Indiana Pacers Must Avoid Mistakes In Game Six

The Indiana Pacers were up by as much as 17 points on the Toronto Raptors during game five Tuesday night before an epic collapse. The Pacers ended up losing to the Raptors 102-99.

Raptors fans watched in disgust as the third quarter concluded with the Pacers leading 90-77 over the second-overall team in the Eastern Conference. Pacers All-Star Paul George was making his shots at will, and the Pacers had dominated the Raptors for the first 36 minutes of action Tuesday night.

Then, the Pacers had one of their worst quarters of the entire season.

Head coach Frank Vogel insisted on keeping guard Rodney Stuckey in the game for most of the fourth quarter while many of the starters sat on the bench. The Pacers were outscored 25-9 in the fourth quarter, and were ultimately one-tenth of a second too late on a Solomon Hill three-point attempt that would’ve sent the game into overtime.

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The thing is, the Pacers played like the better team all the way up until the fourth quarter when they suffered their absolute collapse leading to a heartbreaking loss and a 3-2 series lead for the Raptors.

For Pacers fans, this particular loss stings mostly because it could have been prevented had there been some adjustments made by both the players and Vogel during the course of the game.

A few things that could have been prevented during game five that the Pacers need to adjust for game six include:

Rodney Stuckey Must Play Better

It goes without saying that Stuckey’s abysmal play during game five, especially in the fourth quarter, was one of the main reasons as to why Indiana blew such a lead and ultimately gave the game away to the Raptors, and his statistics would reflect of that. Stuckey shot 1-for-10 from the field and had three turnovers in 22 minutes of play Tuesday night. As the anchor of the Pacer’s bench, it is critical that he picks up his play come game six when the Pacers return to Bankers Life Fieldhouse with hopes to force a decisive game seven. If not, the team’s season could end as soon as Friday night.

Vogel Must Ditch The ‘all-bench’ Unit

Time and time again this series have we seen Vogel remove all of the starters with a fairly large lead, only to have the bench unit blow that same lead. The Raptors may not have the amount of playoff experience that the Pacers have, but the Raptors do have the advantage over Indiana in terms of depth. You’d have to think that if you are Vogel, you are making sure that at least Paul George, George Hill or Ian Mahinmi were on the court rather than all three of them sitting on the bench while the secondary unit struggles to maintain a lead and/or score points.

The Team As A Whole Must Produce

It’s not necessarily that George was the only Pacer that was producing during game five on Tuesday, but more so that other key players such as Stuckey failed to get much going for themselves. George torched the Raptors for 39 points, eight rebounds and eight assists Tuesday but had his big night spoiled by the loss. The team failed to get much going from the likes of C.J. Miles and Ty Lawson, which isn’t good news for the Pacers as they can’t expect the same three players to continue to keep carrying the bulk of the load if Indiana wishes to make a first-round upset over Toronto.

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Overall, the Pacers will be playing a Raptors team that will be eager and ready to close out the series come game six. They can’t hope for Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan to have a bad game as they did in game four when the Pacers handled their own at home and tied the series in game four.

Be sure to follow Ink On Indy as we continue our coverage of the first round for the Indiana Pacers.

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