My Thoughts on the Indiana Pacers’ First Game of the 21–22 Season
I am living in a simulation. None of you are real people right? This whole world is one crazy game and everyone is in on it except for me right? Right???? Do you want me to lash out at my job? I will shot put the water cooler into Esther’s cubicle to prove that none of this real. It is simply impossible that a basketball team can blow this many second half leads. It was death by a million paper cuts last season watching them blow every lead they had, and one game into this season was more of the same.
I would argue the worst kind of loss that you can suffer as a sports fan is a blown second half lead. And the Pacers weren’t just up 10 or 12 last night. They were up 23 points early in the third. The Hornets would then proceed to go on a 24–0 run to comeback and take the lead.
During that run, the Pacers had 5 turnovers and shot 0–9 from the field including 0–5 from beyond the arc. During that same stretch the Hornets shot 9–13 from the field including 4–6 from three. Do you understand how frustrating that is to watch? Do you??? I’m going MAD dammit! I understand that basketball is a game of runs but this was traumatizing. (Quick side note: the person to bring the Pacers out of the rut was none other than the per-ordained basketball machine himself, TJ McConnell.)
The Hornets went on to lead by as many as 10 before the Pacers came back and tied it up. But it was too late. There was a glimmer of hope when the Pacers got a lucky foul call 94 feet from the basket to send them to line. Torrey Craig hit 2 big free throws to take the lead by 1. They only needed 1 stop to win. Unfortunately, there was some sloppy ball underneath the Hornets’ basket that led to PJ Washington getting the ball and getting fouled. He hits both FT’s, Sabonis gets a shot at a game winner on the other end and misses on a decent look.
After the game was over, I laid on the floor. Not even on the rug or carpet, I laid on the hardwood. We as an entire Pacers unit do not deserve to lay on carpet. We need to lay on the cold, hard fake-wood-but-actually-vinyl floor and think about what we’ve done. I’m fucking DISGUSTED.
Lets take a look at the positives and negatives from the game last night.
POSITIVES:
· Duarte
· Chris Duarte
· Christopher Theoret Duarte
· That Sabonis guy looked good too, I guess
My word did Duarte look good. He looked NBA ready on night one. He scored 27 points on 60/67/100 splits. They all laughed at us when we took a 24 year old rookie, but look at us now! Duarte looked like the dead-eye sniper that the Pacers so desperately needed, especially with the loss of McDermott over the off-season. I am very, very excited about him and cannot wait to see how his season pans out. By the way, if you were one of the laughers, you don’t need to say who you are. I just kindly ask that you fill out the form:
Sabonis looked dominant for stretches of the game last night. At other times he looked helpless. He ended the game with a nice line of 33 points and 15 rebounds (both game highs) on 65/67/75 splits. Although he did have 6 turnovers, mostly as a result of getting double teamed in the post after being so dominant in the first half, he looked solid and dependable as we’ve come to expect.
NEGATIVES:
· SEE: every sentence above the positives section
Overall I think the Pacers looked decent. There were obviously highs and lows, but overall I thought they looked like a solid team who have some kinks to workout. Then again, I had these same thoughts after the first game last season. Maybe we will just miss the playoffs again, fire Carlisle, then get a fourth coach in four years. Hell yeah dude.
