When you play against the Heat, you have to play all four quarters, and for most of the game on Tuesday, the Indiana Pacers Looked like they would pull an upset. Enter in Jimmy Butler. He was just too much for the Pacers to handle. The young upstart Pacers will have to make some adjustments. As Slick would say, they need to go at Jimmy and D up. If they don’t want a one way ticket back to the Circle City, they must find the fly in the ointment and kill it. They need to be in Jimmy’s shorts all day, and Myles Turner and TJ Warren need to ignore the fact that it’s the playoffs and slow down their shot selection. Because yesterday, I saw several shots where the Pacers had wide open threes, and they were unable to take their time, because Miami had all the right answers. They are lucky it was just one game, however. If they can quit shuffling their puppies and not have a traveling violation, they will be fine, and Nate McMillan will be smiling at the shot selection. You’ve got 24 seconds to do what Slick would tell you to do – take it to the hoop. Why are we rushing, gentlemen? When all we have to do is play a simple game of basketball. Move the ball side to side and find the right open player, but do not rush your shot. Miami likes it when you do that. Because your defense is not set at the right angle, it allows Miami to run and gun the other way. A problem with Miami is they know what they want to do with the orange, whereas the Pacers take too much time on defense trying to decipher what Miami is going to do. It’s easy to see that Miami already knows what it wants to do when they have the ball. They want to pass the ball around so the Pacers have no idea who has the ball and who they need to defend.
Victor Oladipo was hurt blatantly by the Heat, and they know it. And if Victor can’t play, TJ Warren will have a message for Miami. You mess with one, you mess with all of us. The next game is Thursday afternoon at 3, which can be heard on the Pacers statewide radio network with Mark Boyle and Eddie Gill, two of the best when Slick is not allowed to work. The first one was named Indiana Broadcaster of the Year numerous times, and I am proud to call Mark a colleague and a friend. The next guy used to play for the blue and gold, and Eddie knows his basketball, just like Bobby does.
