(Pacers Release)
The Pacers were well on their way to earning their third win out of the past four contests on Sunday night. However, the Philadelphia 76ers had other ideas.
With 8:16 to play, Indiana held a 104-88 advantage after Aaron Holiday notched a putback layup. But then, they ran into an all-too-familiar foe — assistant coach Dan Burke's defense. The 76ers (15-6) implemented a 2-3 zone that induced a 4:10 Pacers scoring drought, as Philadelphia rattled off a 21-2 run to grab a lead late in the fourth quarter. The Pacers (11-9) never recovered, failing to find any success against and fell to the visitors 119-110 inside Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The Blue & Gold were held without a field goal for the final 5:57 of the game.
"It was disruptive," Pacers head coach Nate Bjorkgren said of the zone. "We didn't make a shot out of it. I don't think we attacked it very well, either. They changed the game with it."
Two Pacers muscled their way to 20-plus point nights. Malcolm Brogdon recorded a team-high 25 on 10-of-21 shooting, including 19 in the first half. Domantas Sabonis tallied 21 and hauled in eight boards. Aaron Holiday also had a solid night, notching a season-high 17 on 7-of-11 shooting, three rebounds and an assist.
"My teammates did a great job looking for me," Holiday said postgame. "On the drive and kicks, they were collapsing in the paint. So I was just there trying to knock down shots. Just trying to stay aggressive."
But it was not enough in the end.
After stumbling out of the gate, the Blue & Gold put together a stellar first half. With Philadelphia playing without star center Joel Embiid, Indiana recorded 38 points in the paint on 19-of-27 shooting en route to earning a 63-54 halftime lead.
The Sixers raced out to an 8-0 lead to start. But Indiana countered with seven unanswered and took control. The spree was the first installment of an eventual 17-4 run over a 5:39 span. Three different Blue & Gold players recorded a snipe from beyond the arc during the outburst, including Brogdon, who finished the quarter with 12 points. The emerged from the first holding a 28-18 lead. The 18 points given up by Indiana were the fewest points allowed in an opening frame this year.
It was Aaron Holiday's time to shine in the second. The third-year guard posted 10 points in the opening 4:29 of the frame, including five straight in a 14-second span. At the 7:35 mark, Holiday drove the lane and finished a feathery floater in the paint. After Tyrese Maxey bricked a 3-pointer on the other end, Holiday collected the rebound and sprinted down the court. He calmly rose from beyond the arc from the right wing, and nailed a 26-foot trey to put Indiana ahead 44-34 with 7:21 to play in the half.
Indiana kept Philadelphia at a distance for the remainder of the frame, never letting its lead slip to fewer than eight. Leading 51-43, the Blue & Gold strung together eight consecutive points, including five more from Brogdon, to push their lead to 59-43 with 2:02 to go.
The Pacers held double-digit lead all the way until the final seconds of the half. With 6.6 seconds remaining Ben Simmons drove the length of the court, and finished a reverse layup between two Pacers defenders to trim Indiana's lead to nine before the break.
The mandatory break did little to stop Indiana's momentum. A trio of treys from Jeremy Lamb, Brogdon, and Myles Turner, followed by an and-one finish from Justin Holiday helped stretch the Pacers' lead to 79-64 by the 8:29 mark of the third. Sabonis would add a gritty left-handed layup to push the lead to 17 before Sixers head coach Doc Rivers called a timeout in an attempt to stop the point parade.
In the next run of play, Philadelphia managed to trim Indiana's lead to 85-71 at the 5:08 mark on a jumper from Danny Green. However, the Blue & Gold responded fiercely. A 10-4 Pacers run, including two and-one finished from Sabonis, soon stretched the lead to 20, 95-75, with 1:55 left in the third.
But the Sixers still showed fight, climbing back to cut the lead to 13, 95-82, before time expired. A three from Furkan Korkmaz with 39.7 seconds remaining would be the final bucket of the frame.
The opening minutes of the fourth passed over without much fuss. As the Sixers cut the lead to 97-86 with 10:06 to go, Indiana put together a 7-2 spree, including five from Aaron Holiday, to go up by 16 with 8:16 to play.
But then, the wheels fell off.
It started with eight unanswered Sixers points before Lamb connected on an 11-foot floater in the paint to keep the Pacers lead in double digits (106-96). Little did they know that Lamb's shot would be the last field goal of the game.
Philadelphia then strung together 13 more uncontested points, including back-to-back mid-range jumpers from Furkan Korkmaz that pushed them ahead 109-106. Facing coach Burke's zone defense, Indiana struggled to find any lanes to the paint. The Blue & Gold opted for the long ball, but found no success.
A pair of free throws from Turner stopped the bleeding and cut Philadelphia's lead to 109-108. But Matisse Thybulle responded on the other end with a tough and-one floater to put the Sixers ahead by four with 1:30 to play.
Despite its best efforts, Indiana could not find enough points down the stretch. With the Pacers trailing 113-108, McConnell and Brogdon found just one free throw each on consecutive Pacers' possessions. With 22.1 seconds remaining, Indiana was forced to foul. The Sixers then went 6-of-6 from the line to seal the win.
The Blue & Gold will need to brush this one off quickly as they take on the Memphis Grizzlies just under 48 hours from now.
"It's one game," Brogdon said. "We're not going to overreact. We're not going to be down in the dumps about it. We're going to watch film like we do in any other game. We're going to move on."
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