INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Pacers (19-9) climbed a huge mountain on Tuesday night and beat the league leading Los Angeles Lakers 105-102. With this win they extended their winning streak to four games and improved their record to a season-best 10 games above .500. They are now 12-3 at home even when fake Lakers fans invaded Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Tuesday night.
The Lakers (24-4) couldn’t hit an elephant in the butt with a base fiddle from 3-point land shooting a mere 25.8 percent with LeBron going 0-6 from behind the arc.
Domantas Sabonis led the Blue and Gold with 26 points, 10 rebounds and a truck load of confidence. This was his 13th straight double-double this season. He looked as if he was trying to rip the rim down a few of his dunks. His energy made room for the rest of the guys as they stepped up down the stretch. After being down 5-points, 100-95, with 3:28 left to play they didn’t panic and the rest is history.
Indiana had six players in double figures. Myles Turner dropped off 16, Malcolm Brogdon had 14, T.J. Warren gave them 12, Aaron Holiday came through with 11 and Doug McDermott 10.
That’s a solid performance for a team still playing without Victor Oladipo. It should be fun to watch once he’s back in the lineup.
LeBron get out of the car with a alley-oop to JaVale McGee to start the game. The Lakers moved the ball extremely well to go up 13-6. However, Indiana settled down and didn’t panic to go on a 6-3 run to close the gap 16-12 with 4:23 left in the first quarter. In the first nearly 8 minutes of the game neither team had attempted a three-point shot.
Side Note: LeBron was out there in the first quarter with the complete clown suit on with the water spitting flower. His dish game to his bigs was NUTS!!!
The Pacers second unit took the floor and brought some crazy energy with the Holiday brothers and T.J. McDonnell getting buckets. At the end of one quarter Indiana was only down 28-24.
The Pacers started the second quarter on a 6-2 run to make it 32-30 with 9:14 left in the half. Both teams were extremely aggressive in getting to the rack. The Lakers Alley-oop game was sick but the big homie Domantas Sabonis made sure that the Lakers understood that he could get to the rack and finish strong too. He threw several monster dunks down on a boy just for good measure.
Both squads battled to close out the half as the Lakers took a 52-50 lead into the break.
The Pacers came out of the break firing on all cylinders and before I could finish my hot dog they were up 61-58 with 8:10 left in the third period. The Blue and Gold went on a 17-6 run to go tup 67-58 with a little over 5 minutes left in the quarter.
Indiana was shooting that thang as they went up 72-63 with 3:58 left in the third. However, the Lakers weren’t about to let boy get comfortable as they roared back with the services of Dwight Howard who finished with 20 points and 6 rebounds. Again, the Laker Alley-oop game was NUTS but it wasn’t enough to keep the Pacers from taking a 2-point lead into the fourth quarter up 78-76.
Blink and it’s an different ball game. The Lakers were up 92-91 with 6:15 left to play with Rajon Rondo distributing the rock and finishing with 20 points. Dwight Howard was looking like his old self playing in his prime in Orlando. Ole boy was blocking shots and dunking everything he got his hands on.
Danny Green knocked down a baseline 3-pointer with 3:59 left to put the Lakers up 98-95. The place went NUTS because there were just as many Lakers fans in the joint as Pacers fans.
In the end the Pacers did enough work to finish with the “W.” Up next the Sacramento Kings come calling on Friday.
