Since their first round loss in five games in the playoffs, it's been a while since we have seen these two rivals play. Looking to get revenge, they did just that.
"They are just thrilled to get the win here," coach Frank Vogel said. "They were crushed that we didn't beat them last year in the playoffs."
Danny Granger played a solid game with 22 points and nine rebounds. Roy Hibbert also performed well in match-up, with 20 points and eight rebounds. David West also contributed, adding 14 points.
"The difference between this year's team and last year's team, we have confidence that we'll score at crunch time," Vogel said. "We'll score in the fourth quarter. We didn't have that last year."
Indiana trailed 54-44 at halftime, but quickly bounced back in the second half, cruising towards the intense victory late in the game. Danny Granger took advantage of Deng not being there due to injury, as he has always struggled against him, as he made some key shots and big rebounds in the game.
Down by two points with less than two minutes to go, Derrick Rose drove down the lane but was halted. Rose then made a pass that probably blew Twitter up: he found Brian Scalabrine wide open in the corner. Sadly, Scal missed the open shot as it bounced off the back of the rim.
"Trusting my teammate," Rose said. "I think it was a good shot. At the time I thought I didn't have the shot and I think I made the right play. ... That's usually his shot. I'd give it to him again."
After Scal's miss, the ball almost went out of bounds before Joakim Noah saved it. However it, ended in Darren Collision's hands. It just got weird here, as Collision tried wasting the time but the ball went away. Granger ended up getting it, and got a huge assist on a pass to a wide-open Hibbert that led to game-winning dunk.
"This was a big win for us," Granger said. "Right now we expect to win. We gave them a lot of easy buckets and they kind of blew the led open in the last two minute of the first half. In the third quarter we knew we were going to make a run and we did. We turned up the defense."
Indiana now improves to 12-5 and make the Bulls fall to 16-4, making both pretty neck-and-neck in the Central Division.
The Pacers will face the Boston Celtics next tomorrow night. Indiana has had a strong advantage over the Celtics lately, beating them pretty nicely in their past few meetings. However, Boston looks stronger now after destroying Orlando 87-56, and it doesn't look good when the next day the Magic beat Indiana 102-83.
We'll see what happens, but I'm hoping for another as Indiana faces off with the C's in the Garden tomorrow.
Good win overall by the Pacers!
While you're at it, check this insane video out with Paul George from last night's victory.
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Josh has been writing since 2009 and founded FootBasket in April 2009. He also writes at Hardcourt Mayhem and contributes to TrueHoop’s Eight Points Nine Seconds. He also owns his own Pacers blog at StaringDownSpike.com. Check him out on JoshDhani.com and follow him on Twitter @JoshDhani
