Stubborn Bucks Have Pacers Reeling
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
After the Milwaukee Bucks trounced the Indiana Pacers 104-91 in Game 2, a Milwaukee columnist wrote that the Bucks would win the series in four games.
When Indiana ruined that prediction with a 109-96 Game 3 win, Indiana guard Reggie Miller sought out the beleaguered columnist. Undeterred by the Bucks' loss and by Miller's mouth, the columnist wrote the Bucks would win the series in five games.
You may think he's an idiot, but you gotta admit, he has guts, especially after dealing with the wrath of Reggie.
The columnist is also back on track after the Bucks drilled the Pacers 100-87 in Game 4.
Still, with the series returning to Conseco Fieldhouse, any chances of the Bucks winning the series appear bleak.
At the same time, who thought the Bucks would win one, let alone two, games?
The sports section in more than one major daily predicted "Pacers in three."
Only one word describes this series: bizarre.
The Pacers have played in more than 40 playoff games in the 1990s, while the Bucks hadn't won a playoff game since May 1990.
The veteran savvy Pacers led the series 1-0, but in two of the next three games, the inexperienced Bucks delivered woodshed jobs.
The No. 8 seed has trounced the No. 1 seed twice to force a Game 5. A team that went 42-40 in the regular season has drummed a 56-26 team twice to force a Game 5.
As the best play-by-play man in the world, Marv Albert, repeated, magnifying how strange the series has been is how the Pacers failed to make one -Êone! -Êrun in either Game 2 or Game 4. The Pacers rolled over and died before halftime in both games.
You still have to wonder if the Pacers overlooked a team two games over .500, but this wouldn't make sense. The Pacers finished 2-2 against the Bucks during the season, and the Bucks handed them a 105-84 loss at Conseco Fieldhouse, their worst home loss of the season.
Or have the Pacers been ready to play, but the Bucks just match up well with them?
Some wonder if the Bucks have played over their heads, but they've done it twice now in four games. Can that be a fluke? Ray Allen is a superstar. Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell are stars. The 6-foot-9 Tim Thomas, who handles the ball like a point guard and shoots like a two guard, is a can't-miss superstar in the making. These are not hard-working, overachieving grunts. Scott Williams draining 18-foot perimeter jump shots?
OK, you got me there.
If anything, maybe the Bucks are a team that underachieved before but are just now starting to click. The Bucks remind me of a train. Get them on track and rolling, look out. But once they get off track, it seems like it takes them longer to get back on track.
The Pacers should look at the last 15 minutes of Game 3, when the Bucks ran off the track. In the first half and through most of the third quarter, the Bucks played in that game they way they did in Games 2 and 4. Then it was as if somebody flipped a switch. The Bucks did nothing the rest of the way (Milwaukee coach George Karl claims the Bucks quit running their offense by launching quick shots, and he says Reggie hit shots he stopped making a long time ago), while the Pacers spreaded the floor well on Milwaukee's trapping defense and got Miller and Jalen Rose all kinds of open looks -Êand baskets - as they quickly upped the lead to double figures. Losing leader Cassell didn't help, but the Pacers were up 91-85 when Cassell got ejected.
For sure, this has been a series about two things: first steps and energy.
Nearly every Bucks player has a quicker first step than his Pacer counterpart. If the Pacers don't play good help-side defense, they're toast. The Bucks play with an energy, a passion, I don't always see from the Pacers.
This shouldn't be surprising. The Pacers are old, and the Bucks are young. While it seems like for years we have read about "the Pacers' last run," this finally will be their last run. No one expects Rik Smits or Mark Jackson or Miller back. If a poll conducted by the Indianapolis Star is accurate, people are glad this is the last run. More than 60 percent in the poll said they wanted (italics) to see a team that went 56-26 this season rebuild.
Even if the Pacers win this series, the Bucks have put a chink in their playoff armor with the two demolitions. The Pacers are big-time vulnerable. The Sixers, a team that has handled Milwaukee and will play the winner of this series, will see this in the next round, and on down the road, the Knicks and the Heat will see it.
The physical question is there - how much will playing five games take out of the old Pacers' legs? Now the Bucks have given other teams confidence against the Pacers with the drubbings.
Quite simply, No. 8 seeds aren't supposed to do to No. 1 seeds what the Bucks have been doing to the Pacers.
In the press conference after Monday's game, Miller said the Pacers' bench should be "embarrassed" about its performance. If you don't like the Pacers, finger-pointing has begun, because you wonder what business Reggie has calling out teammates after scoring a quiet 15 points. If you like the Pacers, you say it's Miller the leader lighting a spark under his team.
