|
 |   |
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Pacers' Team Report Confident Indy team just looking for one more, for now
Posted: Monday June 19, 2000 01:18 AM
By John Donovan, CNNSI.com LOS ANGELES -- Confident but understandably cautious, the Indiana Pacers resumed practice Sunday in L.A., hoping to get the one win Monday night that will force a deciding seventh game in the NBA Finals. If they play anywhere near the way they played Friday night, in a 120-87 blowout over the Lakers in Game 5, the Pacers' hopes may well become reality. "Any time you beat a team by 30, you have momentum," explained Indiana's Jalen Rose, who pumped in 32 points Friday night. "But any time you're the team that has three games in a [seven-game] series, you're the team that has all the cards in its favor." After their unexpected trip back across the country Saturday, the Pacers practiced Sunday at the Lakers' facility in suburban El Segundo on a court decked in L.A. colors and under a window filled with the team's NBA championship trophies. The Pacers are in their first NBA Finals after 24 years in the league. They all noticed the hardware on parade. "I don't know if they did it on purpose or whatever," said Indy forward Dale Davis. "But the fact of the matter is we saw it. It's definitely going to motivate us." Not that the Pacers need much motivation. After Friday's laugher, they know they can hang with the mighty Lakers. In their minds, they just have to get the Finals to a seventh game to see if the Lakers can hang with them. After all, this will be the second win-or-forget-it game in a row for the Pacers. "This is a seventh game for us again," said their coach, Larry Bird, speaking in elimination-game talk. "Hopefully, we'll respond like we did the other night." A key for the Pacers has been a crisp offense that has produced a lot of open shots. The Pacers knocked down 75 percent of their shots in a key first quarter Friday, many of them with no L.A. defender in the area. "I think it starts with defense and setting screens," said point guard Travis Best, still nursing a partially separated left shoulder that kept him out of practice Sunday. "When the big guys are down there setting screens, and Reggie [Miller] and Jalen are working off those screens, that can be a deadly combination for us." Said Rose: "We've got a lot of guys who know how to get to the open spots. They read when they're going to be in a position to shoot the ball; they read when they're going to be the second or third pass on the play ... so they can get open. We're a team that's unselfish, so we find one another."
Strategy of the DayThe Pacers know the Lakers intimately at this point. And the Lakers know the Pacers. In the same way. So Davis was asked Sunday whether the Pacers have done about all they can do with L.A. center Shaquille O'Neal. In his first two games of this series, in Staples Center, O'Neal averaged 41.5 points and 21.5 rebounds a game. In his three games in Indy, he averaged 34.6 points and 15 rebounds a game. That's a difference of almost seven points, and 6.5 rebounds, for the big man in Indy. "I think it can get better. We can still get stronger double teams and still limit him getting to the boards like he has been," said Davis. "You're not going to stop him totally. The thing you have to do is contain him and make it tough on him keep him from getting the easy baskets."
Quote of the DayBackup forward Austin Croshere, reflecting on the 33-point win the Pacers enjoyed Friday and any possible carryover it might have for Monday: "A win is a win, but at the same time, you have to realize there was a letdown on their part."
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
