Indiana didn’t beat Miami in Game 1, but it put up a respectable showing on the road and that was with the team’s leading scorer — Danny Granger — being bottled up by the Heat defense.
Now comes Game 2 and the Heat will be without Chris Bosh (strained abdominal). It changes the equation. For all the people that piled on Bosh this season as a third wheel the statistics bear out they were just flat out better with him on the floor. Without him them take a step back.
Is that step enough for the Pacers to win Game 2 in Miami and even the series Tuesday night? I didn’t say that.
But maybe. This series got a lot tighter with Bosh out.
All the focus is on Bosh and how the Pacers will try again to exploit their size advantage, giving the rock more to center Roy Hibbert. Which they should. But what the Pacers need more of is Granger getting points. The slashing wing was the Pacers leading scorer at 18.7 points per game during the season, but he had just 7 points on 1-10 shooting in Game 1. Indy needs production from him.
That could be impacted by Bosh’s absence — LeBron James will move to the four and David West after he blanketed Granger in Game 1. Thing is Shane Battier also put the clamps on Granger in Game 1. It’s no easy task. Still, expect Granger to find some room, expect Pacers coach Frank Vogel to come up with sets that get him space.
The convention wisdom is right, too —Vogel would be wise to go inside also. Use the size advantage. But more than just Hibbert, the Pacers need to look to David West, the former All-Star who will now see a lot of LeBron James — try to get LeBron in foul trouble. The loss of Bosh hurts the Heat’s depth and if LeBron or Dwyane Wade get in foul trouble things really get dicey for the Heat.
In the end, however, the Heat are still a good team that even without Bosh can create turnovers and get out and run. They are still a matchup nightmare — look for Heat coach Erik Spoelstra to go to his lineup of four guys 6’7” to 6’9” with Wade. It’s a hard group to keep up.
For all the changes this remains a series about tempo — the Pacers have to grind it out in the halfcourt not get into a track meet. If the Pacers turn the ball over and the Heat get easy transition buckets this is going to get ugly. You also can expect the Heat to knock down some threes (they missed all theirs in Game 1).
The Pacers have a better shot now. They need Hibbert and West to really exploit their size advantage, they need Granger to contribute more, they still need to play near perfect ball. But this is not a mismatch, the Pacers are in this. Always were, but now they are closer. We’ll see if they are close enough.
