| | INDIANAPOLIS -- So, you're feeling sorry for those Indiana Pacers, who were party of the second part to the most exciting game of the season. Two points short, 120-118.
|  | | Reggie Miller and the Pacers need to regroup after a tough Game 4 loss. |
Bad luck that.
Shaq responds with an 8-for-9 start at the free-throw line, scores 36.
Kobe plays through a bum ankle, has six points, four fouls just a minute into the second half and then scores 22 points after that, eight of them in the overtime.
Robert Horry finally plays like he did in Houston, goes for 17.
A conspiracy of bad fortune. Hey, the Pacers played well enough to win, right?
Beg to disagree. Says here they played well enough to lose.
Consider, with the game tied in the final seconds of the fourth quarter, 5-foot-11, 180-pound Travis Best decides to go one-on-one with 7-1, 330-pound Shaquille O'Neal. Best admits that his left shoulder -- the one he shoots with -- was so sore after a collision with Shaq earlier in the quarter that it was painful to even throw a good pass. He also admits the two hoops after his flagrant foul came on plays to the hoop. But with the game on the line he tries a left wing jumper over Shaq and doesn't even get rim.
Never occurred to Best to go to Larry Bird, say, "Hey, coach, I hurt my shoulder. Put Mark (Jackson) in the game. He can help the team more than I can."
Give Best a second chance and he'd try the same play, he said. That's how you lose.
Again in the fourth quarter, Bird reverted briefly to the Hack-a-Shaq strategy. Whacked him three times, disrupted the flow of the game. Maybe that's why the Pacers' offense stuck on 98 and then on 101.
Even more dangerous, Bird had Dale Davis commit his fourth personal with 2:17 left. Poor Dale, doesn't know when to stop. He got Shaq again and then he popped Robert Horry and he was out of the game. Dale Davis, 31, nine years in the league, sues his ex-agent because he didn't opt him out of a $42 million deal, that Dale Davis. The only Pacer who can stand up to Shaq, doesn't have the sense to stay on the floor. That's how you lose.
And what about Rik Smits? He finally has a game in this series, 8-for-11, 16 points with four fouls through three quarters. Never steps foot on the court in the fourth. Anybody who saw Smits score eight in overtime is thinking, don't you have to put this man out there in crunch time when he's going like this, when you have to win the game? Well, that's how you lose.
So, here we go with Game 5 on Friday night. Let's do the script.
Indy fans walked out of Conseco Fieldhouse like family leaving a funeral Wednesday night. By tonight, they'll have their voices back, but there's a little empty place where their optimism once resided.
They'll make plenty of noise and the Pacers will show a little bravado when they come out, make some shots, get a lead. Maybe they go up 10 like they did Wednesday.
But Phil Jackson will have the Lakers prepared for that. They will bide their time, patiently feed Shaq, let Kobe work the stiffness out of his left ankle and then the Lakes will make their run, Shaq with his jump hook, Kobe with his circle jumper and baseline penetration, his dish to Shaq, Glen Rice for 3 ...
Now, as the crowd loses its buzz, do the Pacers withstand the punishment and rally back? Or do they give into the reality that they cannot win three straight from L.A., that a Herculean effort only buys a little time, that it's so much easier to give in to the inevitable?
Reggie Miller won't. Austin Croshere won't, but I'm not so sure about the rest of them.
It says here that the Lakers pull away in the fourth quarter and win by 10. Kings of the universe, masters of the NBA world.
Truth to tell, the Pacers weren't good enough when the series started, and they haven't moved up in the course of this thing. The chance to really do something special expired last Friday when Kobe went down in the opening quarter. The Lakers were vulnerable and the Pacers couldn't close the deal. That's when the outcome of this series was decided.
There's only one thing left to say:
Bye, bye, Birdie.
Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
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