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Tim BontempsESPN
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The Indiana Pacers find themselves on the verge of elimination after losing 124-115 to the Miami Heat to fall behind 3-0 in their best-of-seven first round series Saturday afternoon.
A major factor in the loss was that the Heat went to the free throw line a staggering 52 times, including 20 trips for Heat forward Jimmy Butler alone. The Pacers went 28 times.
“I can’t explain that,” Pacers coach Nate McMillan said after the game. “I mean, 52 free throws is ridiculous. They had 24 at the half, Butler shoots 20 of them … this is the playoffs, and I thought some of those calls were … I can’t explain it.”
Indiana is one loss away from being swept in the first round for the second straight year, and the third time in four years. It would also be the team’s fifth straight first-round exit from the playoffs.
When the Pacers were down 18 at halftime, it appeared as if they were going to simply roll over without much of a fight.
But then, after the team had a discussion in the locker room, the Pacers came out in the second half with a much better effort, closing to within four points after three quarters before eventually losing a nip-and-tuck game with poor execution down the stretch.
“At that point, you have nothing to lose,” Pacers guard Victor Oladipo said of the team’s approach in the second half. “It was either, ‘Make something happen or get embarrassed.’ One of the two. We did a great job of fighting, and getting ourselves into the game. But unfortunately a lot of things happened, you know what I’m saying? Unfortunately, I tore my quad. Unfortunately, none of this wouldn’t have happened if not for corona.
“Unfortunately, a lot of things happen. You can make excuses, you can blame everybody, or you can just figure it out. In the second half, we did a better job of just figuring it out. We came up short, obviously, but we have to have that same mentality in the next game, and go out there and do the impossible. I know everyone thinks it’s over, and thinks it’s a wrap. I’m sure they do, too. But it’s been done before, and why can’t we do it? We have to have that mentality and truly believe that if we want to accomplish something special.”
It will certainly take something special for Indiana to become the first team to ever come back from a 3-0 deficit and win an NBA playoff series.
Doing so, however, will require Indiana to be far more disciplined than it was Saturday. The Heat — and Butler in particular — was able to wear out a path walking to and from the free throw line.
The difference between Miami’s made free throws (43) and made field goals (34) is the largest this season, including both regular season and playoff games, and the largest difference in a playoff game since the Lakers had 12 more free throws than field goals in a playoff game against the Thunder in 2012.
Since 2000, it was the sixth most free throws attempted by one team in a playoff game that ended in regulation. The other five all included players who are notoriously bad free throw shooters the opponent would want to send to the line, such as Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and Ben Wallace.
“Yeah, there’s definitely a discrepancy out there on how many free throws they shot versus us” Pacers guard Malcolm Brogdon said. “I don’t know if that’s a mix of the refs, us not being aggressive enough, whatever.
“But that has to change.”
One person who didn’t see an issue was Heat coach Erik Spoelstra.
“That helps you control the pace and the tenor of the game,” Spoelstra said of repeatedly getting to the foul line. “So when they would go on runs and gain some enthusiasm, Jimmy would find a way, or Bam [Adebayo] or whoever would find a way to get to the free throw line and that just helps you settle things and that’s a great skill that we don’t take for granted.
“In a playoff game, to be able to have 20 free throw attempts [from Jimmy] — and those were all collisions. It’s not as if he’s flopping his way to the line. He’s putting his body in there and drawing contact and making you have to make the call.”