How one run and a Brandon Ingram buzzer beater doomed Indiana Pacers vs Toronto Raptors

How one run and a Brandon Ingram buzzer beater doomed Indiana Pacers vs Toronto Raptors

Another game, another absolutely huge run allowed by the Pacers. Another game, another tight loss for the Pacers. They’re certainly playing better. They’re not playing good enough to win. And what went wrong in Toronto? Who was good? Who wasn’t? We’ll break it all down today on the Locked On Pacers podcast. You are Locked On Pacers, your daily Indiana Pacers podcast, part of the Locked On Network. your team every day. What’s up everybody? Happy Thursday. Happy Thanksgiving if you’re listening and traveling today and welcome in to another edition of the Luck on Pacers podcast where we of course talk about the Indiana Pacers as always. My name’s Tony East. I cover the team for Forbes and Circle City Spin. And today the Pacers lose another one, a tough one, a tight one against the Razers. Brandon Ingram scoring with 6 to go to send this one into the calm of a Pacers loss. Obviously, the Pacers late game play was not where they needed it to be. They were winning with 5 minutes to go, but I don’t really think the end of the game was the story of the game. Neither did anybody watching. The story was another crushing, horrible 12minute run for the Pacers that absolutely cost them in this game. They were better than the Raptors for huge, huge, huge amounts of time in this game and still could not get the win. We’ll talk about it all. The run, the late game, Jarus Walker being great to start this one. McConnell’s resurgence in the second half, the big three. A new lineup that the Pacers are very, very excited about and using quite a bit and so much more. Okay, let’s start with the thing that I also started with for Pacers Pistons on Monday. That that run against Detroit happened very fast, like five and a half minutes fast. And so I spent a lot of time talking about how fast it was and the Pacers were better than the Pistons for a lot of the rest of the game. And I talked about Pacers runs from last year and compared it and you know how fast that one was. This one was not as fast, but was more damaging in volume. The Pistons run was 256, that’s plus 19. This one was 22 to nothing in favor of the Toronto Raptor. The Pacers were playing great until that point. Their defense looked really sharp. The Raptors were off. They were disconnected. The Raptors finished this game with the lowest effective field goal percentage of any team that won a game in the NBA this season. Right. The Pacers defense was better in this game. They were forcing misses. They were great on the glass. their offense was kind of humming and all of a sudden, for some reason, late in the second quarter, they just evaporated into thin air. They forgot what they were doing. This was a game of runs to the extreme. So, let’s let’s run through it and talk about it and talk about why. To me, it’s just a frustrating thing to watch for these for this Pacers team. 4 minutes 22 seconds to go in the second quarter. Ben Matherin scores. 4838 Pacers after he makes that shot. They’re up 10. They had their lead got down to five. They got it back to 10. Look at that. There they go. They’re going to be up at halftime, have good vibes. That’s great. And then Andrew Demard hits a free throw. 29 seconds later, they go up 11. The Pacers did not score any other points at all, including three missed free throws until there was 841 on the clock in the third quarter. That is seven minutes without points. Saka missed two at the line. And then he missed the third and made the fourth of those free throws. They lost by two, by the way. Uh so that was horrible. Over seven minutes of no points. their very next trip, Isaiah Jackson dunks with 811 on the clock, meaning that is over 8 minutes without points. 11 seconds more. So 8 minutes and 11 seconds with no made shots. Their offense just evaporated and they that that happened against the Raptors. And the Raptors offense in this game wasn’t particularly good outside of Brandon Ingram who was awesome and, you know, buried the Pacers late. He had 26 points. Scotty Barnes had 24, but he had a lot of them at the foul line. The Raptors this year have been good in transition. The only thing you can’t do against them is let them run. And getting rebounds and letting them run helped the Raptors at least get some rhythm. I’m not saying they were scoring a lot in transition. They did score twice in this game. Running off of makes right. It felt like the Pacers of two years ago, but they at least upped their tempo just a little bit. That got Jacobe Walter into a rhythm that helped Ingram get going quickly. Was just kind of skating into the paint all the time even though he was really off from the field. And that momentum changed the