Celts
INDIANAPOLIS – It didn’t take long for the anger in Rick Carlisle’s voice to point out during his postgame press conference.
The Pacers blew a late fourth-quarter lead for the second time in three games, and just the mention of Indiana losing Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals after leading by 8 points with lower than three minutes left irked him.
Carlisle waved his hand and stopped the primary query after his opening statement before it was finished.
“I just watched the ending,” Carlisle said. “So, you don't have to remind me. I saw everything that happened. Everything. Everything. Everything that happened, yes. Anyone else?”
The Pacers haven’t any selection but to go even harder against the Celtics in Game 4, Carlisle said. They find themselves ready that no team in NBA history has recovered from: They are down 3-0 to Boston.
Carlisle was asked why he believes his group could make a comeback.
“We have to look at what's in front of us,” Carlisle said. “We have the best fans in the NBA here, we have the greatest basketball building in the world and we have one more game to go to attack these guys and believe me when I tell you we're going to attack them.”
Even though the Pacers are one game away from elimination and will be without star guard Tyrese Haliburton again on Monday night, Carlisle didn't seem to be a person ready to offer up. He was offended but determined to do things in another way.
Guard TJ McConnell said the team goes into Game 4 with the identical mindset.
“This obviously hurts,” McConnell said. “But there's not a guy in this locker room who's given up. We're going to try to get another one here and extend the streak and then go back to Boston and try to make it tough. There's not a guy in this locker room who's going to give up, I can tell you that much.”
Jayson Tatum missed a layup in the ultimate seconds, giving Indiana one last likelihood to attain. Andrew Nembhard grabbed the miss with slightly below 10 seconds left and ran down the court, where it was eventually intercepted by Jrue Holiday.
Holiday, who was putting Nembhard under pressure from the whole court, lost his footing on the three-point line, but was capable of hold on to the bottom with one hand and thus avoid falling. He recovered in time, slid in front of Nembhard and shot the ball away.
“I wanted to take a shot and he was in front of me. I lost the ball, slipped and lost possession,” said Nembhard.
Carlisle was asked why he didn't call a timeout in that situation. He decided to let the Pacers play without organising a planned play, and Holiday made Indiana pay for it.
“Eight or nine seconds left and you're in transition after a missed shot,” Carlisle said. “I trust our players to make a better shot than if they took a timeout and set up their defense and ran their endgame stuff on video and showed their players. It's more of a basketball type of situation and we've done well this year by trusting our players.”
The Celtics ended Indiana's 11-game home winning streak, including six wins within the postseason. Beating the Celtics 4 in a row could be a tall order. Pascal Siakam said he's taking it one game at a time, starting Monday night.
“We have to win. We have to give it everything we have,” Siakam said. “Obviously we've had an incredible season so far and nobody wants it to end, so we're going to fight until the end. And then it's a matter of the guys: Let's win a game. We can't look ahead. Whatever is ahead of us doesn't matter. We have to focus on the next game and give everything we have to win that game.”
With Haliburton out, Indiana focused on winning the within battle, outscoring Boston 68-40 in points from the penalty box and 43-36 in rebounds. Siakam and Myles Turner each scored 22 points.
Nembhard and TJ McConnell played significantly more minutes than their postseason average, combining for 55 points with 15 assists as they attempted to fill the void left by Haliburton's absence.
Indiana had a 12-point lead at halftime and even led by 18 before Boston was capable of adjust and slow the Pacers within the second half.
“We had a lot of guys playing more minutes in Tyrese's absence,” Carlisle said. “And so it slowed down a little bit in the home stretch, and that's the time of the game where we were now properly set up and able to keep the tempo of the game.”
“That's something we have to do. We missed a couple of shots and there were a couple of plays where things could have gone differently. That's the best thing I can say about it. I'm just very disappointed, but this group, the way they're fighting, we're going to compete harder against these guys on Monday.”
image credit : www.boston.com