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Birdman Chris Anderson has been on Tyler Hansbrough’s case through much of the Eastern Conference Finals. His overaggressive behavior in Game 5, however, will cost him the opportunity to play in Game 6 after the NBA suspended the backup center on Friday.
There has been plenty of debate about whether the suspension was warranted, and TNT analyst Steve Kerr chimed in with his own thoughts on the matter:
Thursday night the Miami Heat took the advantage in the Eastern Conference Finals after defeating the Indiana Pacers 90-79.
After the game, while most of the media hoopla was about the Chris “Birdman” Andersen flagrant foul on Tyler Hansbrough (for which he was recently suspended), LeBron James’ takeover in the third quarter and the health of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
For the Indiana Pacers, the game was theirs for the taking. Dwyane Wade fouled out. They won the free throw and rebounding battles while forcing 21 Miami Heat turnovers. Yet when the final buzzer sounded and LeBron James’ layup gave the Heat a 103-102 overtime win in Wednesday night’s Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Indiana was left sulking and stunned while asking themselves “what the hell happened?”
“It just felt like everything was in our favor,” Pacers forward Paul George said. If Indiana, as expected, gets eliminated in the league’s semifinal round, the team will undoubtedly be kicking itself for not taking this game on the road.
So what the hell happened? Forget about the Pacers leaving Roy Hibbert out of the game on the final play in overtime, which will be widely covered and discussed in other articles and forums. Indiana was soundly defeated at its own game. How else could you explain the frontcourt-loaded Pacers being outscored by 12 in the paint, 60-48?
ESPN Stats & Info pointed out that Miami averaged just 30.7 points in the paint against Indiana during the regular season, but nearly doubled that total in Game 1.
ESPN Stats & Info
There are still more questions Indiana has to address after its series-opening defeat. How could LeBron James have more rebounds (10) than Hibbert (9), David West (5) and George (4)? If Indiana is such a strong defensive team inside, how could Chris Bosh and Chris Andersen combine for 33 points on 13-for-18 shooting from the floor?
Indiana is supposed to be an excellent defensive team at every position, yet it was Miami’s perimeter defense that proved to be superior. How else could you explain the starting Pacers backcourt of George Hill and Lance Stephenson combining for 12 points on 4-for-19 shooting?
“Two great teams just throwing punch for punch,” Indiana coach Frank Vogel said. “Our spirit is very high, very confident. We know we can play with this basketball team.”
LOOKING FOR MIAMI HEAT TICKETS? LOOK NO FURTHER
If Indiana wants to have a puncher’s chance in this series, the team also has to stop the star players not named LeBron. Namely, Wade and Bosh. Despite fouling out, Wade had a really strong effort, scoring 19 points on 9-for-15 from the floor to go with six rebounds, five assists and three steals.
| Wade & Bosh | FG % | Points | Reb | Assists | FTA |
| Playoff Avg | 46.3 | 25.9 | 12.1 | 6.3 | 5.9 |
| Game 1 | 57.7 | 36 | 8 | 6 | 10 |
For a team that prides itself on its defensive play, it allowed Wade and Bosh to shoot 11 percentage points better than its playoff average and score 10 more points.
There were, of course, a lot of things that Indiana did well. Otherwise, they would not have come so close to taking Game 1 on the road. Hibbert, George and West combined to shoot 24-for-41 from the field with a total of 72 points. Tyler Hansbrough canceled out Andersen’s production by scoring 10 points on 5-for-8 shooting, while getting six rebounds in just 12 minutes. Perhaps he needs more time on the floor. Indiana held Norris Cole and Ray Allen to six total points on 2-for-12 shooting.
Despite all those things that the Pacers were successful in doing, there are several key corrections they need to make going forward. There’s no way Indiana can be successful by being outscored in the paint. Hill and Stephenson need to contribute offensively, and the team has to reduce its number of turnovers; it was 20 in Game 1 and a woeful 16.2 per game this postseason. That won’t fly against a team as good as Miami. It’s also going to be difficult to contain bench players like Allen, Cole and Shane Battier all series long, but Indiana has the defensive stoppers to limit the production of Wade and Bosh.
Indiana certainly came close to taking Game 1, but there’s still a ton the team has to do to avoid losing this series in four or five games.
Shlomo Sprung loves advanced statistics and the way they explain what happens on the court. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. His website is SprungOnSports.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
LeBron James and the Miami Heat are now closing in on not their first, not their second, but their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance, where they will be looking for their second ring with “The Big Three.”
But before we can punch Miami’s ticket to the Finals, the Heat still have four games left to
win against an Indiana Pacers team they’ve lost 2 out of 3 against this season.
With defensive tenacity and a punishing, menacing front line, the Indiana Pacers have reached the Eastern Conference finals. But if vanquishing the New York Knicks in six games seemed like a tall task, their path to the NBA Finals seems preposterously gargantuan in comparison.