whole game. So, this is just keeps being a thing for the Pacers. There’s one stretch every game where they are just awful. In fact, with 328 to go in the third quarter, they were down 74 to 62. Down 12. They were down 11 at the end of the 22 run. So, if you want to say from 353 in the second quarter where Nehard made that free throw to put the Pacers up 11 to that 328 mark, that’s 1225 of the game. That is 3614 Raptors and a 22 run is baked in there. So, it’s 1414 for the rest of that time. Okay. So that’s again about a quarter 25 seconds more than one quarter of the game. The Raptors were plus 22. The Raptors won by two on a buzzer beater. That means for 35 and a half minutes of this game, the Pacers on the road against a team that had won eight in a row uh were 20 points better than the Raptors. Nearly a point per every other minute. They were awesome for large swaths of this game. And they were just so so so awful in that one other stretch that they lost. the same thing happening against Detroit. They’re plus 14 for like 40 minutes, 42 minutes against Detroit and minus 19 in like that. And this isn’t to say that they’re playing awesome. These stretches happen consistently. This is a flaw of the Pacers. And my theory about this is the same thing when if you go back I talked about so a lot of times this season for the Pacers, these runs have been happening in the third quarter. Half of it was in the third quarter tonight. Half of it was in the second quarter and it was in the second quarter against Detroit on Monday. My theory about it happening in third quarters when I talked about the Pacers letting these games get away on their road trip and such was when the Pacers start to feel their grip on a game slip and change for a team that’s so identity and ecosystem focused and this is I think this is a natural human thing. You feel like things aren’t going your way and your natural instinct is well I need to this is what we’re doing isn’t working. I need to do something different or we all need to do something different to get out of this. And so guys start to think about individual successes, what they should do to break up what’s happening instead of sticking with the thing that especially recently has them ahead or got them the lead in the first place. And tonight they got back to it. They took the lead back. They were winning with five minutes to go. That’s all great, but for just moments of the game they can’t get their flow back. And it’s not like that, you know, in in the Detroit game it was 25 to6 run. If tonight’s game was six points in eight minutes, which is still just terrible, they win, right? They they go from knowing what they’re doing and playing okay and they’re right in it or they’re winning in a lot of these games to just like did what is happening like are the is it these guys’ first day in the NBA? Do they know each other? And that’s so harsh to say because they’re clearly all good. This team can have and has had long stretches of success, but they don’t for long stretches every game. And that is why I think is so painful to this team. So another run cost them. And this one had a Pacers 100 run at one point late first quarter, early second, which is rare for them. Um and another run late to get it obviously back in the lead. Like this was a very extreme game of runs. The Pacers had their own. They haven’t for much of this season had their own runs. They did in this game and it was just dreadful how bad they were in that this 122 run. And I go back to what Seakum said after the Detroit game, which is what makes this so challenging specifically for the Pacers and the Pacers players is that when you lose because of a run like that, it’s it’s honestly a little more painful. One, because you lost a close game, but two, because you know you are capable of not that, right? It’s so this was the case for last year’s Pacers that started 10 and 15. when you know you have high highs. And for this game for the Pacers, they’re playing the team with the second best record in the East and they were 20 points better than them for 35 minutes. That’s a high high. That’s a good level of basketball for a long time. And then instead of continuing even a semblance of that level for the other 12 minutes of the game, you just do nothing resembling strong play or good play at all for however amount of time. That has to be so frustrating because you know you’re better than that. This isn’t like like the road trip that they went on that was just awful and I kept doing the stats about like how awful they had been in four game stretches and all this stuff. You know that was a little more helpless where it’s like okay they’re not actually that good so bad stretches shouldn’t be expected. They’ve been playing good of late. Like since Matherin came back they’ve been very competitive. They