I honestly have no clue what to do in Cleveland on any night of the week. I've only been there once to take in an Indians and Red Sox game. I did visit Cooperstown (Alice Cooper's sports bar) and enjoyed it. The food was pretty good, but his collection of memorabilia is even better. I recommend checking it out if you are around the ballparks in Cleveland.
Even though I know nothing about the city itself, I do know that the Pacers will be taking on the Cavs tonight and they really need to come away with a win. How do they do that? I would say that they need to STOP the man to the left there, but since you can't really do that, they need to minimize the damage created by LBJ. If Indiana can keep James' supporting cast from having career games, then the Pacers can escape with the victory.
While Indiana sits at 7-11, the Cavs are just running through pretty much everyone and their 15-3 record is very impressive. Cleveland is 9-1 in their last 10 games and 12 of their 15 wins are by double digits. Indiana has only lost by double digits in four of their 11 losses. They know how to keep games close, but winning them is what is so tricky right now.
The two teams met earlier this season (on a Friday night in Cleveland!!) and the Pacers had the lead going into the fourth quarter, but a 40 point Cavalier fourth quarter doomed Indiana. The final was 111 to 107.
On an "that's interestingly weird" note, the Pacers are 0-for-Friday. This will be their fifth Friday night game of the season and they have lost the previous four. I'm hoping that changes tonight!
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Comments
Joe-
Dunleavy should be back within the next two weeks according to local reports.
Rush is doing OK, but he got his minutes cut in favor of Stephen Graham last night during the Cleveland game. He has his moments that make you think that he is going to be a good player, but then he has the other moments where you just don't know what he was thinking. His perimeter D is a bit better than I had imagined, but focus is his main concern.
Back to Dunleavy. With Indiana at 7-12 right now, I think they are doing pretty good at staying in games without him. I'll be interested to see how the team plays with him back in the lineup and how they divide all the minutes in the rotation. I look for Rush/Graham to lose the most minutes, because Marquis Daniels is playing pretty good. I would think the rotation would be like this:
PG- Ford/Jack/Diener
SG- Dunleavy/Daniels/Rush/Graham
SF- Granger/Daniels/Rush/Graham
PF- Murphy/Foster/McRoberts/Baston
C - Nesterovic/Foster/Hibbert
Cool. Thanks for the info.
The Pacers will have a solid 6(maybe 7 with Daniels) average or better players once Dunleavy returns. It will be interesting to see if they can get to .500
I agree with you The GM with your comment. This is a nice info though.
What is the status of Dunleavy? You guys need him back pretty badly. And how does Rush look? I thought he would be a pretty solid player personally.