Holiday Weekend Notes
C and I are off to Bloomington early Monday morning for her IU orientation, thus the Sunday evening post. Our holiday weekend was a little less chaotic than in recent years, so I’ll throw in some other stuff that happened over the past week as well. Holiday Weekend Our Fourth was fairly laid back, at least compared to recent years. We only had 15 relatives over, and just two of the young nephews were here so the pool was all theirs. I have a new Blackstone griddle and used it to cook burgers, brats, and hot dogs. I thought they all turned out pretty good, and it was much easier…
More Hoops Notes
A day later I still have a lot of Pacers thoughts. And I still need to catch you up on a very busy weekend. So this may turn into two posts, depending on how long I yap about the first topic. Pacers Followup I became a Pacers fan when we moved to Indy in 2003, but they have never been at the top of my sports fandom rankings.[1] Although they have climbed a lot over the past year! Still, when they lose I’m not as mad or upset as I am when KU loses, or when good Royals teams have lost. So I was a little surprised how emotional I…
Crushing
Sports can be unbelievably cruel sometimes. They can step up and make the worst possible thing happen in the worst possible time. That’s how the Indiana Pacers’ dream run through the postseason ended last night. Not because the favored Oklahoma City Thunder dominated the third quarter to turn a close game into a comfortable win, clinching their first NBA title. That was just normal sports, not an unexpected result at all. What was cruel was what Pacers fans had been fearing since the end of game two: Tyrese Haliburton’s achilles tendon rupturing as he attempted to drive past a defender midway through the first quarter. The Pacers were up…
Three Down…
OMG OMG OMG!!!! The Indiana Pacers are playing for the NBA championship Sunday night! Thursday was a wonderful night of professional basketball. At least if you are a Pacers fan. They started out slow, missing like their first 100 shots, and trailed 10–2. From then on it really wasn’t much of a game. The Pacers destroyed the Thunder in pretty much every way. Their defense was suffocating. They were ferocious rebounders. Their offense was locked in. It was the proverbial snowball turning into an avalanche, and the best team in the NBA this season was powerless to stop it. The final margin of 17 points hides that the Pacers were…
A Bummer Of A Game Five
After a nearly two-month dream ride, the Pacers run might be over. It wasn’t just that they lost game five in Oklahoma City last night by 11, after trimming an 18-point deficit to two midway through the fourth quarter. It wasn’t just that they routinely threw the ball away. It wasn’t just that they missed open shots when they could hang on to the ball. It was more that Tyrese Haliburton played most of the game hobbled by whatever lower leg injury he has been dealing with the past couple weeks. It was allegedly an issue late in game two, but in games three and four he showed no ill…
Weekend Notes
A full, fun weekend that had healthy doses of sadness and even a little fear. KC Trip As mentioned Friday, I headed back to Kansas City for the weekend to attend the memorial service for Jack N, the father of one of my closest friends. We’re at the age where these are happening more frequently, but no matter the circumstances they are never easy. It was a fine service and honored the deceased in a way I think he would have appreciated. That was the reason for the trip. I obviously did more than just attend the memorial. I flew in Friday afternoon, my buddy Dave picked me up, and…
A Night Of Hoops
A full evening of basketball with some big moments worth sharing. Pacers WOW! Up 2–1 on the massive favorites thanks to two amazing quarters. Oklahoma City was the better team for two periods Wednesday, the first and third. Sadly for them, the Pacers were even better in the second and fourth and now lead the NBA Finals. I only saw the second half – more on that momentarily – but that was a fantastic game. The teams made runs at each other all night, neither able to land a knockout punch until the closing five minutes or so when the Pacers strung together makes and stops while the Thunder all…
Weekend Notes
Pacers Well, the Thunder showed up Sunday evening. As has been routine in these playoffs, the Pacers missed a ton of open looks early as they fell behind. The difference in game two was that I don’t think it would have mattered. OKC was absolutely locked in from the beginning and once they took the lead on a 10–0 run the result was never in doubt. The 42–21 run in the second quarter was too much for the Pacers Devil Magic to overcome. What amazes me most about the Thunder’s D is how it is actually good defense. With one exception, they don’t foul a ton. They are just in…
Playoff Miracle, Vol. 186
I have a very busy day, but still want to squeeze in some quick words about game one of the NBA Finals. It started about how I expected: the Pacers were sped up and nervous and when they could get shots, were missing thoroughly makable ones. The Thunder were also nervy at the beginning, but their defense found its footing and began shutting down everything the Pacers wanted to do. At times it looked like a mismatched college game, where the Pacers had three guys standing 40 feet from the basket trying to figure out how to even begin the offense, let alone get decent looks. Obi Toppin was truly…
NBA Final Preview
The NBA Finals have arrived. I’ve been listening to podcasts previewing the series all week, and reading everything The Ringer has posted on the topic. Since I know most of you are 1) far busier than me and 2) don’t care as much about the result as I do, allow me to offer a summarization of all that content: the Pacers are a very good, super entertaining, resilient team that plays a style that is tough defend and absolutely deserves the full respect of every basketball fan and analyst. BUT, Oklahoma City has a historically stout defense that seems designed to offer matchup nightmares at every position for the Pacers…