lost by 15 in Detroit but were like within seven in the fourth quarter. They beat Charlotte tight with Detroit tight with Toronto. This is all kind of danging with faint praise because they’ve lost all these games. But clearly anyone who’s been watching them can see Cleveland. They were within single digits in the fourth quarter. Competitive, more competitive. But they can’t win. And they keep h third quarter in Cleveland, Detroit game, second quarter, this game, this one stretch. They keep having one super super costly run that gives the game away. And they did it again tonight. And I think if they could just make that go from completely destructive to like minorly problematic, it would go such a such a long way for this team. They’ve got to figure this problem out. I asked about it after the last game. Guys all had their theories on why these runs are happening. It happened again. It cost them. And so did the last possession, the last two possessions. Pacers tied with the ball 9595. What happened late? Why did the Raptors win it there? We’ll get to notes on McConnell and Walker and then we’ll empty the notebook late as the Pacers lose another tight one. It’s all coming up here on Lockdown Pacers. But first, everybody, let me tell you about the great folks over at FanDuel. The NBA is back. The NBA has been rolling for over a month now, and there’s no better place for you to get in on the action than with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of a game or you want to ride the hot hand for the Pacers, that’s been their opponent for about 10 minutes of every game. FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks like the Pacers had in this game and so much more. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. Keeps every game exciting, especially when your team is the one making that late push. So, right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So, head to fanduel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. We are back here on Lockdown Pacers. Thanks for making us your first listen today and every single day. And you every day who listen every single day, you’re the best. Thank you so much. I keep getting the comment about, “Oh, it’s got to be so hard to do this this season.” It does not. It’s very fun. I love doing this. I love watching these games and talking about this team. And I couldn’t do it without you guys listening every day to Lockdown Pacers on the number one sports podcast network in the world. Make lockdown Raptors your second listen. Sean Woodley will talk about the Raptors who are quite good emerging in a game where they played quite poorly with the win. That’s what great teams do. I was high on the Raptors coming into the season. I feel good about that. Even though they played largely pretty bad in this game against the Pacers, you know, didn’t stink Brandon Ingram who hit the gamewinner. He was 11 for 23. The Pacers I I have my own theory on their change of the starting lineup for this game, but I think a big part of it was Ben Shepard stunk guarding Brandon Ingram last time these teams played that needed to put different guys on him and Seakum was giving him trouble until the last shot. Ingram creates space, very calm, like one of the most calm game-winning shots I’ve seen in a while. Steps back for a midi with 6 to go to put this one away. Matherin actually gets a three up in that final 6. So, the Pacers are tied. Ingram scores with 221 to go to give Raptors 95. The Raptors do not score again until that last shot. The Pacers gave themselves chances. TJ McConnell tied it with 133 to go. He had the exact same shot with 56 seconds to go for the lead. Couldn’t get it. They stop quickly and get a rebound with 38 seconds to go. Honestly, the the last five minutes were very back and forth. I said the Pacers were winning. They’re up 90 to 88. It’s not like or 9086. I 987. I can’t quite remember. Regardless, it was very close and back and forth the whole time. It’s not like they gave up some massive lead and choked or anything. They they lost like they didn’t whatever. You get what I’m saying. But they had chances to take the lead twice. And once was a McConnell shot that he had just made and I think everybody thought he could make it again. He was terrific in the second half of this game. Then let’s talk about the last two plays because I saw a lot of discussion about them online. One is the Pacers play with 15 seconds to go was when the shot went up. Um so Pascalakam’s got it. He’s being guarded. He’s he turns around to set up a shot for himself and Brandon Ingram is guarding Andrew Nehart. Andrew Nehart so is on the left wing. So Nemhart or excuse me, Sakcom is backing down his man kind of at the free throw line, maybe a little bit to the left side of the free throw line. And Brandon’s pretty close to him. Brad