Pacers Squeak By the Bulls

I knew going into this game that it was going to be more difficult than it needed to be. This was the Pacers first game back from a long West coast road-trip and it was the Bulls first game with a new head coach. Fred Hoiberg was fired by the Bulls administration on Monday and former Pacers’ assistant coach Jim Boylen has taken over in the interim. The Pacers started off slow and were down 45-43 at the half. At this point, I was honestly worried about this game. I knew the first game back off of a long road trip is always hard but I was not expecting us to be down at the half. Domantas Sabonis was not hitting shots and it seemed as if Tyreke Evans was missing more layups than I miss when I play at the Rec Center. Thankfully, Myles Turner loves to play the Bulls and Darren Collison broke his season long slump to have the best game of his career. DC scored a season high 23 points and netted 12 of those in a crucial third quarter. He ended with 8 rebounds and 3 assists also, while shooting 3-4 from 3 and 6-7 from the field. Turner ended with 18 points, 11 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 3 assists. He put together what could arguably be his best game of the season.

This is your weekly reminder to be thankful that we have both Sabonis and Turner and that you need to stop trying to get rid of one or the other. They showed tonight and have been showing recently that they can, in fact, coexist on the court together. The Pacers ended up winning this game 96-90 against a Bulls team that had just been given a fresh breath of life with a new head coach. And for your weekly Corey Joseph Cornrows man-bun update, he scored 9 points, shot 50% from the field, 2 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal. He has kept the hair and continues to play like a different player than he did last year.

Now to the not so good for the Pacers last night. They had 18 turnovers but luckily the Bulls also had 18 turnovers. The Pacers are one of the best defensive teams in the league, but they are having problems guarding the three. Before last night’s game, they were 29th in the league guarding the three. They allow opposing teams to shoot 38% from beyond the arc. They did slightly better last night. They were able to hold the Bulls to 35.5% shooting from 3. My biggest issue against the Bulls was Lauri Markkanen. The Pacers let this kid that looks like he is a lanky 14 years old hit 3 after 3 to keep the Bulls in the game. He was playing so well Boylen went over his injury minutes restriction.

In the end the Pacers were victorious. Turner and DC had great games and they are going to have to continue to be with Victor Oladipo out indefinitely. The Pacers are 4-4 without Oladipo, which is a vast improvement over the 0-7 record from last year without him. Playing .500 ball is only going to put them at the bottom of the playoff race and that is not where they want to be when the end of the season comes.