To defeat LeBron James in his prime and the Miami Heat in a best-of-seven series is akin to defeating a Michael Jordan-led Bulls team in his prime. James is the best player in the world. He has several “spacers” who can knock down open looks if he passes out of the double-team. And Miami still has two world-class talents in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. So any team is going to have trouble with the Heat.
But let’s face it: Miami’s path to the NBA’s final four hasn’t been all that difficult. After a hasty romp over the Milwaukee Bucks, they easily dispatched a Chicago Bulls team without its two best players. The Heat will likely face its first true postseason challenge in Indiana, where the Pacers possess key advantages over Miami that no other Eastern Conference team has.
Roy Hibbert and David West are monsters inside, acting as roadblocks and deterrents to any drivers (ask Carmelo Anthony). Paul George would have gotten this writer’s vote for Defensive Player of the Year. So this series could quite possibly be way too close for Miami’s comfort.
Here are five key factors going into Wednesday night’s series opener:
1. The LeBron Factor: To state the brutally obvious, this series hinges on how well the best player on the planet performs. Not to be an alarmist or anything, but James’ postseason stats are noticeably worse than they were during the regular season. This could be due to the low degree of difficulty Miami has faced in the playoffs, or some other excuse I could make up. But the historically prolific stats weren’t there during James’ first nine playoff games this season.
| LeBron | Min | FG % | 3 FG% | Points | Rebounds | Assists |
| Season | 37.9 | 56.5 | 40.6 | 26.8 | 8 | 7.3 |
| Playoffs | 39.4 | 51.8 | 32.1 | 24 | 7.3 | 7.3 |
LeBron’s shots have gone slightly down, but his shooting percentages are down overall and way down from the 3-point arc. Indiana has one of the best defenses in the NBA, so a continued dip in James’ shooting could have a larger impact than it did during the first two rounds.
| LeBron James | Min | FG % | 3 FG% | Points | Rebounds | Assists |
| Season vs IND | 40.3 | 51.1 | 50 | 21 | 7.3 | 4.7 |
2. The interior muscle factor: Roy Hibbert and David West are two bad, bad men who take opponents out of their comfort zones inside. Hibbert has averaged 9.6 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in the playoffs while shooting 47.3 percent from the field (compared to 44.8 percent during the regular season), improving on both ends of the field after he was heavily criticized for his offense.
But it’s on the defensive end where these two really make the largest impact. Indiana has allowed opponents to shoot 41.6 percent from the field during the playoffs (third to only Boston, who couldn’t beat the Knicks, and Miami, whose competition wasn’t overly great) and allow 89.4 points per game on 1.12 points per shot (dead even with the Heat in the latter department).
Where the Pacers really stand out is in the rebounding department. Indiana leads all playoff teams in total rebounds, defensive rebounds, offensive rebounds and a plus-9.8 per game edge. That’s an enormous advantage on the glass that you should definitely watch out for.
3. The Paul George Factor: Carmelo Anthony shot just 43.3 percent during the conference semifinals against the Pacers, well below his 46.9 percent season average, and scored 1.14 points per shot against Indiana compared with 1.35 during the regular season. A lot of that had to do with the disruptive defense from George, who had the most defensive win shares during the regular season and should have won the Defensive Player of the Year award. He has the ability to play tough perimeter defense against James as Indiana tries to somehow curtail his production.
If his defensive abilities weren’t enough, George has led Indiana in scoring during the playoffs at 19.1 points to go with five assists. As influential as Hibbert is for Indiana, George will be more important on both sides of the floor if the Pacers have any shot.
4. The Point Guard Factor: George Hill played in Indiana’s Game 6 win over the Knicks, returning from a concussion but shooting just 2-for-10. If he can come back at full strength, that could be another area where the Pacers have an overall leg up on the Heat. Hill is an upgrade over D.J. Augustin, who somehow did not record a single assist in Games 4 and 5 despite logging 60 total minutes.
On the Miami side, the emerging storyline at point guard is the rise of Norris Cole, who is clearly outperforming Mario Chalmers on the offensive end. Cole is shooting over 60 percent from the field overall and 68.8 percent from the arc, and is now playing over 22 minutes per game in the playoffs to Chalmers’ 26. It will be interesting to see how Erik Spoelstra divvies up his minutes during the series.
5. The Bench Factor: Miami’s bench is really good. Indiana’s? Not so much. While Miami’s reserves outscored Chicago’s in all five games in the second round (though the Bulls were badly depleted by injury and illness), Indiana’s bench scored fewer points than New York in each of their six contests. The Pacers were trounced 31-8 in Game 6 and 35-10 in Game 5.
Lance Stephenson’s ascent to the starting lineup may have something to do with that, but when you compare the likes of Augustin, Ian Mahinmi, Sam Young and Tyler Hansbrough with the likes of Cole, Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Chris Andersen (and others), you could tell that bench production could (and probably will) be a pretty large factor in this series.
PREDICTIONS:
MAY: Heat in 6.
SCHAYES: Heat in 6.
ANDY KAMENETZKY: Heat in 7.
BRIAN KAMENETZKY: Heat in 6.
