BOSTON — The Indiana Pacers walked away from Sport 1’s 133-128 extra time loss to the Boston Celtics realizing they missed a chance to steal house courtroom to open the Jap Convention finals.
With 22 turnovers, together with two pricey turnovers within the last 27 seconds, the Pacers let a sport slip away regardless of main by three factors with the ball within the last 10 seconds of regulation.
“We gave it away,” Pacers ahead Aaron Nesmith mentioned. “We must always’ve gained the sport.”
The Pacers had a 3-point lead with 27.1 seconds remaining in regulation when guard Tyrese Haliburton dribbled the ball off his foot for an unforced turnover. But, Indiana nonetheless acquired the ball again with an opportunity to seal the sport on the free throw line with 10.0 seconds remaining.
The one situation was they needed to get the ball inbounds. With 8.1 seconds remaining, an errant inbound go from Andrew Nembhard to Pascal Siakam went out of bounds and gave Boston one other probability to tie the sport, which Jaylen Brown took benefit of with a 3-pointer within the nook.
“I believe it is on us,” Haliburton mentioned. “They’re a fantastic defensive staff, they acquired nice defenders, particular person and staff defenders, however they don’t seem to be a staff who forces a ton of turnovers. I simply felt like extra of them have been on us than them. We acquired to wash that up.”
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The Pacers additionally missed an opportunity to foul earlier than Brown’s game-tying 3-pointer, which Siakam mentioned was his intention on the play, however Brown caught the ball within the nook along with his shoulders lined as much as the basket and Siakam didn’t wish to threat fouling a shooter and giving up a 4-point play.
The Pacers turned the primary staff since not less than 1997-98 to lose a playoff sport regardless of inbounding the ball up 3 within the last 10 seconds, in line with the Elias Sports activities Bureau.
Indiana’s 22 turnovers have been the second most it has dedicated in a sport all season and it contributed to 32 factors for Boston, probably the most for the Celtics in any sport this season.
“Plenty of issues needed to go mistaken for us and proper for them,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle mentioned.
Turning the ball over was uncharacteristic for Indiana, which entered the sport dropping the second fewest turnovers per sport amongst playoff groups.
Over the ultimate 5:30 of the sport, together with extra time, the Pacers had extra turnovers (5) than subject targets (2).
“We confirmed our age a bit of bit tonight,” Pacers heart Myles Turner mentioned. “Being a youthful staff and being on this excessive stakes of a sport, these uncharacteristic errors simply made their means out.”
Regardless of lacking an opportunity to win the opening sport on this convention finals, the Pacers didn’t go away TD Backyard hanging their heads. Boston raced out to a 12-0 result in start the sport and appeared prepared to show the sport right into a rout. In truth, the Celtics jumped forward by double digits twice within the sport and the Pacers responded to take the lead on each events.
“All yr lengthy, our battle cry has been ‘proceed to play, proceed to push tempo, proceed to execute, maintain taking part in it doesn’t matter what,'” Carlisle mentioned. “It is served us properly and it did tonight too. So, we acquired – it is unlucky we did so many good issues on this sport that it got here all the way down to a few errors on the finish. However, that is the NBA playoffs. And, we have got to study from it, and we acquired to bounce again.”
The Pacers have dropped Sport 1 in every of the earlier two rounds of the postseason after which gone on to win an extended collection. It left Haliburton not less than feeling inspired coupled with the frustration of dropping in such style, particularly when he thought-about how properly they performed on Tuesday night time.
“We all know we will play with these guys,” he mentioned. “We all know we belong. It is discouraging simply due to the performs that occurred down the stretch, we felt like we have been in place to win the sport, simply did not win the sport.
“However what I’ll say, is encouraging, we had been trash in Sport 1s for the primary collection and second collection. As we speak we performed nice for about 47 minutes, simply did not maintain for 48.”
Sport 2 is Thursday.