No matter how Game 5 turns out, the Bucks will be winners. If they win, they've knocked out the No. 1 seed and won a series no one expected them to win. If they lose, they can walk away knowing they pushed the best team in the Eastern Conference to the brink. Either way is a positive entering next season.
I think it all comes down to the Rik Smits factor.
With Smits safely away from the team nestled in his hotel room for Game 3, I thought the Pacers played much better. They were quicker, they ran the floor better, they played better defense and they didn't have a 7-foot-4 stiff turning the ball over every time the Bucks threw a trap at him.
Smits didn't bog things down.
Monday, he bogged things down.
And now the Bucks, a No. 8 seed, have forced a Game 5 with the Pacers, a No. 1 seed.
That's not supposed to happen.
Count on Reggie to again prove the Milwaukee columnist incorrect.
WARSAW 2, PLYMOUTH 1
Plymouth (6-5) 000 000 1 - 1 3 2
Warsaw (9-4) 200 000 x - 2 2 2
Plymouth ab r h rbi
Large c 3 0 0 0
Haynes 2b 3 0 0 0
Bunton c 3 1 1 0
Cox ss 3 0 0 0
Sikorski 1b 3 0 0 0
Fulton 3b 3 0 1 1
Tinkey p 3 0 0 0
Fry rf 3 0 1 0
Meredith 1 0 0 0
Totals 25 1 3 1
Warsaw ab r h rbi
Kurosky cf 3 1 0 0
Poling ss 3 1 0 0
Himes 2b 3 0 1 0
Jones 1b 3 0 0 0
Burns 3b 2 0 1 2
Overton lf 2 0 0 0
Fribley rf 2 0 0 0
McGriff dh 2 0 0 0
Colt c 0 0 0 0
Liebsch p 2 0 0 0
Totals 22 2 2 2
E-Cox, Tinkey, Jones, Liebsch. LOB-Plymouth 4, Warsaw 2. 2B-Burns. SB-Poling. S-Meredith.
Plymouth ip h r er bb so
Tinkey L, 5-3 6 2 2 0 0 7
Warsaw ip h r er bb so
Liebsch W, 4-3 7 3 1 0 0 13
PB-Colt. [[In-content Ad]]
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After the Milwaukee Bucks trounced the Indiana Pacers 104-91 in Game 2, a Milwaukee columnist wrote that the Bucks would win the series in four games.
When Indiana ruined that prediction with a 109-96 Game 3 win, Indiana guard Reggie Miller sought out the beleaguered columnist. Undeterred by the Bucks' loss and by Miller's mouth, the columnist wrote the Bucks would win the series in five games.
You may think he's an idiot, but you gotta admit, he has guts, especially after dealing with the wrath of Reggie.
The columnist is also back on track after the Bucks drilled the Pacers 100-87 in Game 4.
Still, with the series returning to Conseco Fieldhouse, any chances of the Bucks winning the series appear bleak.
At the same time, who thought the Bucks would win one, let alone two, games?
The sports section in more than one major daily predicted "Pacers in three."
Only one word describes this series: bizarre.
The Pacers have played in more than 40 playoff games in the 1990s, while the Bucks hadn't won a playoff game since May 1990.
The veteran savvy Pacers led the series 1-0, but in two of the next three games, the inexperienced Bucks delivered woodshed jobs.
The No. 8 seed has trounced the No. 1 seed twice to force a Game 5. A team that went 42-40 in the regular season has drummed a 56-26 team twice to force a Game 5.
As the best play-by-play man in the world, Marv Albert, repeated, magnifying how strange the series has been is how the Pacers failed to make one -Êone! -Êrun in either Game 2 or Game 4. The Pacers rolled over and died before halftime in both games.
You still have to wonder if the Pacers overlooked a team two games over .500, but this wouldn't make sense. The Pacers finished 2-2 against the Bucks during the season, and the Bucks handed them a 105-84 loss at Conseco Fieldhouse, their worst home loss of the season.
Or have the Pacers been ready to play, but the Bucks just match up well with them?
Some wonder if the Bucks have played over their heads, but they've done it twice now in four games. Can that be a fluke? Ray Allen is a superstar. Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell are stars. The 6-foot-9 Tim Thomas, who handles the ball like a point guard and shoots like a two guard, is a can't-miss superstar in the making. These are not hard-working, overachieving grunts. Scott Williams draining 18-foot perimeter jump shots?
OK, you got me there.
