LAKE BEUNA VISTA, FL. AKA The BUBBLE — The Indiana Pacers (42-26) got off of the bus blazin’ hot on Tuesday evening as they caught the Orlando Magic asleep at the wheel. They jumped out to a 10-0 lead and seemingly never looked back as they won 120-109.
Led by another outstanding performance by TJ Warren who finished with 32 points. He dropped 53 points in their opener on Saturday in the Bubble. Then followed that up with 34 on Monday. Ole boy is on fiyyyahh right now as the Pacers seem to have it all clicking in the Bubble.
They’re 3-0 since the season has restarted and playing with crazy team chemistry. I asked Myles Turner was being together in the bubble helping their team chemistry. He said, “I different doesn’t hurt. Guys are spending time together, going to dinner together pretty much on a nightly basis, going out together kickin’ it. So it certainly doesn’t hurt.”
Not that the Pacers ever seemed to have bad chemistry but they are clicking on all cylinders right now and they don’t even have Domantas Sabonis in the line up and Victor Oladipo hasn’t gotten his legs under him yet.
TJ Warren is carrying the torch as the main scorer right now with great assistance from the rest of the team. They’re feeding him the rock and consistently scoring as well.
On Tuesday night all five starters finished in double figures which is always a plus. Turner finished with 21 points knocking down 4 of 5 three-pointers. Both Malcolm Brogdon and Aaron Holiday dropped off 12 apiece as Victor Oladipo hit them up with 13 points.
TJ McConnell came off of the bench with 13 on his way to Big Momma’s house.
Yessir!! The Pacers are purrin’ like a kitten as they sit in the 5th spot in the East with only 5 games left to play before the playoffs start.
Nate McMillan has done a fabulous job of getting these guys prepared to play. They shared the ball extremely well finishing with 29 assists and only 7 turn overs.
I asked Nate what’s been the difference since the restart with his team, His response was, “Well I think that we’ve committed to working together. We know that we are playing without Domas and we’ve had really three different starting lineups since this restart. Our guys are playing together. We’re trying to get connected, establish ourselves on both ends of the floor; the defensive end of the floor as well as the offensive end of the floor. Each game we want to go out and show growth. Getting tighter as far as our execution defensively as well as offensively. ”
This is the perfect time for the Blue and Gold to be playing as a team.
