INDIANAPOLIS — For the second straight night the ESPN crew was at Bankers Life Fieldhouse for some big time basketball. On Tuesday night the GameDay Crew was in town for the State Farm Championship Classic and on Wednesday night the NBA Crew took over the spot. The place was electric because the Pacers have been extremely fun to watch and the Philadelphia 76ers were, well…, the 76ers!!! Who wouldn’t want to see that right? By the time the smoke cleared and they searched through the debris Philly was walking out of the joint with a 100-94 victory. It was their first road win of the season.
Despite going 6-0 at home this season they were 0-5 on the road losing by an average of 15.2 point per game. So Indiana came in licking their chops to play them at home on national television. Well playas….it didn’t quite work out that way. Philly got out of the gate early and jumped all over Indiana going up 19-9.
The Pacers, led by Victor Oladipo’s 36 points withstood the constant hammering of the 76ers. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep them from going on a 6-1 run to close out the third quarter and Philly then exploded to open the fourth by going on a 16-7 run.
By the time boyz looked up Joel Embiid and his young cohorts were up 94-77 about to blow the roof of the place. Embiid led the 76ers with 20 points and 10 rebounds as Ben Simmons dropped off a solid 16 points and 10 rebounds. Philly had 6 players total in double figures while the Pacers struggled to get Oladipo the help he needed to win this game.
Domantas Sabonis came through with 16 points and Bojan Bogdanovic gave him 13 but no else came to play. The Pacers got zero points out of Darren Collison’s 18 minutes on the floor. And will somebody PLEASE tell me why Myles Turner always disappears when he’s matched up with a big time center? He had a mere 7 points and 4 rebounds after 30 minutes on the floor. That’s crazy!! I know Oladipo was singing that Lil’ Wayne joint like “5-4-3-2-1 Where the love go!” watching this foolishness take place.
The Pacers finally held their own in the rebounding category but struggled miserably from behind the arc shooting 26 percent and only 39.4 percent from the field. Once again free throws were an Achilles for the Blue and Gold shooting only 70 percent from the charity stripe.
The Pacers travel to South Beach to face the Miami Heat on Friday. Stop me when I start lyin’!