Ingram sneaks over and says, “Pascal Seakum, you are not spinning over your right shoulder.” And then going to the cup and Seakum sees him and he’s slow and he’s slow and then he spins around his defender. Great move by Seaakob. He gets a little bit of an opening. It looks like he’s got a shot at a gamewinner. Yakob Purle, good rim protector, slides over from the weak side and blocks it to get the Raptors the ball back. So, I get the move from Sakov. It looked like for a second he created an open shot and then it was blocked. A lot of the discussion of the play was, well, why didn’t he pass it to Andrew Nehard? And that’s so easy to say in hindsight when a shot gets blocked. I think that when he had his back to the basket at the free throw line, throwing it to Nhard creates no advantage. Brandon Ingram would take one step and he’s right on him. And then after the spin move, Ingram actually turns and faces Seakum at the basket. Then if he had passed it to Nehard, sure, yes, Nhard probably would have had a half step advantage or space for a shot, but that’s a hard pass. He’s going full speed toward the basket. His vision probably can’t even see Andrew Mhard. You can call that a critique of Siakum that he couldn’t see or do that that pass, but it’s hard. I I I guess you could say that obviously he got blocked. Like he did not make a great play, but I I so I guess you could say that he should have done something else, but I don’t think that that specific critique, which is the one I’ve seen the most, actually is correct. If anything, more patience after the spin move, is what was required to see how Purle was rotating. Could he have got it to huff? Could he have got it to the corner? What else was there? But I didn’t think it was a horrible shot in the moment and then it got blocked. I was very impressed with Purle. And on the other end, Ingram, who had just missed a 15-footer the play before that and a 17footer the play before that, or excuse me, two plays before that with a quickly miss in the middle. Um, you know, Takum was defending him. Okay. And on this one, he stays with him pretty well, but Ingram just very calmly drills it. You just kind of tip your cap on that kind of shot. But the Pacers had a chance to do a little bit more with their possession before that. They would have I think Seakum would like to have it back knowing that Purle could get down there, but alas, that’s not how this works. You have one chance at it. They didn’t get it. They only score um the two points in the final two minutes and whatever of the game. Yeah, they got to 93 with 240 to go. So, only two points in the final 240 for the Pacers. Just another long run and another heartbreaker, right? Like we could go over this over and over and over again, but you know that like um this is their fourth time this has happened. O the Oklahoma City game, the Pacers made their own impressive shots. I think they tied at the end of regulation in OT, but obviously a shot in the final 30 seconds of those games twice or that game twice made the Pacers not win. And then in Dallas, Aaron Eith misses a three at the buzzer and then Giannis hits a shot at the buzzer and now this Ingram shot. I mean, the Pacers being six and whatever that would be, six and 12, which is still a terrible record to be clear, is like is like the smallest possible margin, like literally the smallest possible margin for a four-game difference. One play in all those games flips and the Pacers win them. But guess what? That doesn’t matter. They’ve got to perform better in these clutch games they did against Golden State. It’s in them. It did not happen for them today. I literally have in my notes like the next stop probably has to be on Brandon Ingram. Once he starts to miss, they have a chance to win. and he missed it on the next possession, but wasn’t there for the Pacers tonight. They did not quite get it done late. Two guys I want to highlight before we um empty the notebook kind of generically about the game and some other stuff that I thought was noteworthy. Uh one is Jarus Walker who was once again on the right side of the the good versus bad scale. 