Hornets 108, Pacers 96: Pacers Come Up Empty In Dress Rehearsal Finish

by Tom Lewis on Oct 17, 2009 11:27 PM EDT in News Comment 3 comments

More photos » Patrick Semansky - AP

Chris Paul and the Hornets ran away from the Pacers at crunch time.

The Indiana Pacers dress rehearsal in New Orleans revealed the team needs more work before opening night.

No, this wasn't a full dress rehearsal with regular season playing rotations for the full 48, but it wasn't far off and the final 5:33 of the game was indeed a regular season test drive in which the Pacers sputtered badly.

With the game tied at 88, Danny Granger checked back into the game to even up the sides pitting the starting lineups for both teams against each other for an end of game test. The Pacers in general and Granger in particular went, CLANK and the Hornets closed out the game with a 20-8 run for a 108-96 win.

After making his first shot, Granger missed his final four shots including three 3-ball attempts that were one and done possessions for the blue and gold. Meanwhile, Chris Paul and David West took turns torching the Pacers to close out the W with ease.

Granger wasn't the only problem, though because during the final stretch of the game JOB put Dhantay Jones in for Brandon Rush, then Rush back in for Roy Hibbert and finally Luther Head in for Dahntay Jones.

Without television it is hard to tell what the problems were at the end, but fortunately Mark Boyle and Austin Croshere were offering HD visuals with the radio call (we're talking 1080i quality) and it sounded like some of these guys were passing up shots. Dhantay in particular passed up a couple of corner threes at different times in the fourth quarter. May have been a smart play when viewed through an objective lens, but JOB wants that shot in the air.

The Pacers battled through a lot of missed shots early to hang around and even appear in control until late in the game, but 16 second half turnovers coughed up the lead and gave CP3 the chance to do what he does and finish off the game in style for the Hornets.

Plenty of teachable moments for JOB to utilize from this one. The Pacers will have three days of work before playing at Orlando on Wednesday.

Anything stick out in the box score for you? I know I'm wondering if that starting shooting guard position is back up for grabs.

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Hornets fan here

Just got back from the game. One of the shots Dahntay didnt take in the 4th I remember as being a really, egregiously bad decision. He was all alone on that half of the floor with 7 left on the clock…. elsewhere, Hibbert looked like he should have been having a better game than he was having. Didn’t really notice Rush. Hornets went really small for parts of the game, and oddly (we thought) the Pacers matched. They probably shouldn’t have. Dahntay covering Peja probably seemed like a good idea, since Peja can have trouble with physical guys, but people forget Peja is 6-10 and he just shot over him. Granger looked unstoppable in the first half, but just flat out cold in the 4th.

End of the game… hard to tell if it was the Pacers disappearing or Chris Paul doing what he does. He had that look on his face like he was going to win, scored 11 pts in the last 5 minutes, and when he looks like that it’s hard to stop him. The Hornets as a team grabbed a lot of boards late.

http://hornetshype.com

by ticktock6 on Oct 17, 2009 11:41 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs