It just seemed right.
The Indiana Pacers finally closed the deal — albeit after blowing another double-digit lead late — and beat the Chicago Bulls 88-84 Saturday at United, err, Conseco Fieldhouse to avoid being swept in the first round of the NBA playoffs and force Game 5 in Chicago on Tuesday.
That these feisty, pesky Pacers broke through and will live to fight another day is only fitting.
By Drew Allen
This team, which finished the regular season 37-45 only after a midseason coaching change and was deemed unworthy of the playoffs by many, has led late in the fourth quarter in each of its four contests with the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
This team has never trailed the Bulls by more than seven points.
This team has given Derrick Rose, the soon-to-be NBA MVP, the best battle for which he could’ve asked, including holding Rose to 4-of-18 shooting in Game 3 (though one field goal was the eye-popping game-winner) and neutralizing him to a point that rendered him unable to shoot a game-tying 3-pointer in Game 4 (Carlos Boozer shot it … yikes).
This team has been there at the end of each game — something hardly any analyst thought would be possible — but just couldn’t finish until Saturday.
You figured the Pacers had to get one, if only one. And they did, barely surviving another huge late rally by the Bulls.
Had Chicago completed that rally, this series might have gone into the books as the most deceptive sweep in NBA playoff history.
Fortunately for the Pacers and their fans (who were in the minority at home Saturday), we won’t have to remember the series that way. This suspenseful slugfest will continue at least one more round. Both franchise and fans deserve it.
What they don’t deserve, however, is the putrid showing from the hometown fans. The crowd Saturday at Conseco Fieldhouse consisted of what many estimate to be 60 percent Bulls fans, and that majority was heard booing the Pacers’ starting lineup announcements and chanting “M-V-P!” for Rose.
While I understand Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz’s argument that a franchise that was so lost for so long can’t regain all of its fan base with two months’ worth of enjoyable basketball, there simply is no excuse for a visiting fan base to comprise a majority of a crowd in what should be a team’s home game, especially in the playoffs. Tickets for this game were relatively cheap, and the Pacers’ efforts in these playoff games certainly has appeared worth opening up the wallet.
Time will tell if Indianapolis-area sports fans stop living in the mid-2000s and realize the Pacers now play hard and facilitate fun-to-watch basketball on the court while being model citizens off it.
In the meantime, though, the Pacers keep creating more opportunities to put their new image — their new identity — out in the open. Game 5 is the latest.