13 points for Jarus Walker. Uh nine rebounds, two assists, two steals, and a block. Three turnovers obviously his worst thing in this game. That was a huge issue for the Pacers by the way. I don’t have that in my notes because it was just like no one turnover was so like oh my gosh I have to work this in. But the Pacers ended this game with 18 turnovers and a bunch of those coming in the first half. But Jarus Walker was very very good early in this game. 11 first quarter points I believe. Only two the rest of the way to be clear and eight rebounds in the first or the first half, excuse me. He had 11 points and eight rebounds. Really really really good start from him. He’s finally kind of turned a corner and found a groove in a way that he just absolutely hadn’t earlier in the season. He was awful on that road trip. More turnovers than made shots over a 4-ame stretch. He had a 12game sample where he didn’t even shoot 50% from the field a single time and he didn’t shoot 50% in this game. He shot four for nine, which is one below that. But three of his last five games at 50% or better. Obviously, the game before this was fantastic. He finally feels like he has offensive rhythm. He’s making and taking catch and shoot threes. He’s moving it. Okay. Right. He just seems way more confident. We’ll see if this continues to be a thing because he had some low moments in this game as well. But I I I just wrote about him, so I have his stats just like easily on the brain. And him starting the game well, continues to stretch for Jarus Walker where it’s like, okay, there he is. This is the guy they hope he can be catch and shoot in rhythm, be a be a finisher of the offense because he’s not going to be a crater for this team, right? It just hasn’t really happened. He had a turnover on that swim move dribble that he was really frustrated about. He had a bad pass in there as well, but largely a really good game, especially in the first half from Jarus Walker, but his second half was meh. Uh the opposite end of the spectrum was TJ McConnell, right? Second, oh man, the box scores just tweaking like crazy on NBA.com. I cannot tell you the half breakdowns of TJ McConnell stats. TJ McConnell finishes with 16 points, seven boards, six assists, two turnovers. He was awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome in the second half of this game. Him and Jarus really flipped because McConnell was terrible early. He comes in for his first stint and the Raptors, this is a he I’ve never seen him guarded like this. He would so he very often when he’s out there without a point guard and he doesn’t have the ball, the other team just does not guard him, right? We can we all talked about that a million times, the spacing issues that that can provide, what it means for the Pacers. This game, the Raptors, even when he did have the ball, we’re like, “Whatever, go ahead, shoot.” And he was just he would take it up and like just stare at whoever. And it was often wingsized players like quickly very rarely guarded him. and everybody else on the Raptors is at least somewhat sizable uh besides Jamal Shad I suppose. So he was very often looking at a bigger defender not guarding him at all. So he takes three threes very early after subbing in the game. Missed all of them and had an ugly ugly turnover. He wasn’t being guarded at all and very often not by a guard. And in the second half he figured out exactly what it would take to beat that kind of coverage and just ripped up the Raptors. They brought him in for crunch time. 24 minutes a lot for McConnell at this stage of his career, especially for a two-6 team, but he was very, very good in the second half and uh he’s been much better, much better in the last couple games for the Pacers. He got enough time off to really recover and I think that that’s allowed him to be playing more like himself. So, the tail two halves for those two guys, but I thought they were both the most kind of atypical from their standard level this season or did something that of course deserved longer discussion. A lot of guys were good at other pockets of the game. McConnell, by the way, the Pacers leading scoreer in this one. A lot of guys were are good, excuse me, in other pockets of this game. Another lineup that you need to keep an eye on for the Pacers. Let’s empty the notebook to close out today. Locked on Pacers. But first, everybody got to tell you about Door Dash. The NBA season is heating up and Door Dash has found the perfect way to keep fans in their bag all season long. Whether you’re watching for the highlights, your fantasy team, or just your favorite player or team, Door Dash makes every game night even better. They’re the official on demand delivery platform at the NBA. And they’re celebrating with something called the bag drop. Every time an NBA player scores 50 points in a game, Door Dash drops 50% off your order with Dash Pass the next day. And you’re automatically entered for a chance to win the ultimate fan bag with player inspired drip exclusive gear. Stuff you actually want. It’s not just food you can get on Door Dash. 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Okay, lots to get to from this game. Ben Matherin was kind of tail of two havsy. Not quite as much as Walker and McConnell to me. Like he had a tough miss layup early after a missed shot that he can totally make. He was really good getting the shots he’s capable of early in the game. He just couldn’t make them. And he really turned his game around. 