Pacers Are Not Going Down Without A Fight

Pacers Win Game 4 99-92

By Haz Bey

I am on the record saying that the Eastern Conference Finals between the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers was over after Miami's Game 3 win in Indy, that did not mean I am rooting against the Pacers to lose this series.  I really want to see the Pacers push Miami to the limit and upset them.  Reality is that the Heat are not playing with their best effort against Pacers at all.  They take possessions off constantly, they do no respect them the way they play it through the media & I am pretty sure they are looking ahead to the playing against the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals.  

The Pacers are trying their best to compete with the defending champs, but lets be real for one second.  We all seen what happened when Miami took the Pacers series seriously, they blew them out the water.  Now we have Game 5. The Pacers will be excited and anxious to get another win in Miami, but the Heat are going to play with an intensity we have yet to see them play with this post season.  The Heat are the type of team that needs to be challenged or they will not respect you, unlike the Western Champion Spurs that will treat every team they play will the same level respect regardless of that team's record and/or reputation.  Since the formation of Miami's "Big 3", the Heat has a history of making things harder for them than they actually are.

The Pacers are a true threat.  They are big, physical and play excellent defense.  Sad thing is though, they don't have a true superstar yet.  Paul George is on his way, but he's not there yet.  Dr. J said it best last night on Inside the NBA on TNT that the NBA will forever be a superstar league.  A team with a balance attack without a true superstar is at a disadvantage against a team with one or more superstars.  Miami has a "Big 3" plus 1, while the Pacers has a collective group of stars in Paul George, Roy Hibbert & David West.  When the games get tight down the stretch its the superstars that you can just throw the ball into and say get me a bucket.  Roy Hibbert because of his height advantage against Miami's bigs seems to be the closest player to becoming a go-to-guy down the stretch for Pacers than anybody else on the roster right now.

Game 5 should be interesting for the fact that we get to see both teams giving everything they got for 48 minutes and maybe more for the first time this series.  The Pacers finally have Miami's respect.  Now we have a series.