INDIANAPOLIS — The new look Indiana Pacers arrived with Wesley Matthews starting at the two guard on Monday as they did work on Charlotte 99-90. Ole boy was waived by the Knicks after a deal that sent Kristaps Porzingis to Dallas. He cleared waivers Saturday, practiced on Sunday and started on Monday. That’s called the NBA playa!!!
Charlotte jumped out of the ride and went on a 7-2 lead. However, the Pacers settled down and got right back into it with 6:23 left in the first quarter pulling to within 2 at 10-8 at the first timeout. Two Myles Turner free throws tied it up at 10. The Pacers took their first lead 12-11 on a Bojan Bogdanovic lay up as he followed it up with another big shot.
Then Turner got into the action with a big-time three followed by Darren Collison’s three. By the time I bit into my hot dog Indiana was up 20-14 with 4:18. It was off to the races at that point. Indiana went up 26-18 with cats like Domantas Sabonis getting to the rack finishing with an old school Yoke (monster dunk for y’all that’s checkin’).
Tyreke Evans all of a sudden pulled out the wet jumper and went to work on these boyz. That became contagious as the rest of the crew caught fire and it was 39-19 before folks could blink with 9:47 left in the half.
Sabonis was so aggressive getting to the rack that he picked up his third foul with 7:27 left in the second quarter and had to sit down with 5 of his 9 points.
Indiana’s starters hit the floor again and it was Chris Brown up in that piece “On and Poppin’!” With 2:23 left in the half the Pacers were up 48-33. Wesley Matthews couldn’t buy a bucket at the Flea Market, however. He finally got to the foul line and hit his first two free throw attempts to get on the board with just under 2 minutes left in the half. He was 0-3 from the field and 0-2 from behind the arc at that point.
At the break Indiana was up 54-38 shooting 55 percent from the field and 40 percent from behind the arc. Tyreke Evans was on fire finishing with 12 points all coming in the first half.
Charlotte came out of the break and went on a 10-3 run before Nate McMillan called a timeout to get the license plate of the hooptie that just side swiped them. The Hornets seemed to be in complete control of the third quarter through the first 7 minutes outscoring the pacers 19-12 to creep back into the game down 66-57 with a little over 5 minutes left in the quarter.
By the time a boy could drink the rest of his pop the Hornets were breathing down the Pacers neck only down 68-64 after a Kemba Walker get-to-the-rack move with 3:32 left in the third. Indiana ended the quarter on a sweet get-to-the-rack move by Darren Collison to go up 77-71.
Charlotte was not playing in the third quarter as they outscored the Pacers 33-23 to make a game out of it. However, Indiana started the fourth period with a monster dunk by Domantas Sabonis followed by a floater of his as well.
The Pacers went on a 5-0 run to start the fourth as James Borrrego (Hornets head coach) called a timeout to get the license plate bruh. The Pacers were suddenly up 83-71 with 10:01 left. Kemba Walker and Co. kept fighting to stay in it though.
Wesley Matthews finally hits a three-pointer with 3:23 left and the place went crazy!!!! He soon followed that one with his second three to finish with 8 points. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t buy a bucket tonight because he allowed the Pacers to play their brand of basketball with Tyreke coming off of the bench. That gave the offensive the rhythm they’ve been looking for since Victor went down.
Myles Turner led the pack with 18 points and 8 rebounds followed by Bojan Bogdanovic’s 14, Darren Collison’s 13 and Thaddeus Young’s 11. Up next the Greek Freak and the Milwaukee Bucks!