There’s a lot of finger pointing going on in Indiana. Both Paul George and David West complained about the officiating after Game 4 and suggested that had something to do with the Pacers wire-to-wire loss to the Heat.
(Didn’t hear Pacers players thinking the officiating was an issue when they got 22 more free throws in Game 1. They got to the line in that game because they were the aggressors — Sunday night Lebron James had 11 drives from outside 20 feet to inside 10 feet, scoring 10 points; Paul George had zero. In the series George has 26 attempts from three and 16 inside 8 feet of the rim. You get the idea.)
Frank Vogel is working to get his team focused on the series again, not the officials. Check out what Vogel said Tuesday, as reported by John Schuhmann at NBA.com.His Tuesday morning message to his players before they flew back to Indianapolis was to “worry about what we can control. We know we’re going to have to play through adversity on the road in the playoffs. Our guys just need to put their focus on what we’re doing.”
“We can’t control calls. We got to control our turnovers, our shot selection, our passing, our defense.”
Bingo. The Pacers came into the playoffs with the best defense in the NBA in the regular season, allowing just 96.7 points per 100 possessions. Against the Heat — a team they were built to slow — they are allowing 111.5 per 100. They are turning the ball over more than they did in the regular season as well, a cardinal sin against Miami.
Bottom line, this isn’t on the officials.
I think George, West and the Pacers know that. They are just frustrated. Miami does that to teams. Vogel is just trying to get his team to focus for a night, but that has been a challenge all playoffs long (and into the end of the regular season) for the Pacers.