INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Pacers came into Bankers Life Fieldhouse riding a four game winning streak looking to make it five. One of the league’s worse teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers, wasn’t going to put up very much resistance to keep them from reaching their goal. After the smoke cleared Indiana was riding a five game wins streak and owned a 105-90 win over the Cavs.
As everybody was getting out of the car to get it in, Myles Turner got out with a little more attitude than everybody else as he knocked down two three-pointers in the opening minutes. Indiana jumped out to a 12-5 start before Larry Drew needed to call a timeout to get the license plate to that Blue and Gold Hummer that side swiped them and kept going.
At the 3:10 mark of the first quarter Myles Turner (12) and Bojan Bogdanovic (9) had 21 of the Pacers 25 points!!! That’s NUTS!! Then ole Nate threw a wrinkle in and put three guards on the floor with Ed Sumner, Corey Joseph and Aaron Holiday to end the first quarter running. They led 30-17 with the Cavs trying to figure out what just hit them.
The guard play still had Cleveland looking over their shoulders as the Pacers extended their lead to 38-23 off of Corey Joseph finding a wide open T.J. Leaf under the basket for an easy lay up. Once again, Larry Drew wanted that license plate with 9:11 left in the half.
Playing the three guard set was a great option for the Pacers and it’s also great to see the unbelievable first step of Aaron Holiday. He got to the rack on a boy and reversed it so fast that the player was literally still standing there. It happened so fast that I didn’t see who he was. That’s crazy isn’t it?
Indiana was again shooting the lights out of the gym knocking down shots from the field at a rip of 63 percent and from behind the arc at a clip of 40 percent with 2:12 left in the first half. The Cavs simply had no answer for the Pacers as they shared the ball extremely well in the first half with 17 of their 41 assists. At the break Indiana led it 54-42.
When the Pacers came out of the break they turned up the volume on the Cavs. As a team they shot the ball well at 53 percent. However, they cooled down from behind the arc shooting it at 35 percent.
Indiana had five players in double figures including 23 points from Bojan Bogdanovic which was the game high. Darren Collison dropped off a solid 18 points and 9 assists followed by Myles Turner’s 14 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks. Dominates Sabonis had 13 points and 10 rebounds to finish with the clean double-double too.
Finally the homie, Corey Joseph darn near dropped off the triple double for the Pacers as he recorded 10 points, 10 assists and 9 rebounds. C’mon bruh!! Somebody could have let my man pick up a rebound at some point in the game right? Indians improves to 37-19 with Charlotte coming into town on Monday. Stop me when I start lyin’!