Pacers Links: Pacers find a way to save opening night win

Dave Sandford

The Indiana Pacers took advantage of a young Toronto team to reach up and snatch a win on opening night.

The Indiana Pacers had enough problems in Toronto on opening night to earn a loss. But when it came down to winning time, the Pacers relied on their veteran go-to guys, in particular David West, to make the plays needed to win.

At the other end of the floor, the Raptors had no such guy to go to. With the Pacers applying pressure during their comeback, the Toronto playmakers that had been torching the Pacers for much of the game, tightened up and seemed willing to let other teammates try to win the game. That led to out-of-sync offense and off-balance shots, as opposed to say, DeMar DeRozan, Jose Calderon or Andrea Bargnani saying, give me the ball, I got this.

That Toronto team is going to be a problem when those young guys mature and get comfortable closing out games. Fortunately for the Pacers, they weren't ready to do it last night.

In case you missed it, here's the game winner along with the links to stories about: