The Indiana Pacers couldn’t keep up with the Detroit Pistons’ 3-point shooting in their first post-All-Star break loss.
The Indiana Pacers usually watch their opponents his about 8 3-pointers a game, but on Monday night, they saw 18 fall as the Detroit Pistons overwhelmed them with an offensive assault from deep.
Part of Indiana’s issue did spring from who they allowed to shoot those long-distance attempts, but when your opponent ends up making 43.9 percent of those shots, part of it can be chalked up to things just not going your way on a given night.
The game was a chippy one after the Pistons took an early 17-point lead, which isn’t too surprising for a Pacers-Pistons game, but with the teams slated to meet on back to back nights in April, you can almost bet on the fact that will carry over to those meetings.
The loss doesn’t do much to the Eastern Conference standings as the Pacers still hold at least a game lead over the Philadelphia 76ers and a two-and-a-half one over the Boston Celtics, but Indiana’s margin for error in March got one-game smaller.
No lead is safe against the Indiana Pacers
Down by 10+? Not an issue for the Pacers. The Pacers have nine wins on the year when trailing by 10 points or more according to NBAMiner. They didn’t get the win, but they did erase the deficit in the first half.
This time it was Thaddeus Young and Domantas Sabonis that cut the lead down in the first half to a more manageable four points after trailing by as much as 17.
If you’re going to beat the Pacers, you better get them down early and then keep pounding them the whole way. The size of the lead rarely matters, but all of the Pistons 3-pointers were the difference on Monday.
Myles Turner is back
After missing a pair of games, Myles Turner returned on Monday with a solid performance despite his 7 point, 5 rebound, 3 block stat line. The defense was there but he did look out of sync at times compared to the rest of the Pacers.
Turner should be fine going forward, but it would have been nice to see him get in a flow sooner.
Domantas Sabonis’ big night ends in the locker room
Domantas Sabonis carried the bench with 23 of the reserves 32 points. After struggling — by his standards — coming into the All-Star break and out of it, it was a much-needed boost for his confidence.
On the downside, he left the game in the fourth quarter when he rolled his ankle, but he is expected to play in the Pacers’ next outing.
The Pacers head south to face the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m.