The Pacers Are 1 Game Away From The NBA Finals

The Pacers Are 1 Game Away From The NBA Finals

I remember the study that came out a few years ago that made the point that the way you start your NBA season is a better indicator to how your postseason would go. So if you start off as a really good team through the first two months, usually in the postseason you probably going to see some level of success. It very rarely show that if you end the season red hot, they will carry on to the postseason. That’s one of the reasons why I looked at the Cleveland Cavaliers going into this playoffs and even though they walked their way to the finish line, I saw them and be dominant for the first three months of the season said, “Yeah, that was enough. That was a big enough sample size for me to think that when they lock in, they’ll be able to at least compete for a championship. Obviously, them boys went home in the second round. But every once in a while, you see a team like the Indiana Patriots. And it make me rethink that whole study that I read. And I can’t tell if maybe that data is now outdated because even last year, you saw the Dallas Mavericks do the exact same thing, right, where the Mavericks didn’t start the season so hot, but they ended so well and then they went to the NBA finals. So, I don’t know if that that that um that study is now outdated just two years later or is what the Pacers doing right now an anomaly or what the Mavericks did last year is an anomaly. I don’t really know. But we’ve watched this team since the beginning of the postseason just just dominate. Just dominate. Obviously, the OKC Thunder, if they do match up against each other, I ain’t count nobody out. Damn it. If they do match up against each other in the finals, OKC will be the heavy favorite. But I feel less I think I still picked the OKC Thunder in that series. don’t get me wrong, but I feel less um I don’t know set in stone with that opinion as of right now. And to think that no, nobody saw this coming. And again, we may the indicators were there. January 1st, fourth best net rating team. This team is one of the best offensive teams and they were the eighth best defense in that same time frame. The writing was kind of on the wall, but nobody believed it because we were so hellbent on the team that started off so good in the Cleveland Cavaliers and the reign of champions and the Boston Celtics. This team is one game away and with me doing these recaps every almost every single night. I feel like I’ve run out of things to kind of compliment them on. You know what I mean? I feel like I’ve talked nothing but praises for Tyrese Hallebertton for a full month and a half. I’mma do it again though. Uh cuz boy, what a performance from this one. We were talking about game number four on our Numbers on the Board podcast. By the way, we dropped that two times a week on YouTube and we’re also on TV two times a week. Did you know I had a TV show? Some of y’all may not have known that. Um and we were talking about it. Obviously, Pierre is a late um a Knicks fan, so he goes in with he has to be optimistic about his team after game number three. And he was talking about how the pressure shifts a little bit to the Pacers now um that they blew a 20-point lead in game three. And I I push back on it because this team has just been able to lose a game three and bounce back amazingly. And what we just watched tonight, I mean, I don’t again, I don’t know what happens in the finals or if they make the finals or they blow this lead 3-1, but the performance that we just watched from Terry Halleberg is an all-timer, man. It is indeed an all-timer. 32 points, 12 rebounds, 15 assists, four steals, zero turnovers. I’ve said it once, I said it again. I It’s something special about a player that you can put the ball in his hands as much as they put the ball in Tyres Hallebertton’s hands for him to never turn the ball over. Think about it logically, like if your star guy, the guy that holds the ball majority of the possessions, is it turning the ball over, that means as a team you’re probably not turning the ball over a lot. And they did go through a loose stretch. I don’t remember if it was the end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth quarter where they had two straight possessions with a turnover. So, their turnover numbers are 11 opposed to like it being single digits if that little stretch didn’t happen. But for him to come out and have this level of performance, I thought there was a little stretch in that second quarter where he got kind of complacent, I guess, and when he got the switch on Mitchell Robs, I think he had took three straight threes or maybe five, I think it was five straight threes and he missed all of them, but eventually he got back to his bread and butter. And one thing I saw on Twitter, people were asking during that stretch, like when he was um getting the switch and he wasn’t attacking, attacking, attacking, what was he doing? There were a few of the times where it’s just I don’t know. We’re watching chess at the end of the day. I know at the end of the day, this is a a orange little ball that’s bouncing. You got to put in the cylinder, but we’re watching teams, both of these teams, honestly, just pick apart things that they think that they have the advantage on. So, when you see that the Knicks are switching everything, even if that means that Mitchell Robinson is now on an allNBA point guard, Tyrese Hallebert can pull up from that three. Um, we see him drive to the paint on a couple of those possessions, but again, he kind of laid back for a little bit. And people are asking, why did he get away from the thing that was just working so well on the last couple possessions, but then I look at him like, oh my goodness. You pull away Mitchell Robinson away from the rim and guess what? Pascal Siaka get that post test. He’s got a small defender on him and Pascal Siaka makes them pay. Again, this is chess. the success with some of the smartest players in our entire league. And again, Tyres Hallebertton is is climbing up that list slowly but surely as one of the supercomputers when it comes to processing the game of basketball. Never turn the ball over, making the right decision time and time again. Pascal Seakkum 30 points, efficient 30 points. Amazing. Benedict Mat had been basically unplayable since the day that he pushed the hell out of DeAndre Hunter. Since that day, I I I said I don’t want to see him play in game four. I didn’t want to see him playing. He had 20. Gave them good rebounding. Oh, it ended up being two, but I I feel like I remember those two rebounds. Gave them good rebounding. Gave them good energy. And that’s hard to do coming off the bad bad performances that he had had. You know how we talked about in game number three, the Knicks and and same thing with the Minnesota Timberwolves wanted to make sure that they didn’t leave no stone unturned and ended up being Terrence Shannon Jr. ended up being Landry Shamon and the line right for the Knicks. Benedict Matan just gave them a performance that they just need. They just needed one game. They needed one Benedict McMaster performance and that will be enough for them to have a comfortable lead. Just like the Knicks needed one Landry Sham game, even though he only had three points, one Landry Shaman game, one really good Deuce McBride stretch just for them to keep their season alive. All it takes a little bit. And that’s why I was so disappointed last night if we going back to it. I didn’t have time to film a video because we were filming a TV show that the Minnesota Timberwolves got three great performances from world players and they didn’t capitalize on it. All you need is that one performance. They didn’t get it. But the Patriots did. The Patriots have a Ben Matthew come in and just play 12 points. Get to the line as much as he did. Putting that pressure on the rim. Putting that pressure on the rim. A place that if Mitchell Robs is not on the court, the the Knicks don’t want you to put that pressure there. So, he was amazed today. N Smith giving it a goal on the bump ankle. Like, I don’t have any I don’t think I had a single negative note. Now, obviously, they didn’t play the perfect game. They gave 121 points, but like I just felt like they were in more control the entirety of this game. So much so that a lot of the notes that I had was more about the New York Knicks more than anything. Um, and I don’t want to give them the whole like season is over thing because we’ve seen 3-1 comebacks before, but I will say I feel pretty comfortable by saying is saying that the the Pacers are going to win at least one of these next couple games um to put them in the NBA finals. Insane. Can I just talk about one thing that pissed me off? Again, I’m not I’m a neutral here. I don’t care who wins. I got a friend in both teams. So, I don’t I I would I want to see both of them be successful. Either way, the amount of times, and I cannot wait to rewatch these specific possessions because I should have I should have tallied them down once it looked like it was becoming a trend. The amount of times the Knicks had a miscommunication and gave up an open look on a baseline out of bounds play is absolutely mind-blowing to me. Sometimes it felt like the Pacers best offense was just having the ball having coming out of a dead ball they had. and Obi Toppo hit the big shot at the end of the game to ice it obviously, but there were so many times where the Pacers just generated an amazing look on a sideline baseline out of bounce play and it’s like obviously that is one of the more um constructed uh scenarios we have in basketball, right? Because very rarely do you see somebody do a baseline out of bounds and they’re not running something. But for the Knicks to just give it up every sing at least it felt like every single time blows my mind because again this is an NBA team. Not only an NBA team it’s NBA team and a goddamn conference finals. A worthy NBA conference finals team and they were just letting the Pacers do whatever they wanted on those possessions. And I’m just like excuse that. I’m just like man that ball is out of the Knicks. Count two points minimum for the Pacers because they going to run something to get them open look out of this uh dead ball. It was mindblowing to me. Absolutely mind-blowing to me. Uh, one of the questions I got um once on Twitter as I was just scrolling through Twitter uh during halftime, somebody asked me, “What do I think about the Jaylen Brunson plus minus?” And I’m not too sure what to make of it just yet. I feel like I have to go back and uh rewatch the majority of the series because obviously Jaylen Brunson doesn’t have an amazing plus minus. Even in the last game, they ended up winning um they went on that their most uh team friendly stretch where they had that run without him on the court. I and if I were to give an opinion now without rewatching the film, I think it has something to do with them just having better defensive players on the court. Full stop. Because um even though he had the stupidest double job of all time, the line right for the entirety of his career has had some of the best hands you’ll get from a guard, right? So you got him on the court. Landry Shamon is not notoriously known as a good defensive player, but he’s a competitor at the end of the day on that side of the ball. And Jaylen Brunson is also a competitor, but he’s just so much so much smaller and so much easier to take advantage of on that side of the floor. So, you think about them having these lineups where their traditional starting five is one of the worst lineups in the in the um postseason so far. I just think about them having multiple players, and I’m talking about at the at the oneman and Jaylen Brunson and the fiveman at Carth Towns that opposing teams can just go at. And again, I want to rewatch this film to to see if that’s the right opinion to have right now. Um, but I did think that this was game number three though, so I’m kind of going back a little bit that Rick Carl was kind of hoping that they got Jaylen Brunson back in that game early. Now, Jaylen Brunson checked in with a minute ago, hit the big shot, and then they end up winning that game and everything. But I think that they like they like when they have Towns and Jaylen Brunson on the court together the Pacers. This man Rick Carlile has been begging for pressure to your minutes. He got it today. It was only two, but he got the precious Auya minutes finally. He was asked for Cayman Payne minutes. He’s playing like mental gymnastics, I feel like, for Tom. Um, but the Pacers being one game away from the finals, man, it doesn’t make sense in my April 15th brain, but now on whatever day we’re on, it makes total sense. This team has been so damn good. And I can’t wait to um get to thinking about the next series if they end up closing this one out. Hallebertton career playoff performance. I think they said he joined only Nicole Joic and Big O as players that is have 30.15 assists, zero turnover games. That’s nuts. That’s nuts. And I know that, you know, if you are social media user, you see a lot of people complaining about different things on both of these series or the entirety of the NBA. Man, I hope y’all are really appreciating the performances we are getting from these star players because whether it be this run from Hallebertton or the other series, the people the the Shay Gios Alexander performances we are getting where he is as consistent as can be. I hope y’all appreciating it. Um because it’s just I don’t know. It’s abnormal for us to be in this spot. We have four different newish stars competing to win a championship, dog. And I obviously it’s not a bad thing to have a Curry or Braun or KD or Giannis, all of these dudes or Yoket who notoriously are here, but it is something so special to me about us about to crown somebody new. That’s so dope. That is so dope, you know, and and this Hallebert game, the Shay game last night, the dub game last night, um the the performances we got from Jaylen Brunson going back to even like the Pistons series. I just y’all know my bread is enjoy basketball and I just that’s what I do the most.

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