Doyel: Pacers' best not quite enough in Game 7
TORONTO — This game was over. So was the season. Thanks for playing, Pacers. You sure did give the second-seeded Raptors a scare. Took them to Game 7. You can be proud of that effort. Well done, and —
Wait, what’s happening here?
Are the Toronto Raptors suffocating? Are the Indiana Pacers applying the squeeze?
Is this really happening? Well, no. Almost, but no. Down 16 with 7½ minutes left, the Pacers got within a single bucket — and had the ball in Paul George’s hands with a chance to tie in the final 20 seconds — before finally running out of shots and stops and answers in an 89-84 loss that ended their season.
Doyel: George, Turner, Vogel give Pacers needed pieces
Coach Frank Vogel saved nothing and nobody on Sunday night. If this was the Pacers’ last game of the season, if this was how it would end, it would end with his biggest and best weapons on the floor until they had nothing left. No more shots they could make, no more defense they could play, nothing left to give but sweat and large gulps of oxygen.
Paul George would play 46 minutes, George Hill 40, Monta Ellis 37 on two bad knees he was slathering before the game with Icy Hot. A 10-deep rotation for most of this series was shrunk Sunday night to seven. And for the second half of the team’s 89th game of the season, the Pacers went with six players. Vogel wasn’t getting much from his bench, so the hell with it. Vogel went with his best.
It wasn’t enough. Not on a night when the Raptors finally played (most of the game) like the No. 2 seeds they are — bludgeoning the Pacers on the boards and protecting the basketball — while the Pacers were getting a human performance from their mostly inhuman superstar, Paul George. After carrying and leading and dragging the Pacers to Game 7, George was merely very good on a night his supporting cast needed him to be superhuman.
George scored 26 points, but just six in the final 18 minutes as the Raptors pulled away from the exhausted Pacers. They gave most of that lead back before finally ending an Indiana season that was often disappointing, occasionally encouraging and ultimately one game short of a shocker.
Since 1999, No. 7 seeds — as the Pacers were — have won just one playoff series in 36 chances against the Nos. 2. The Pacers were an unlikely candidate to pull off the 7-vs.-2 upset, but after beating the Raptors in Game 6 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, they came to the Air Canada Centre expecting the best.
Before the game they were loose in the locker room, George Hill and Paul George talking about "The Dark Knight" while Raptors coach Dwane Casey was down the hall acknowledging that the pressure was on the second-seeded Raptors, not the No. 7 Pacers, to win Game 7.
“I’d say so,” Casey said.
If the Raptors were uptight, they didn’t show it until the final 7½ minutes. They led for all but a minute or two, trailing just twice — by a single point — and opening a 16-point lead with 7:31 left.
The Air Canada Centre was feeling good about itself, loud and dressed proudly in the red of the Canadian flag, with fans in each center courtside section wearing white T-shirts to form the maple leaf.
Pacers furious comeback falls short in Game 7 vs. Toronto
And irritating Raptors super-fan Drake was feeling full of himself, standing courtside in his jeans jacket and waving to the crowd for more noise and then, in a moment that is so very Drake, trying to talk trash to Paul George as the Pacers’ star left the court for halftime.
George ignored him, went to the locker room, came out for the roller coaster of a second half.
Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry was basically playing with his right arm tied behind his back. He has dealt with bursitis for the past month, which helps explain his 31 percent shooting from the floor through six games. In Game 7 he didn’t want to shoot at all, not from the outside anyway. He passed up open jumpers to penetrate and dish, at one point throwing up a wide-open air ball from 16 feet.
Fellow slumping star DeMar DeRozan started hot, with 13 quick points, then cooled down. He finished the first half 6-of-16 from the floor for 15 points, then sat with Lowry while the rest of the Raptors warmed up for the third quarter. From the Raptors bench they stared at the Pacers as Indiana warmed up in front of them.
Maybe that helped? After missing his first three shots of the third quarter, DeRozan hit two quick buckets to push the Raptors' lead to a game-high 14 points at 71-57. Then he hit a difficult 20-footer. Then he exploded to the rim, spinning 360 degrees past Monta Ellis for a layup. Two DeRozan free throws followed and the Raptors led 77-62 with 1:46 left in the third.
Game 7 Live blog: Pacers’ thrilling comeback falls short in 89-84 loss
The lead grew to 16 at 83-67 when the damnedest thing happened. The Raptors started falling apart. The Pacers started coming on strong. Here’s how upside down this was: The Pacers were coming back, on the road, against the No. 2 seed — despite Paul George coming apart at the seams.
George had four turnovers and was 1-of-4 from the floor in the fourth quarter, and still the Pacers got within 85-82 with 2:35 left on a Monta Ellis 3-pointer. Two free throws by George got the Pacers again within three at 87-84, and after the latest of two weeks' worth of horrible shots from DeRozan (10-of-32 in Game 7), the Pacers had the ball with 29 seconds left and a chance to tie.
George had it in his hands, as he should. He didn’t have an open look from long range so he attacked the rim, hoping for an easy bucket or an opportunity at a three-point play. He got neither, losing the ball on his way up, coming down empty-handed as he looked for a foul call that never came.
The Raptors hit two free throws to seal it, and the Pacers walked silently out of a roaring arena and into a future that is very much uncertain, for their roster and their coach.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.