IC Cold Links: Pacers Let Bucks Slip Through Trap In The Paint

I could empathize with Jim O'Brien a little bit during the Pacers loss to the Bucks yesterday afternoon. Early in the first quarter my laptop experienced a little malware attack that had me wasting my time for an hour or so cleaning up the mess.

For JOB, his team's "malware" attack was around the rim in the first half. The Pacers struggled to keep the Bucks off the glas and ended up getting outscored in the paint 40-20 for the game. 23 of Milwaukee's points came courtesy of second chances on the offensive glass early in the game. By the time the Pacers cleaned things up in the second half and made a late run, they didn't have enough to complete the comeback.

So the Bucks breathe a sigh of relief and move on surviving what coach Scott Skiles called a "trap game" for his team. Sound familiar doesn't it? During the West Coast swing, each team the Pacers played made some reference to a trap game, which in reality is a tidy little euphemism for a coach to use instead of saying, "I have to find something to motivate my players to play hard against the Pacers."

With five weeks remaining in the season, we'll see if the Pacers can actually trap one of these teams down the stretch.

After the jump, more links of interest from the loss yesterday.

• Box score
• AP game report
• Late rally falls short for Pacers
  Mike Wells reports on the Pacers coming up short in the end which give the Bucks a sweep of the season series.
• Bucks hold off Pacers at the end to sweep home stand
  Charles F. Gardner reports on the Bucks win over the Pacers which Scott Skiles called a "trap game."
• Recap: Bucks 98, Pacers 94 - Brew Hoop
  Alex Boeder at Brew Hoop recaps the game from a Milwaukee perspective.
• Pacers Notebook: Freak accident puts Pacers' Dunleavy on bench
  Mike Wells has more on Dunleavy's warmup injury, T.J Ford's groing sitting him down, and Solo Jones getting up off the bench and stepping up on the floor.
• Sports - Technorati
  Many thanks to Technorati Sports for making Indy Cornrows their Blog of the Day last week. Yes, this is the sports side of Technorati and they're even adding some original sports content. Check it out.
• (Golden State) Warriors where are they now? Checking in on former Chris Mullin favs Mike Dunleavy + Troy Murphy - Golden State Of Mind
  Atma Brother ONE reminds the GSoM faithful that Murphleavy remain who they thought they were as the two will head into the last year of their big contracts without a playoff appearance between them.
• Yahoo Tournament Pick' Em - Indy Cornrows
  With the NCAA Tournament set to tip this week, fill out a bracket for site bragging rights. bleedingblueandgold has the details at this link.