They would not complain about or gainsay any of his shot selections as long as he had one foot in the paint as he took them. Once Lowry gets that separation from George Hill it’s all over – he either gets to the rim or he hits Valanciunas for an easy basket.
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All night, Jonas was throwing his elbows and flinging his elbows and trying to lock arms, and it was nearly the play before where he did the same thing and I let it slide and Ian shot a free throw. Carroll was asked about players talking to the refs.
But clearly, due the Raptors’ backcourt’s extremely low output, it has worked. “Today, to be able to help my team in that type of performance, it’s a good feeling”. He doesn’t bite on the pump fake, stays in front of his man the whole way, leaves him stuck on an island in the corner and forces the turnover.
What he has been, is once again much worse in the playoffs compared to his normal regular-season prowess. The most obvious sign of his development is how comfortable he has become handling the ball, surveying the defense and making smart plays. Jonas Valanciunas is grabbing 13.5 rebounds and Cory Joseph is dishing 2.5 assists. But the Pacers responded and were the team that played with more objective on Saturday. Especially when those same role players have been incredibly inconsistent throughout the series.
Through their 15 playoff games with the Raptors, Lowry and DeRozan are 5-10 overall.
Hill missed only two shots, both three-pointers.
Game 5 will be played on Monday in Oklahoma City at the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
With DeRozan and Lowry being held in check, the Raptors need these guys to step up and there’s no way around that.
In the stands: The Colts’ Andrew Luck, Robert Mathis, T.Y. Hilton, Pat McAfee, Scott Tolzien; NBA players Victor Oladipo (Magic), Bradley Beal (Wizards), and Rajon Rondo (Kings); Papa John’s Pizza founder John Schnatter. The Pacers ranked 23rd in offensive efficiency in the regular season and over the last three games of their first round series with the Toronto Raptors, they’ve shot 49 percent in the first 12 seconds of the shot clock and 30 percent in the last 12 seconds.
“It can help your confidence a little bit but, you know, Game 2 is a reminder of how good they are at home, you know?” Offensively, sure he wasn’t at his best, but defensively he was a thing of beauty.
For the first time since the All-Star break, Bosh was with the Heat for a road game Saturday – joining his teammates in Charlotte for Game 3 of their Eastern Conference first-round series against the Hornets. Ian Mahinmi had a career high 22 and shot 9-14.
Paul Millsap scored 45 for the Hawks – a career playoff high and one off his all-time best – and added 13 rebounds.
I can hear a lot of you screaming at your screens right now, asking what the difference between the Raptors’ supporting cast and the Pacers’ supporting cast is.
Turner had a major impact on the Pacers’ 100-83 victory in Game 4, mostly in intangible ways.
“I’m going to give IN credit”, he said.
When a sports team, like, say, the Toronto Raptors, puts in a awful performance, for instance, yesterday in Indianapolis, there are a couple of reactions possible from team management. Hill has hounded Lowry, getting up into him and being a pest.
Trust the pass. It’s the exact same words the Pacers were using in advance of Game 4 of look how that turned out for them. Meaning that the rest of the team, including their tertiary options, have been taking tougher shots.
The Pacers’ bench unit keyed a big second quarter.
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The Indiana Pacers changed lineups, moved the ball and forced turnovers. What Indiana needs is a healthy Mahinmi for the rest of the series. If you watched the Pacers pick and roll defense and thought that it looked familiar, it’s because they actually adopted numerous same strategies as the Raptors, trusting that they wouldn’t have the personnel to counter their own pick and roll defense.