15 points on 15 shots for him. didn’t get to the fon as much, but made four threes. He was huge, huge scoring in the second half. 10 of his points coming across the third and fourth quarters as the Pacers surged back into it. Um, so you could tell that an emergence was coming from him because he was missing shots. It’s like not even like, oh, that was tough, but he missed it. Like stuff that, oh, Ben Minan always makes that. And he had my favorite pass of the season that might have actually been a shot where he lobbed it in. I think it was a pass given the technique he used to throw it for one of his three assists. was passing pretty well this game to get it to Jay Huff at the basket for a finish. He was just terrific in the fourth quarter and that was a big part of it. Uh let’s talk about a couple guys. Uh Andrew Nemhard was passing terrifically in this game. A gorgeous one to Jeremiah Robinson on a cut when Nemhard saw two defenders. He had a couple other great passes in traffic throughout the game, but only four assists because the Pacers shot not great on jumpers and things of that nature. And Nemhard two for 10 in his return to Canada. He needed to make more shots, but his passing was quite tidy. His defense was quite good, but if you make shots, they win the game. He’s had two off nights in a row, I believe. He’s six for 24 across the Pacers last two games. Jay Huff uh had Grady Dick on him at one point in the first quarter and just spaced out to the corner. Didn’t even go for a post up. Um that was very interesting to me because he has been really really more really really more effective. That’s a bad sentence. Much more effective for the Pacers of late. They figured out how to use him. Three blocks again, six rebounds. He was pretty solid in this game. But those kind of plays where it’s like, eh, he’s got to be more assertive. He’s got to try to find a way to get this one going because when he was on the basket on defense, he was once again great. The Raptors really struggled in the paint. I thought that Jay Huff was a big part of that. The Pacers general defense and protection of the rim was very good. By the way, of very small notes in this game, Tony Bradley DNP Pacers only played two centers in this game for I believe the first time all season. Fitting the day after Ben Gibson and I talk about the center by committee approach. not a committee in this game, a standard normal uh rotation. Isaiah Jackson had some helpful speed moments in this game. He’s just infatimally faster than Yakob Purle. That opened up a lot of the floor. Three blocks, three assists, two rebounds for Jackson, but three turnovers, three fouls, the ugly moving screen that he gets every game now. He’s got to find a way to get that out of what he’s doing. Let’s talk about Pascal Yakum. Actually, a couple two other guys to talk about and then I want to talk about the lineup the Pacers keep going to. Uh, Siakum eh I would say in in this game he finishes with 11 points. That’s very low for him on 10 shots, four rebounds, two assists, two steals, but three turnovers. You just didn’t really feel him at all like in the way you normally can. And the reason for that was kind of obvious. Foul trouble. He had four fouls in the first half, five by the end of the game. That allowed the Raptors to kind of go at him and have Ingram pick him as the guy that they would go at. Seakum’s a good defender, but they just really went at him. And it felt like at times in this game, I felt this way about Matherin at moments and Nhard. That’s, you know, a guy who used to play for the Raptors and two Canadians, but they played okay. It just felt like at times they were really forcing it or really going for it in a way that can work. They’re studs, but was like too much for what the game needed of them at that moment. In a way that you just hope if you’re the Pacers, they dial it in just a little bit. Ben Shepard, he did it two times. Two threes for Ben Shepard. Eight points on three of six from the field. Five rebounds. There he is. Ben Shepard plus 25. The island is thriving. We’re having a party tonight. We have gotten some resources on Ben Shepard Island. We probably should be rationing them and saving them for a long winter, but we are partying tonight. Ben Shepard was good in this game where Carl turned to him quite often because he was good in this game. He plays more than Jarus Walker. He plays much more than Isaiah Jackson. Deserved minutes for Ben Shepard who not only made shots but actually did some stuff on defense in this game after being just kind not useless. He was okay against quickly but very ineffective defensively. The first time that we got Pacers versus Raptors this season. Okay, last thing to get to before I just talk about the game kind of generically. Again, the Pacers are loving this lineup. I think we’ve seen it in the fourth