If anything, maybe the Bucks are a team that underachieved before but are just now starting to click. The Bucks remind me of a train. Get them on track and rolling, look out. But once they get off track, it seems like it takes them longer to get back on track.
The Pacers should look at the last 15 minutes of Game 3, when the Bucks ran off the track. In the first half and through most of the third quarter, the Bucks played in that game they way they did in Games 2 and 4. Then it was as if somebody flipped a switch. The Bucks did nothing the rest of the way (Milwaukee coach George Karl claims the Bucks quit running their offense by launching quick shots, and he says Reggie hit shots he stopped making a long time ago), while the Pacers spreaded the floor well on Milwaukee's trapping defense and got Miller and Jalen Rose all kinds of open looks -Êand baskets - as they quickly upped the lead to double figures. Losing leader Cassell didn't help, but the Pacers were up 91-85 when Cassell got ejected.
For sure, this has been a series about two things: first steps and energy.
Nearly every Bucks player has a quicker first step than his Pacer counterpart. If the Pacers don't play good help-side defense, they're toast. The Bucks play with an energy, a passion, I don't always see from the Pacers.
This shouldn't be surprising. The Pacers are old, and the Bucks are young. While it seems like for years we have read about "the Pacers' last run," this finally will be their last run. No one expects Rik Smits or Mark Jackson or Miller back. If a poll conducted by the Indianapolis Star is accurate, people are glad this is the last run. More than 60 percent in the poll said they wanted (italics) to see a team that went 56-26 this season rebuild.
Even if the Pacers win this series, the Bucks have put a chink in their playoff armor with the two demolitions. The Pacers are big-time vulnerable. The Sixers, a team that has handled Milwaukee and will play the winner of this series, will see this in the next round, and on down the road, the Knicks and the Heat will see it.
The physical question is there - how much will playing five games take out of the old Pacers' legs? Now the Bucks have given other teams confidence against the Pacers with the drubbings.
Quite simply, No. 8 seeds aren't supposed to do to No. 1 seeds what the Bucks have been doing to the Pacers.
In the press conference after Monday's game, Miller said the Pacers' bench should be "embarrassed" about its performance. If you don't like the Pacers, finger-pointing has begun, because you wonder what business Reggie has calling out teammates after scoring a quiet 15 points. If you like the Pacers, you say it's Miller the leader lighting a spark under his team.
No matter how Game 5 turns out, the Bucks will be winners. If they win, they've knocked out the No. 1 seed and won a series no one expected them to win. If they lose, they can walk away knowing they pushed the best team in the Eastern Conference to the brink. Either way is a positive entering next season.
I think it all comes down to the Rik Smits factor.
With Smits safely away from the team nestled in his hotel room for Game 3, I thought the Pacers played much better. They were quicker, they ran the floor better, they played better defense and they didn't have a 7-foot-4 stiff turning the ball over every time the Bucks threw a trap at him.
Smits didn't bog things down.
Monday, he bogged things down.
And now the Bucks, a No. 8 seed, have forced a Game 5 with the Pacers, a No. 1 seed.
That's not supposed to happen.
Count on Reggie to again prove the Milwaukee columnist incorrect.
WARSAW 2, PLYMOUTH 1
Plymouth (6-5) 000 000 1 - 1 3 2
Warsaw (9-4) 200 000 x - 2 2 2
Plymouth ab r h rbi
Large c 3 0 0 0
Haynes 2b 3 0 0 0
Bunton c 3 1 1 0
Cox ss 3 0 0 0
Sikorski 1b 3 0 0 0
Fulton 3b 3 0 1 1
Tinkey p 3 0 0 0
Fry rf 3 0 1 0
Meredith 1 0 0 0
Totals 25 1 3 1
Warsaw ab r h rbi
Kurosky cf 3 1 0 0
Poling ss 3 1 0 0
Himes 2b 3 0 1 0
Jones 1b 3 0 0 0
Burns 3b 2 0 1 2
Overton lf 2 0 0 0
Fribley rf 2 0 0 0
McGriff dh 2 0 0 0
Colt c 0 0 0 0
Liebsch p 2 0 0 0
Totals 22 2 2 2
E-Cox, Tinkey, Jones, Liebsch. LOB-Plymouth 4, Warsaw 2. 2B-Burns. SB-Poling. S-Meredith.
Plymouth ip h r er bb so
Tinkey L, 5-3 6 2 2 0 0 7
Warsaw ip h r er bb so
Liebsch W, 4-3 7 3 1 0 0 13
PB-Colt. [[In-content Ad]]