Ellis. He was all over the place and in attack mode throughout. He took 6 shots at the rim while making 2-of-3 triples and getting to the line 7 times. He moved the defense with penetration and while only finishing with 2 assists, got the drive and kick game going and forced the D to collapse routinely throughout the night.

LVP: Ian Mahinmi shot poorly.

X-Factor: Chase Budinger. What even was that, my man? I hardly know thee. Best Pacer performance.

" >

A+

Jordan Hill made the best pass of his life and for that he gets an A+ and a full scholarship to the school of his choosing.