Hollinger: Pacers-Hawks put on an In-Season Tournament show; what’s next?
ATLANTA – Indiana Pacers 157, Atlanta Hawks 152. I’m still trying to process what I just saw.
The Hawks and Pacers went back and forth over the final five minutes, one bucket after another, with neither team remotely capable of stopping the other. The two coaches switched to increasingly desperate tactics — double-teaming in the backcourt, pulling their centers off the court — to zero effect.
In a four-minute span of 17 possessions starting at the five-minute mark of the fourth quarter, the Hawks and Pacers scored on 15 of them, a crescendo made more emphatic by the fact that this was all live-ball action with no timeouts. Even in a wild offensive game from start to finish, this was out of control, a 200-point pace for both sides. The party finally ended when Atlanta had two empty trips in the final minute, first on a leg-kick offensive foul on Dejounte Murray , and then — after forcing a turnover! — when Murray inexplicably went to the rim while down 3 and failed to score.
Video game stats abounded. Atlanta scored 76 points in the first 20 minutes — that’s a 183-point pace, folks — and had 86 by halftime ... and lost. Indiana scored 84 in the second half; Tyrese Haliburton made seven 3-pointers in the third quarter. Indiana scored 29 points on just 14 trips in a six-minute span of that quarter, an impossible rate of 2.07 points per possession. The Pacers missed four shots the entire quarter while scoring 46 points.
For the game, both teams shot over 60 percent from the field. The Hawks put up a 60-48-82 split line and lost. While the highlights of the game were Haliburton and Trae Young exchanging 3-point shots from outer space, the percentages were downright hilarious inside the arc: The league average is 53 percent on 2-point field goals, but Indiana shot 71 percent and Atlanta shot 64 percent. Overall, the two teams combined for 309 points on just 200 possessions, for an incomprehensible 154.5 offensive efficiency rating.
Needless to say, this was the crown jewel of the league’s In-Season Tournament so far, creating a November game between two off-radar teams that actually mattered — Indiana clinched its group with the win — and served to highlight the sheer insanity of what was happening on the court.
The Pacers weren’t the only ones to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. The Los Angeles Lakers won their group with a convincing win over Utah and also clinched home court for the quarterfinals. Los Angeles will almost certainly be the top seed based on its unmatchable plus-74 point differential and seem fairly likely to draw Phoenix as its opponent; the Suns are likely to be the wild card on point differential if they can beat Memphis by a decent margin on Friday.
Also, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ overtime win over the Philadelphia 76ers leaves the Cavs firmly in the wild-card hunt despite Indiana having already won its group. Cleveland needs to win its finale next week against Atlanta and do some work on padding its plus-6 point differential along the way.
Here’s how everything else stands in the In-Season Tournament heading into Friday’s games:
Mathematically eliminated: San Antonio Spurs , Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers , Washington Wizards , Detroit Pistons
Functionally dead: Philadelphia, Atlanta, Charlotte Hornets , Chicago Bulls , Toronto Raptors , Utah Jazz , Oklahoma City Thunder
Still registering a pulse: Dallas Mavericks , LA Clippers
Very much alive: Cleveland, New York Knicks , Brooklyn Nets , Orlando Magic , Phoenix, New Orleans Pelicans , Denver Nuggets , Houston Rockets , Golden State Warriors
Unblemished: Sacramento Kings , Minnesota Timberwolves , Lakers, Indiana, Boston Celtics , Milwaukee Bucks , Miami Heat
One thing to watch as the In-Season Tournament rolls toward its conclusion: The league has to schedule two games in the first week of December for the 22 teams who are eliminated, one home and one away for each. The league will look to limit travel, meaning they’ll likely start at the corners, geographically, and work their way in. One combination you can probably file away safely already is Portland playing either Sacramento or Golden State, depending on who advances, as the Trail Blazers only had three games with each on their initial schedule.
