The Indiana Pacers survived some rough patches en route to a narrow victory against the visiting Los Angeles Clippers.
The box score can’t do this game justice. The Pacers and Clippers battled hard (and evenly) for the first two quarters before surging out to a seemingly cushy 18 point lead. That lead got less and less cushy, culminating in the Clippers assuming a lead in the last 3 minutes behind some Lou Williams heroics (and a stone cold Milos Teodosic bomb to beat the shot clock). It looked like anyone’s game in the last 2 minutes, but the Pacers defense put the clamps on LA and held on for a 109-104 victory.
Squaring off against a desperate Clippers team a mere 2 games back from the Western Conference playoffs, the Pacers held serve early on and maintained a small lead throughout the first half. Bojan Bogdanovic was en fuego, carrying a Pacers team short on available scoring.
Both Myles Turner and Victor Oladipo struggled mightily against the Clippers, clearing the way for the other Pacers to step up. Bogdanovic led the way with 28 points (he’d had 34 total in the past 5 games), while Thad Young and Darren Collison combined for a tidy 29 points on 13-22 from the field.
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The Good: The “W”. The Pacers bent, but didn’t break. Oladipo got big points late in the 4th, and the Pacers D choked the Clippers offense, only giving up a single “game is already over” bucket to Lou Williams in the last 1:55 of the game.
The Bad: The Victor Oladipo regression continues. 25% from the field and 30% from deep isn’t going to cut it in the playoffs.
MVP: Bojan Bogdanovic. He carried the Pacers offense at multiple points of the game. The Pacers don’t win this game without Bogie going off, and he gave the Pacers just enough.
LVP: Have to go with a Clipper here. Wes Johnson only played 18 minutes, but finished an astonishing -19 for the game. Ouch.
X-Factor: We might as well call this the Thad Young award. Thad wins it again with a 16 point, 10 rebound performance. Thad also hit the biggest bucket of the game, a putback just beating the shot clock to put the Pacers up 4 with 36 seconds left.
Next: Myles Turner is putting it all together
The Pacers square off against the Miami Heat on Sunday, 3/25 at 5:00 PM EST. This game will quite possibly be very important in the Eastern Conference Playoff seedings.