Indiana Pacers F Danny Granger
INDIANAPOLIS – As Dahntay Jones sees it, the Indiana Pacers will grow from this. It was, he said, a lesson above all else.
A painful lesson.
The Pacers, one of the NBA's hottest teams over the last week and a half, started Wednesday the same way. But after Indiana took a 19-point third-quarter lead, the struggling New York Knicks outscored the Pacers 34-17 in the fourth quarter en route to a 110-103 victory in front of 12,258 at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis.
“It's definitely a learning experience for us as a growing team,” said Jones, a free-agent forward who scored 10 of his 25 points as Indiana's lead disappeared in the fourth quarter.
“We have to close out games better than that. No matter how many we won in a row, we should have taken advantage of that situation.”
PHOTO GALLERY | PACERS-KNICKS. HERE
The Pacers (5-4), who beat the Knicks on November 4 in New York for their first victory of the season, lost for the first time since that game. They entered Wednesday night's game on a five-game winning streak, at the time tied with Cleveland and Atlanta for the NBA's longest.
The Pacers, who last won five consecutive games in 2004-2005, play host to Cleveland Friday.
“They wore us out in the fourth quarter,” said Pacers coach Jim O'Brien, whose team was playing its first back-to-back of the season having won at New Jersey on Tuesday.
“We tend not to move well in fourth quarter.”
The Knicks outscored the Pacers 27-7 over the last 7:30 and helding Indiana to 4 of 16 fourth-quarter shooting. The Pacers shot 8-of-30 (.267) in the second half after shooting 26 of 44 (.591) in the first.
“Our offense got kind of stagnant and they just outplayed us down the stretch,” Granger said.
Granger's offense got particularly stagnant in the second half.
And it is in that area that O'Brien said the Pacers need to learn from – and improve on – the most.
Granger, the Pacers' All-Star forward, scored 30 first-half points on 11 of 14 shooting. He made 5 of 6 first-half 3-point field goals but took just four second-half shots.
“We just overplayed everything he got,” Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni said. “We made him work harder to get the ball. We contested every one of his shots.”
That, O'Brien said, will be the strategy of most teams until the Pacers prove it doesn't work.
“They did a good job shutting him down,” O'Brien said.
It's a strategy Boston used successfully in a Pacers victory, but unlike in that game – when the Pacers' held off Boston with Jones leading a balanced second-half offense – Indiana struggled without production from Granger. Jones scored 13 second-half points, but Indiana shot 24.2 percent in the second half.
“I don't think they necessarily went after him [Granger],” O'Brien said. “It's the same thing we saw against Boston. He had a big first half and teams are going to take the attitude, 'Somebody else is going to beat us.''
Said Granger, “We still should have moved the ball and scored. We turned it over too much. We really couldn't score the ball tonight.”
The Pacers took a 69-54 halftime lead after a 43-point second quarter in which they shot 76.2 percent from the floor. Granger shot 6-of-7 – 3 of 3 from 3-point range – and finished the quarter with 17 points. The Knicks cut the Pacers lead to 10 entering the fourth period, during which Granger said the Pacers allowed too many easy baskets inside and allowed seven turnovers.
“They were scoring too easily around the bucket,” Granger said. “They hit some threes, and we couldn't score at the other end. Credit their defense.”
Said Jones, “We had some costly turnovers and we didn't score much. We got a little stagnant and wore down a little bit. We let them take advantage of the situation.”
Comments