2016-2017 Indiana Pacers season (and the rest of the NBA)

[2006Coltsbestever]

1 minute ago, RockThatBlue said:

Who do you guys blame for the Pacers struggling? Bird or McMillan? Or both?

I think it's McMillan, the team doesn't seem to play hard for him on a nightly basis. IMO, Bird is starting to see this, at least I would think so.

[RockThatBlue]

6 minutes ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

I think it's McMillan, the team doesn't seem to play hard for him on a nightly basis. IMO, Bird is starting to see this, at least I would think so.

Same here. This roster isn't perfect, but to say the coaching has been bad is an understatement at this point. Especially defensively, its ugly.

[oldunclemark]

10 minutes ago, RockThatBlue said:

Who do you guys blame for the Pacers struggling? Bird or McMillan? Or both?

Neither....

I think we were destined to struggle when we made so many changes.

Seemed like we were launching a week ago but then we fizzled out 3 games in a row..

Wouldn't mind if we traded one of our guards to Cleveland for one of their shooters

 

But I still think  this team is going to finish with 45-50 wins

 

[2006Coltsbestever]

4 minutes ago, oldunclemark said:

Neither....

I think we were destined to struggle when we made so many changes.

Seemed like we were launching a week ago but then we fizzled out 3 games in a row..

Wouldn't mind if we traded one of our guards to Cleveland for one of their shooters

 

But I still think  this team is going to finish with 45-50 wins

 

We will be lucky to finish 41-41 IMO but I hope you are right regarding the wins.

[oldunclemark]

we've got the Nets, Orlando and Detroit next week...

...we'll get back over .500

 

///We have too many good veteran players not to win more than we lose.

Just have to keep playing....and adjusting to each other

[RockThatBlue]

Turner vs Towns is a fun match up. Two young guns that'll be going at it for many years.

[RockThatBlue]

Nice to see us beat a bad team. Wasn't a pretty win but a W is a W.

 

Wish we could see PG go off like this more.

 

And man, the Timberwolves have a hell of a player in Towns. 

[Bluefire4]

2 hours ago, oldunclemark said:

we've got the Nets, Orlando and Detroit next week...

...we'll get back over .500

 

///We have too many good veteran players not to win more than we lose.

Just have to keep playing....and adjusting to each other

And we also have a stretch in early February where we play the Cavs twice, the Wizards twice, the Bucks (gave us huge problems game one), the Spurs and the Thunder. Will not be pretty if we play the way we've been playing.

[Bluefire4]

We needed this win tonight. Still have problems though. Need to get to the free throw line more as a team especially when we are in the bottom 5 at 3 pointers attempted. Can't be bad at both and expect to beat good teams.

[2006Coltsbestever]

Nice win tonight, Paul George kicked Butt tonight! So did Turner. Much needed win.

[MTC]

3 hours ago, RockThatBlue said:

Who do you guys blame for the Pacers struggling? Bird or McMillan? Or both?

 

Mixture of both. Larry Bird did not build a good bench. McMillan just isn't a good coach.

[MTC]

Good to see our three best players (PG, Turner, and Teague) perform well tonight to help us win.

[oldunclemark]

Nice road win.

 

Yeah, I know the T-Wolves are better than the Lakers, who beat us by 200 points.

I cant explain it ether

[oldunclemark]

3 hours ago, Bluefire4 said:

And we also have a stretch in early February where we play the Cavs twice, the Wizards twice, the Bucks (gave us huge problems game one), the Spurs and the Thunder. Will not be pretty if we play the way we've been playing.

Bucks aren't playing well now....Cavs have lost 6 of 8..Thunder have one guy

 

But if you've watched us, I know..we know....whether we win or lose doenst have much to do with the caliber of the team we're playing

[oldunclemark]

3 hours ago, Bluefire4 said:

We needed this win tonight. Still have problems though. Need to get to the free throw line more as a team especially when we are in the bottom 5 at 3 pointers attempted. Can't be bad at both and expect to beat good teams.

Cant down value road wins ..

Every loss seems to mean the coach should fired...bench should be traded and Larry should be put in a 'home'

When we win, its 'Okay, well. we should win...we'll be losing again soon!!!"  .............

