The Indiana Pacers made sure the series goes seven games by absolutely demolishing the Cleveland Cavaliers. Victor Oladipo registered a triple-double in one of the most lopsided losses of LeBron James playoff career.
You knew this series was going seven games. You just knew it. Victor Oladipo and the Indiana Pacers made sure of it on Friday night by giving LeBron James the third-biggest playoff loss he ever had. The rest of the Cavaliers were just awful, but that’s just par for the course in this series.
Indiana did a few things they hadn’t done since Game 1 in the series. The started off by taking a double-digit lead into halftime. More often than not in this series, the Pacers were trailing for much of the game or allowed the Cavaliers to trim any lead down to a more manageable margin. What hurt Indiana often in the previous four games was the way they never took a commanding lead that turned up the pressure on Cleveland. 10-points going into halftime is only a modest lead, but it still signaled something different was happening with the Pacers.
And then they never let the Cavaliers back in it. From around the 6-minute mark in the second quarter, Indiana’s lead never fell below 5 points. Cleveland never got it below 10 after the half because Indiana never took the foot off the gas on either end of the floor.
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For the stats crowd, they posted a 62.8 net rating in the second half — that means they outscored the Cavaliers by nearly 63 points per 100 possessions — that’s insane in a playoff game. If you don’t like advanced stats, just know they outscored them by 24 points in the second half.
It’s easy to do that when your defense swarms the opponent in a Zerg Rush. In particular, Nate McMillan released the cracken: Thaddeus Young. While Bojan Bogdanovic was the primary on LeBron for much of the series, Indiana deployed its versatile wing defender more often in Game 6.
It didn’t help LeBron that he ran into Young’s elbow in the first half, opening up a cut above James’ eye.
And of course, there was Oladipo’s triple-double. 28 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists. On top of those counting stats, Dipo was a ridiculous 11 of 19 (57.9 percent) from the floor and 6 of 8 from beyond the arc. Oladipo only turned the ball over twice as he made sure everyone remembered he is a star now for a reason.
In what was a “Clever Girl” moment for Oladipo, he showed his best understanding of how to handle the double-team and traps of the Cavaliers. He requested a Myles Turner screen which invited the double-team, but instead of rushing, he patiently waited for Cleveland to back off instead of making the quick dump off to Turner who was waiting at the foul line.
It resulted in a missed shot, but it was a sign that the double-teams weren’t going to produce the same mistakes that doomed Indiana too many times in this series.
The Good: The Pacers forced a Game 7.
The Bad: We have to wait until Sunday for it.
MVP: Oladipo’s offense (or lack of) was the story in Indiana’s Game 5 loss, and really, much of the series. In so many games what were played on the razor’s edge, Oladipo’s struggles to score and read the Cavaliers’ defense. In Game 6 they couldn’t contain Oladipo as he set fire to Cleveland’s hopes of winning the series in Indiana.
X-Factor: McMillan dropping an f-bomb in the press conference.
Next: Pacers can't let history repeat itself against LeBron James
Game 7 is Sunday at 1:30 p.m. as long as the Jazz hold on and beat the Thunder.