Pacers sweep both legs of this week’s series with the Pistons
By Ben Gibson
The Indiana Pacers swept both legs of their home and home series with the Detroit Pistons this week.
The Indiana Pacers won both ends of their series this week with the Detroit Pistons. No need to count away goals, aggregate scoring, or anything like that. They simply took care of business and kept themselves in the running for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference — and home-court advantage.
The win on Wednesday started off ugly with an 18-15 first quarter no team could be proud of, but after that, both teams returned to playing normal basketball but the Pistons weren’t keeping pace with Indiana.
While Indiana got some offense going and led by at least three and as much as 21 points the rest of the way, the Pistons only real offense came from Drummond scoring in the paint and Wayne Ellington catching fire with 5 3-pointers.
64. 109. 100. Final. 89
Meanwhile Thaddeus Young led Indiana with 21 points while Doug McDermott, Myles Turner, Domantas Sabonis, and Bojan Bogdanovic joined him as double-digit scorers. Indiana doesn’t need to be flashy to win. They’ve perfected the art of winning ugly.
Thaddeus Young leads the way
Teams are adjusting to Bojan Bogdanovic being the Pacers lead scorer and the defenses often try to force the ball into Thaddeus Young’s hands. Their hope is to make Young a volume scorer but when they allow him to shoot 64.3%, then volume isn’t an issue.
Young splashed a pair of corner 3-pointers on the night as well and led the way with a blackjack worth of points.
Caught off guard(s)
The absence of regular starters Darren Collison and Wesley Matthews as the trio of Cory Joseph, Tyreke Evans, and Aaron Holiday went 6 of 32 (18.8%) from the field on Monday.
It’s easy to forget how accurate Matthews has been with the Pacers and how DC sets up their offense, but these recent shooting lines should illuminate that. Over the last two games, they’ve gone 15 of 45, which isn’t great, Bob.
Stat lines vs impact
Is Andre Drummond’s 29 points and 18 rebounds impressive? Yes. Did he have a real impact on the game? Well, the Pacers outscored the Pistons 62-36 in the paint and the Pistons were (small sample size warning) -13.8 in their net rating with him on the floor, only slightly better than the team’s -18.6 rating.
Drummond is obviously good, but when the Pistons get pounded in the paint and the Pacers bigs are shooting over 60 percent as a ground, it feels a bit hollow for Drummond. He misses Blake Griffin, for sure.
Myles Turner didn’t have the same sort of gaudy stat line (15 points, 4 rebounds), but his impact on the game was much more apparent.
B. 17 points but it came on 7 of 14 shooting, with no 3-pointers. Indiana made up for his lack of usual efficiency, but they’ll need a bigger impact from him against Boston, both on Friday and in the playoffs.. SF. Indiana Pacers. BOJAN BOGDANOVIC
The Pacers resident glue guy is averaging 20 points and 8.5 rebounds over the last two games. That leads in points and is only behind Sabonis’ 12.5 rebounds over that period.. PF. Indiana Pacers. THADDEUS YOUNG. A+
A. Another 15 point night from Myles Turner with the statistical quirk of going 5 of 7 from the field as well as the foul line to get to his point total. He created contact on several drives and ended up on the foul line. Recently he’s shown how he can pump-fake on the arc and drive towards the hoops to keep defenders off balance.. C. Indiana Pacers. MYLES TURNER
A. 15 points and 13 rebounds for Sabonis off the bench. His consistency off the bench this season remains the main reason why they have one of the best benches in the NBA. He isn’t always flashy but he just keeps making shot after shot and cleaning up misses when he’s in the game.. C. Indiana Pacers. DOMANTAS SABONIS
CORY JOSEPH. C+. His shooting woes continue (2 of 7). At least he plays defense well. While he couldn’t shoot, he still managed to drop off 11 assists in the game.. PG. Indiana Pacers
C-. Evans was playing well for a few games, but that has dropped off in the last few contests. 6 points and one assist.. SG. Indiana Pacers. TYREKE EVANS
Indiana Pacers. DOUG MCDERMOTT. A. 14 points on 6 of 7 shooting and 3 of 4 from deep. Doug McDermott is showing how quickly he can fill up the box score when he simply doesn’t miss.. SF
B. 5 points on 2 shots. Nice to see the 3-pointer as that seemed to be one of the few things he could do last season, but hasn’t been there this season. Playing solid defense in his limited time.. PF. Indiana Pacers. TJ LEAF
C+. The confidence is there for Aaron Holiday but it took a 3 of 11 shooting night to get his 7 points. He did hand out 6 assists, though.. PG. Indiana Pacers. AARON HOLIDAY
Next. Thaddeus Young nominated for teammate of the year. dark
The Pacers face the Celtics on Friday at 8 p.m.