 

I'm still preaching patience....

[2006Coltsbestever]

For you Basketball junkies here is a list of the greatest players ever by True Position. Choose your starting 5 and roster of 12: I listed 7 players at each position, have fun with it.

PG's

Magic Johnson

Oscar Robertson

Isiah Thomas

John Stockton

Bob Cousy

Allen Iverson

Steph Curry

 

SG's

Michael Jordan

Kobe Bryant

Jerry West

John Havlicek SG/SF

Dwyane Wade

Clyde Drexler

Reggie Miller

 

 

SF's

Larry Bird

LeBron James

Elgin Baylor

Julius Irving

Kevin Durant

James Worthy

Rick Barry

 

 

PF's

Tim Duncan PF/C

Karl Malone

Charles Barkley

Dirk Nowitzki

Bob Pettit

Kevin McHale

Elvin Hayes

 

Centers

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Wilt Chamberlain

Bill Russell

Shaq O'Neal

Hakeem Olajuwon

Moses Malone

George Mikan

 

 

 

 

 

[oldunclemark]

2 hours ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

For you Basketball junkies here is a list of the greatest players ever by True Position. Choose your starting 5 and roster of 12: I listed 7 players at each position, have fun with it.

PG's

Magic Johnson

Oscar Robertson

Isiah Thomas

John Stockton

Bob Cousy

Allen Iverson

Steph Curry

 

SG's

Michael Jordan

Kobe Bryant

Jerry West

John Havlicek SG/SF

Dwyane Wade

Clyde Drexler

Reggie Miller

 

 

SF's

Larry Bird

LeBron James

Elgin Baylor

Julius Irving

Kevin Durant

James Worthy

Rick Barry

 

 

PF's

Tim Duncan PF/C

Karl Malone

Charles Barkley

Dirk Nowitzki

Bob Pettit

Kevin McHale

Elvin Hayes

 

Centers

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Wilt Chamberlain

Bill Russell

Shaq O'Neal

Hakeem Olajuwon

Moses Malone

George Mikan

 

 

 

 

 

Good list.

Tim Duncan almost always played center. I think people WANT to call hima pwier forward so they can say he's the best ever at his position.

Tim didn't play power forward......Karl Malone did. Bob Pettit did...Maurice Lucas did. Kevin McHale did

 

 

Wilt is the center. Set unbreakable records. Might have been the premier athlete of the 20th Century.

If you want to knock him saying he is playing against players 4 inches shorter every night.

ask yourself, what size players is Kevin Durant playing against.evey night?

 

Karl Malone was the dominant PF of his time  but LeBron is better but, as you say, LeBron is a natural small forward..

 

The guards are Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan..Oscar was a better shooter than Magic and was a good defender in his early days. he was also big and strong enough to break the holding they could do back then.

Michael probably wasnt the athlete Wilt was...but he was a significantly better player than  Russell Westbrook and Westbrook is the 2017 MVP, the dominant player of this season.

[Bluefire4]

3 hours ago, oldunclemark said:

Cant down value road wins ..

Every loss seems to mean the coach should fired...bench should be traded and Larry should be put in a 'home'

When we win, its 'Okay, well. we should win...we'll be losing again soon!!!"  .............

 

I'm still preaching patience....

I'm not one of the people calling for the coaches job or for any trades to happen. I just expected to be better. Other teams that add major pieces are usually playing well together after 30 or so games. Not over halfway through the season using the same excuses.

 

We can't be still "preaching patience" after the all star break or we will be a worse record than last year which is unacceptable. There is a reason why many had us as a top 4 seed this year.

[oldunclemark]

6 minutes ago, Bluefire4 said:

I'm not one of the people calling for the coaches job or for any trades to happen. I just expected to be better. Other teams that add major pieces are usually playing well together after 30 or so games. Not over halfway through the season using the same excuses.

 

We can't be still "preaching patience" after the all star break or we will be a worse record than last year which is unacceptable. There is a reason why many had us as a top 4 seed this year.

We can be preaching patience until we cant make the playoffs anymore.