quarter in three straight games. Huff and McConnell around their big three. So, this is a lot of stuff that is similar to last year. I would say as close as they can get in that they have two point guards, they have their and their big three, but they have two point guards and they have Seakkum and they have shootering and they have enough defense and it’s just really been working in a way that is productive. Uh that group entering this game was plus six in its fourish minutes. That’s not very much, but they’ve turned to it several games in a row. Uh and then in this game, for some reason, my live stats, why did I close this? Um, I’ll pull up the live stats for their lineup as I that lineup as I talk about it. But that group continues to look good. It’s got enough spacing. It’s got enough ball handling. It’s got enough defense to really work in a way that I think is meaningful for the Pacers. I think that’s been their best crunch time five uh a lot recently in a way that uh is very important. 4 minutes and 22 seconds for that group today. Pacers uh in their nine eight possessions. Oh, no. Nine nine defensive possessions only gave up six points with that group. They struggled to score a little bit, but you can tell they really really like that quartet and I think they’re going to continue to turn to it because it’s been very productive. I They did lose their minutes by two today, but uh it’s been working and it’s something that certainly they’ll keep going to. Just generically on this game, I thought the Pacers rebounding and connectivity in their best stretches were really good in this game. They were scooping up a lot of boards early. They they lose the rebounding battle in the end. That was a big part of the Raptors turning it around. They got going on the offensive glass uh at times in this game because the Pacers defense was pretty good, but the Raptors were missing shots once they scooped up some of those misses of capable shots that they could make. It really turned things around because the Pacers were keeping the Raptors out of the restricted area very well. Only four shots in the restricted area in that first quarter for the Pacers. Once that ramped up, the Raptors got more rebounds, were just more forceful, but the Pacers defense was a lot better. They limited the Raptors from getting line drives to the basket and more so just medium drives. Uh but they were up nine and playing well early and then it all kind of fell apart for them on defense. But the rebounding was worse in the second half. Um a couple other things that I think the Pacers would like to have back from this game. Uh two of them actually. One two buckets they gave up off of makes. Uh Scotty Barnes with a layup after Seakum scored. That was Seakum’s man. So you can maybe forgive him specifically because Seakum scored in the lane, but somebody had to pick him up. Nobody did. Easy basket for Scotty Barnes. And they got a corner three from Jacobe Walter off of a made Nemh hard free throw. That’s five points on transition off of makes. The Raptors love to run, but five points and a two-point win. Very, very, very crucial basket. And the other thing the Pacers will be kicking themselves for in a two-point loss, 14 for 23 at the foul line. I’m sure many of you have been screaming at me to say that for the 20 whatever minutes that this podcast has been going on, but the bench provided a lift. They’ve been solid two games in a row. Uh the Pacers had some defensive successes in this game. They got some shot making from role players who haven’t been making shots, some progress in many ways. They give up 97 points and they still lose. Their offense wasn’t enough. The turnovers were too high. The missed free throws weren’t too much. The crunch time was awful. The 22 run did them. They are two and 16. They’re playing better of late, so that record sounds rough, but that’s what they are. That’s what they have been. They’ll try to get a win against the other two- win team in the NBA Friday. They play the Wizards in that game. We’ll talk a little bit about the context of their record tomorrow ahead of that game. We’ll talk a little bit about a report about a trade target tomorrow. Kevin Pritchard is talking, but right now, Pacers worst record in the NBA. Wizards are two and 15. Everyone else has three or more wins. Back tomorrow talking more Pacers. You can find me on social media at Tony AR and this podcast lockdown pacers. Thank you all so much for listening. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I will see you very soon.

The Indiana Pacers were better against the Toronto Raptors, but one 22-0 Raptors run and a Brandon Ingram buzzer beater were the difference. What went wrong for the Pacers? Who shined and didn’t? Host Tony East breaks it all down.

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