Also included in that list will be two interconference games. With the league looking to minimize travel distance and Memphis and Atlanta out of the mix, don’t be surprised if Hawks-Grizzlies — the league’s shortest interconference flight pairings — is one of those two games.
Friday’s games to watch
We have 10 tournament games on Friday, and eight of them are at least somewhat relevant. Let’s start at the top and work our way down, with tournament records included:
The A List
Sacramento (2-0) at Minnesota (2-0): The main event of the night, as this battle of unbeatens likely determines the winner of West Group C. Minnesota will clinch with a victory, while Sacramento would need to follow it with either a win over the Warriors on Tuesday or a point differential advantage in a three-way tie. Also, if the winner of this game wins its finale on Tuesday, it will have home-court advantage in the quarterfinals.
Denver (2-1) at Houston (1-1): The Nuggets will win West Group B with a win and a New Orleans loss against the Clippers (see below). If the Pelicans win, the Nuggets can still advance as a wild card, but it would come down to scoring margin; they enter the game at just plus-9 and probably have work to do here.
The Rockets can also win Group B by winning their final two games, with a trip to Dallas coming next Tuesday. Houston can keep alive a scenario of losing to Dallas and still winning the group in a five-way tie at 2-2, if the Pelicans lose and the Rockets beat Denver, and Houston makes up at least 27 points in point differential between the two results.
Finally, Dallas fans should root for the Clippers and Rockets to win; the Mavs can still advance by blowing out Houston in their finale if those first two results happen.
New Orleans (2-1) at LA Clippers (1-2): The Pelicans will likely win West Group B with a victory, needing just a Houston loss against either Denver or Dallas to clinch. If the Clippers win, chaos rules, as the scenario of a five-way tie at 2-2 looms. The Clippers would need to win this game by at least 19 points to have any shot of advancing on point differential. New Orleans also is in strong wild-card position if it wins and Houston wins out, as the Pels carry a plus-23 margin into this game.
Miami (2-0) at New York (1-1): A Heat win sets up a showdown with Milwaukee on Tuesday to win East Group B, while a win by the Knicks would put three-way ties on the table that would be determined by scoring margin. Also, the Knicks have a plus-16 margin and still have a home game against Charlotte left, so New York could put itself in very strong wild-card position with a victory.
Boston (2-0) at Orlando (2-1): The Celtics clinch East Group C with a win here but still have work to do to gain home-court advantage in a potential quarterfinal. Orlando, believe it or not, would have a strong chance at being a group winner if it wins this game, needing only a Brooklyn loss or a point-differential advantage in a three-way tie. To achieve the latter, Orlando would have to win by at least eight points and probably much more. The Magic can theoretically also get a wild card but again would need to win by a large margin to make that realistic.
The B List
Phoenix (2-1) at Memphis (0-3): Memphis is out, but Phoenix is very much alive. The Suns need to win this game to keep their hopes of a wild card and would do themselves a favor by racking up some victory margin in the process. Phoenix is currently plus-13.
San Antonio (0-3) at Golden State (1-1): The Warriors can’t lose this game — and presumably won’t — but the bigger story is whether they can amass enough victory margin to get in the wild-card hunt. Golden State also can still win Group C on point differential if Minnesota beats Sacramento (see above).
Detroit (0-3) at Indiana (3-0): A victory lap for the Pacers after they’ve already clinched East Group A, but a win does matter here for seeding purposes. So does victory margin, if the other two group champions also are unbeaten.
Washington (0-3) at Milwaukee (2-0): The Wizards are eliminated, and this game doesn’t matter for the Bucks if Miami beats New York. Also, the Bucks are 90-point favorites (all numbers approximate). Milwaukee already has a plus-36 scoring margin, and a win here would likely give it a wild-card fallback position if it loses the finale to Miami.
Chicago (0-2) at Toronto (0-2) – One of these teams will get its first In-Season Tournament victory. Break out the kazoos.
(Top photo of Tyrese Haliburton and Wesley Matthews : Dale Zanine / USA Today)