That's al that matters

Other teams that add major pieces..??  That's not us.

We have players who played on 5 different teams last year and we expect them to blend in the ultimate team sport without practicing (you mostly play games) during the year

 

Why is a .500 record unacceptable at midseason?....Why did you expect it all to work by mid-season?

Look around the East.......is everybody better off than us?

You must notice here that when we lose....its unacceptable...and when we win...

its" So?, we beat a bad team. we wont beat good teams."

 

all I'm asking to treat wins with some of the same overreaction that we do with losses..

[BigQandTheManiac]

Teague just can't seem to get that triple double. So close so many times.

[BullsColtsFan1]

15 hours ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

The 80's was my favorite decade for BBall eventhough the Pacers were never a threat to win it all. Magic vs Bird was always fun to watch. I just thought the players were so great back then and it continued into the 90's. Last truly great team was probably the 3-peat Lakers back in 2002 because they had Kobe and Shaq, Coached by Phil. The recent Heat teams would've got mauled by those guys IMO. Kobe takes Wade out of the equation and Shaq would've just destroyed them, Roy Hibbert ruled the paint against them . LeBron would've done good against them but Robert Horry was even more clutch than he was.

I completely agree!

[BullsColtsFan1]

9 hours ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

For you Basketball junkies here is a list of the greatest players ever by True Position. Choose your starting 5 and roster of 12: I listed 7 players at each position, have fun with it.

PG's

Magic Johnson

Oscar Robertson

Isiah Thomas

John Stockton

Bob Cousy

Allen Iverson

Steph Curry

 

SG's

Michael Jordan

Kobe Bryant

Jerry West

John Havlicek SG/SF

Dwyane Wade

Clyde Drexler

Reggie Miller

 

 

SF's

Larry Bird

LeBron James

Elgin Baylor

Julius Irving

Kevin Durant

James Worthy

Rick Barry

 

 

PF's

Tim Duncan PF/C

Karl Malone

Charles Barkley

Dirk Nowitzki

Bob Pettit

Kevin McHale

Elvin Hayes

 

Centers

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Wilt Chamberlain

Bill Russell

Shaq O'Neal

Hakeem Olajuwon

Moses Malone

George Mikan

 

 

 

 

 

My best starting 5 would be these guys

 

Magic(Big O a close 2nd)

MJ (Kobe right behind)

Bird (LeBron right behind)

Duncan (Malone maybe even Dirk?)

Wilt (Shaq and Kareem right behind)

[Bluefire4]

8 hours ago, oldunclemark said:

We can be preaching patience until we cant make the playoffs anymore.

That's al that matters

Other teams that add major pieces..??  That's not us.

We have players who played on 5 different teams last year and we expect them to blend in the ultimate team sport without practicing (you mostly play games) during the year

 

Why is a .500 record unacceptable at midseason?....Why did you expect it all to work by mid-season?

Look around the East.......is everybody better off than us?

You must notice here that when we lose....its unacceptable...and when we win...

its" So?, we beat a bad team. we wont beat good teams."

 

all I'm asking to treat wins with some of the same overreaction that we do with losses..

I will not treat wins the same as losses when we beat bad teams. That sounds dumb. I'm not going to be excited that we beat the Timberwolves but I will be annoyed that we were destroyed by the Lakers who lost 7 of 8 (their one win against us).

 

You are acting like we never practice. They had all summer. Most of the team was practicing together in June. They have had more than enough time now to start playing well together. PG even said after 15 games that they needed to start getting it together then.

 

We made the offseason moves to win now and we should be. We could look up next season and lose Teague and PG could leave the year after.

 

I just need to see how we handle this stretch in February because the East is struggling right now but they have played a much tougher schedule than we have. Early February will prove how good of a team we are.

[21isSuperman]

21 hours ago, RockThatBlue said:

Who do you guys blame for the Pacers struggling? Bird or McMillan? Or both?

