HoopsHype.com Columns

Pacers choking on fish bones
by Tim O'Sullivan / April 28, 2003

Indiana is a gutless team. How else can you explain losing a 16-point, second-half lead in a playoff game. Twice. Yes, that's right, in the span of four playoff games, the games that count, the games that you sweat all season and offseason to play in, the games that make and break you career, the Pacers have lost not one, but two 16-point second-half leads. They have folded, wilted, dare I say, choked. Sure, I dare. They choked.

This late-game stumble is nothing new for the Pacers. They actually bumbled through the fourth-quarter of the season so to speak, going 11-19 down the stretch. And in 11 of those 19 losses, they blew fourth quarter leads. In six of those 11 losses, it was a double-digit fourth-quarter lead they lost.

The question is why did they choke and where are the guts? Another fine cliché that can be heard around the wharves of Boston is that a fish stinks from the head down, so lets start with head coach Isiah Thomas. To Thomas' credit, he has been flexible and creative in this series, shifting lineups and matchups, but he has clearly been out-coached by Jim O'Brien.

Boston's defense, which is O'Brien's reason for living, has held the Pacers to 93.3 points per game in the series, 3.5 points less than their season average. With both coaches having more than enough time to break down their
opponents' strategies, O'Brien has proven to be the shrewder coach. Sure, the players have to execute on the floor, but a coach has to be able to draw up at least a few plays per game that earn his team points at critical
junctures, and Thomas has not done that.

Late in the third quarter of Sunday's Game 4 the Celtics had put together a 9-0 run and took their first lead of the game. Thomas, appropriately, called a timeout. It was one of those critical junctures and presumably he drew up
a clever offensive play to halt Boston's momentum. Instead, Indiana came out of the timeout and promptly committed a turnover, one of five for the Pacers ' in the third quarter. With 3:47 left in the game and the Pacers' season on the brink Thomas called another timeout. His team was trailing by nine, 85-76, and needed to keep the lead in single digits to stand a chance. Another critical juncture, another timeout and the result was another Indiana turnover.

Professional athletes should be able to motivate themselves, especially in the playoffs. But the truth is, lighting a fire under some lazy butts is one of the coach's top priorities and Thomas is apparently out of matches. With
a golden chance to regain all of the momentum in Game 3, the Pacers came out flat. They never had a chance and clearly gave up in the last half of the fourth quarter, something that should never happen in playoff series, no
matter what the score. With their season on the line Sunday, Indiana played hard for about 25 minutes and then went into a jump-shooting-excuse-for-an-offense and watched helplessly as Paul Pierce torched them again, going off for 21 in the third and 37 for the game.

There is no real statistic that measures desire, but there is one that comes close, offensive rebounds. The Pacers were a dominant rebounding team all season, while the Celtics were below average. On Sunday, Indiana had just five offensive rebounds. The Celtics had 10. Thomas must shoulder some of the blame for the lack of desire, the collapses, the gutless performances, but not all of the blame.

Reggie Miller is next in line on the stinking fish corpse. The 37 year-old former star has been non-existent in this series. Miller has averaged just 9.8 points in the series and made one meaningless field goal in the last two
games. Some have complained that Miller hasn't been getting as many minutes, but he's averaged 27 minutes in the playoffs after averaging 30.2 in the regular season. He may be one of the great clutch performers of all time,
but Miller has stunk like a burnt out clutch against Boston.

Indiana's gutless performances might also be linked directly to Miller's flopping, grabbing, whining, leg-kicking-out-on-jumpers antics. Sure, Miller is rail thin and needs to use all the advantages he can get. But while those
actions may be deemed wily or veteran by some, they are also cowardly and cheap. How is a team supposed to find guts when one of their leaders is faking and flopping across the floor like, well, like a hooked fish?

Jermaine O'Neal is not free form the stench either. While O'Neal has put up monster numbers in the series, 23.3 points and 16.6 rebounds per game, he has not taken over in the clutch and carried his team to victory like Pierce has. The biggest disadvantage for players who skip college is that they rarely learn to dominate a game at a high level. Sure, O'Neal dominated opponents half his size in high school, but he never learned to dominate at the next level, where the talent level would have been more equal. And maybe he still hasn't recovered from his time in Portland, where he was surrounded by talented players who never figured out how to lead or win the big game.

Finally, there's Ron Artest, who has more guts and fire all by himself than most teams in the NBA. But he's not a leader. Leaders must be consistent, their followers must know what to expect. With Artest, you never know if the fire is going to cook dinner or burn down the house. The rest of the Pacers seem more concerned with keeping Artest cool than mimicking his heat.

Of course, the Pacers haven't just been losing the games, the Celtics have been winning them too. Indiana may have thought they had it all, the talent, depth and home-court advantage, when the series started. But they forgot one thing. The Celtics have the best player and his name is Pierce.

Tim O'Sullivan is a staff writer at the Concord (NH) Monitor and a regular contributor to HoopsHype.com

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