Doyel: Critics don't change Frank Vogel

• Game 7: Pacers at Raptors, 8 p.m. Sunday, TNT

Frank Vogel was sipping a beer in his office. Coors, if you must know. He was glancing at his postgame meal. A caprese salad, since you’re asking. Thick slices of tomatoes and mozzarella. A splash of balsamic vinaigrette.

No gloating. Not even a little sprinkling of told-you-so.

“I don’t feel vindicated at all,” the Pacers coach was telling me late Friday night, tired and barely basking in the glow of the most lopsided game of this playoff series. The Pacers took Game 6 with a 101-83 rout of the Toronto Raptors to extend the series – and Indiana’s season – to a Game 7 on Sunday in Toronto.

“When you lose a heartbreaking game,” Vogel was telling me, “there are going to be loud critics. You can’t let that change how you run your team.”

Game 5 on Tuesday had been the heartbreaker, with the Pacers scoring just four points in the first 11 minutes of the fourth quarter as a 13-point lead became a devastating 102-99 loss in Toronto.

For three days the critics have been – what’s the word Vogel used? Loud. Yes. For three days the critics have been loud, and on social media they have been calling for Vogel’s job.

And so when I asked him late Friday night, after this blowout of the Raptors, if he was aware of how ugly it had been on the Internet after Game 5, he smiled. Then he nodded. Then he said this:

“I’m not Rick Pitino,” he said. “I’m not a ‘Don’t pick up the newspaper’ guy. I read everything.”

He paused.

“Everything.”

Every – gulp – thing?

“I don’t take it personally,” he said. “I hear everything. I don’t take anything personal. The passion the fans have? It isn’t as strong as mine.”

Insider: Pacers do more than survive to force Game 7

Since Tuesday, Vogel has gone over Game 5 in his mind. He’s comfortable with his moves, for the most part. Just because a move doesn’t work, he was telling me, doesn’t make it wrong. It just means it didn't work.

“I went through every step of that fourth quarter,” he said. “I should have called a timeout earlier, after the first nine-minute (media) timeout, but I was OK subbing Paul (George, after the third quarter). Paul reported being tired. I think the right thing in that situation is, if it’s a tie score, you’re down, maybe you ride him. Up 13, get him a minute or two, you see how the game’s going, and check back in fresh. I was comfortable with it, give or take a possession or two."

Privately he was looking hard in the mirror – “Very hard,” he said – but to his team, he was the Frank Vogel he’s been since November.

“Exact same,” veteran center Ian Mahinmi was telling me. “Same Frank.”

No panic before this elimination game?

“No panic,” Mahinmi said. “It’s not our first time in the playoffs. Last four years we’ve reached the Eastern Conference Finals twice. It’s never easy. The playoffs are hard. No panic.”

No panic, fine, but Friday brought out a different Frank Vogel. Defiant, this guy. Almost angry. That came out when he was asked, before Game 6: What would you say to the second-guessers out there?

“I don’t have anything to say to those who would second guess,” Vogel was saying. “I know this team better than anyone. We’re using guys the right way.”

That was Frank Vogel before Game 6, calling his shot.

And then on Friday night he used his guys the way he wants to use them – he rested Paul George, he played a mixture of big and small lineups, he played struggling Rodney Stuckey, he gave 10 minutes to ineffective Ty Lawson – and the Pacers absolutely bludgeoned the Raptors.

This game was so destructive, it was almost painful to watch. The Raptors are mentally fragile, DeMar DeRozan a priceless Faberge egg that has been cracked open by Paul George. After exploding for 34 points in Game 5, DeRozan returned to the ineffective head case he’s been the rest of the series. The NBA’s ninth-leading scorer managed just eight points on Friday night. He was 3 of 13 from the floor. He had four turnovers.

But it wasn’t just DeRozan. This was every single Raptor being treated like a piece of dried wood, being broken over the Pacers’ knee. Kyle Lowry was 4 of 14 from the floor. DeMarre Carroll was 5 of 12. Patrick Patterson was shooting air balls. Jonas Valanciunas was being outplayed by Pacers rookie Myles Turner.

Rodney Stuckey, bench rebound from Game 5 meltdown

The Pacers' embattled bench demolished the Raptors bench, posting a combined plus-minus of plus-19. The Raptors bench was at minus-45.

Vogel didn’t go entirely status quo in this game. He changed things up, as he has changed things at various times this series. Lavoy Allen went from starting Games 1, 2 and 3 to DNP-CD territory in Games 4, 5 and 6. On Friday C.J. Miles was a key part of the second unit in the first half, then didn’t play in the second after going 2 of 8 from the floor.

Paul George was on the court, not resting as he usually does, to start the second quarter.

“I’m a reasonable guy,” Vogel said afterward. “If a guy needs to be gone away from, if we need to shrink the rotation, we do it.”

Game 6 wasn’t just the finest moment of the season for the Pacers and for Pacers fans – who bought up most of the tickets available on the secondary market, keeping Raptors fans outside Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

It also was the finest moment of the season for Vogel, who told his critics to pound sand before the game – I know this team better than anyone. We’re using guys the right way – and then watched his No. 7-seeded team blow out the second-seeded Raptors to force a rarity for a 2-against-7 series: a Game 7.

Vogel was asked if his experience in Game 7 would help the Pacers on Sunday in Toronto. He was reminded that he had coached the Pacers in Game 7 of the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals, a loss to the Miami Heat. And so he was asked: Game 7 against Miami, does that help you?

“Against Atlanta, too,” he said, reminding the media of the 2014 playoffs when his Pacers had won a Game 7. “I get to call you guys out, too.”

Vogel was smiling. Victory, it tastes good. Like Coors and a caprese salad. And maybe a splash of balsamic vindication, er, vinaigrette.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel

Game 7: Pacers at Raptors, 8 p.m. Sunday, TNT