McMillan first, Bird second for giving McMillan the reigns.  Bird did his job and made this team more talented this year than last.  The coach hasn't shown the ability to bring the talent together.  The only thing I fault Bird for is giving McMillan the head coaching position when Vogel would have been the better candidate, though Vogel wasn't necessarily the best fit for what Bird wanted.  Looking back, I wish we had hired D'Antoni, even though I was skeptical of him

[21isSuperman]

14 hours ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

For you Basketball junkies here is a list of the greatest players ever by True Position. Choose your starting 5 and roster of 12: I listed 7 players at each position, have fun with it.

PG's

Magic Johnson

Oscar Robertson

Isiah Thomas

John Stockton

Bob Cousy

Allen Iverson

Steph Curry

 

SG's

Michael Jordan

Kobe Bryant

Jerry West

John Havlicek SG/SF

Dwyane Wade

Clyde Drexler

Reggie Miller

 

 

SF's

Larry Bird

LeBron James

Elgin Baylor

Julius Irving

Kevin Durant

James Worthy

Rick Barry

 

 

PF's

Tim Duncan PF/C

Karl Malone

Charles Barkley

Dirk Nowitzki

Bob Pettit

Kevin McHale

Elvin Hayes

 

Centers

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Wilt Chamberlain

Bill Russell

Shaq O'Neal

Hakeem Olajuwon

Moses Malone

George Mikan

 

 

PG: Magic, the Big O

SG: Jordan, Kobe, and I'd move Allen Iverson to this spot.  I'd rather my PG be pass-first

SF: Bird, James

PF: Duncan, Barkley, Nowitzki

C: Shaq, Russell

[RockThatBlue]

Pacers really have to beat the Kings tonight. It should be almost a gimme win as the Kings are terrible, but you just don't know with the Pacers. As good as we played last night, we could play just as terrible tonight. 

[MTC]

Nice steal + dunk by GR3.

[RockThatBlue]

The defense is a joke. Its an abomination to watch. GUARD SOMEBODY!

[Bluefire4]

Nobody cares right now. Their guards and Cousins are killing us. Only thing keeping us in it is ball control. 

 

Then they'll play like this and PG will get mad again that the fans were booing... like clearly you want to be booed with that first half performance.

[MTC]

13 minutes ago, RockThatBlue said:

The defense is a joke. Its an abomination to watch. GUARD SOMEBODY!

 

Bad coaching.

[MTC]

#FireMcMillan

[RockThatBlue]

I'll be disappointed if Bird doesn't make a move soon. It almost has to happen.

[MTC]

Paul George's ball handling is awful.

[Bluefire4]

35 minutes ago, MTC said:

Paul George's ball handling is awful.

Always has been. That's why he rarely drives.

[MTC]

Overtime in Bankers Life Fieldhouse. 

[Bluefire4]

That's our ball no question.

[MTC]

Ugly win. But isn't that what the Pacers are about?

[RockThatBlue]

Thank goodness the Kings didn't have Rudy gay.

[2006Coltsbestever]

It looked ugly early, I had some running around to do and didn't even catch the 2nd Half. I am shocked to see that we won because it looked over at Halftime.

[2006Coltsbestever]

17 hours ago, oldunclemark said:

Good list.

Tim Duncan almost always played center. I think people WANT to call hima pwier forward so they can say he's the best ever at his position.

Tim didn't play power forward......Karl Malone did. Bob Pettit did...Maurice Lucas did. Kevin McHale did

 

 

Wilt is the center. Set unbreakable records. Might have been the premier athlete of the 20th Century.

If you want to knock him saying he is playing against players 4 inches shorter every night.

ask yourself, what size players is Kevin Durant playing against.evey night?

 

Karl Malone was the dominant PF of his time  but LeBron is better but, as you say, LeBron is a natural small forward..

 

The guards are Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan..Oscar was a better shooter than Magic and was a good defender in his early days. he was also big and strong enough to break the holding they could do back then.

Michael probably wasnt the athlete Wilt was...but he was a significantly better player than  Russell Westbrook and Westbrook is the 2017 MVP, the dominant player of this season.

Tim Duncan to me is more of a Center I agree but he played PF from 1998-2003 when David Robinson was on the team. My all-time starting 5 would be:

PG Magic Johnson

SG Michael Jordan

SF Larry Bird

PF Tim Duncan

C Kareem Abdul-Jabbar