The Indiana Pacers get embarrassed on the road to fall under .500 for the first time since New Year’s Day.
The Good: The news of the day: The Pacers reportedly signed Lance Stephenson after waiving Rodney Stuckey.
The Bad: Everything that happened after the news of the day.
Indiana’s starters didn’t show up to play and Memphis jumped on them immediately, leading by as much as 20 points in the first quarter. The defense was terrible regardless of who was on the floor. The Pacers trailed the entire game and are now 0-8 on the second night of back-to-backs on the road.
Keep in mind, Memphis was without Marc Gasol. Just a terrible performance after Paul George called out the team after last night’s loss to lottery-bound Minnesota.
MVP: Mike Conley. He owned the matchup of Indianapolis-bred starting point guards over Jeff Teague, scoring 22 of his 36 points in the first half. When he wasn’t knocking down a career-high 7 three-pointers, he was running circles around the Pacers to get into the paint to score or find open teammates. He was great.
LVP: The Pacers’ starting backcourt. It’s not hard to overstate just how bad Teague and Monta Ellis were in this game. Neither had any fight in them. They were awful.
X-Factor: Vince Carter. He’s 40 years old and is giving people buckets. He scored 21 points and hit 4 three-pointers. Half Man, Still Amazing.