Eastern Conference Insider: Granger paying off for Pacers

Take a look at the NBA's scoring leaders through the first two weeks of the 2008-09 season. Does a name stick out?

The Pacers' Danny Granger is at No. 4, averaging 25.3 points, more than 11 points above his career average. With Mike Dunleavy having yet to play this season, Granger has helped the Pacers surprise people with a 4-3 start.

"He just worked his butt off this summer," Indiana coach Jim O'Brien said before the Pacers' 98-87 win in New Jersey on Wednesday. "He's in great condition, he has a lot of confidence in himself and he's a guy that we're going to. So, I just think it's a combination of his work ethic and his maturity as an NBA player."

And there are a lot of general managers in this league wondering how they let Granger slip through their hands back in June of 2005.

Coming out of New Mexico, Granger was a highly-regarded talent going into the 2005 Draft. But because he had minor surgery on his left knee in January and returned after missing only three games, the knee never had the time to fully heal. When he traveled around the league for pre-draft workouts, teams saw a player with a swollen knee, and that scared them.

As a result, Granger slipped to the 17th pick, with names like Ike Diogu, Fran Vazquez and Yaroslav Korolev getting called well before his.

Four years later, Granger has played in 246 of a possible 253 games for the Pacers, and hasn't missed a single game because of his knee. The Pacers held him out of summer league after the draft and his knee was fine by training camp.

Granger admits to keeping track of those guys selected before him, but isn't upset about the results. He signed a contract extension at the start of this season reportedly worth $60 million over five years.

"[The draft] put me in a good situation where I'm at and I'm happy," Granger says, "so I'm not complaining."

He's probably not second-guessing his decision to attend Bradley (before transferring to New Mexico) out of high school, instead of the school his dad wanted him to go to either.

The school his dad preferred? Yale. Granger was accepted to the Ivy League institution, but turned it down because "they didn't have a good basketball program."

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Before Wednesday's game in New Jersey, we had a discussion with Granger in the locker room about the knee issue and how he's been healthy since. About an hour later, when the Pacers took the floor against the Nets, Granger was not there. He felt spasms in his right quad during warmups and sat this one out.

Of course, that made us feel a little guilty, thinking we jinxed him with all that talk of being healthy before the game. But afterward, Granger said that he had started feeling the spasms at shootaround in the morning and his knee is still perfectly fine. So, there's no Eastern Conference Insider jinx, and Granger expects to play Friday in Indianapolis against the Sixers.

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Even without Granger, Dunleavy and Troy Murphy, the Pacers beat the Nets 98-87. They had six players in double figures, but T.J. Ford was the star of the night with 18 points, eight boards, nine dimes and three steals.

Wait a minute ... eight boards?

Yes, and in fact, Ford is averaging 8.0 boards (along with 18.3 points and 9.3 assists) over the last three games (all wins, not coincidentally).

On Saturday against New Jersey, Ford finished just three rebounds short of a triple-double. On Monday against Oklahoma City, he finished one rebound and one assist short. And on Wednesday, he was two rebounds and an assist short.

"With the guys boxing out," Ford said, "I guess I'm stealing some of their rebounds."

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The Hawks continue to show signs of maturity, with Wednesday's loss to the Celtics being the latest.

When Atlanta took Boston to seven games in the First Round this past April, you had to figure that it would be a lesson learned for the young Hawks. They were talented last season, but very inconsistent.

"I think we've grown a lot since last season, thanks to the Celtics," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said Wednesday. "They put us in that mode, that frame of mind, that you've got to come out every night and dig in and play."

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The Sixers got a big win in Toronto on Wednesday. It was just their third win of the season, and came one night after a dismal fourth quarter at home against the Jazz.

Much of the talk before and after Tuesday's loss was about getting used to playing with Elton Brand.

"You've got to get some benefit from a guy like that," coach Maurice Cheeks said Tuesday. "And the only way you do is putting the ball in his hands and you work around it.

"You're reteaching, because you haven't had that kind of player before. I think when you have a perimeter player, it's a little easier, because the ball is in his hands and you can come set screens, you can do little things like that. But when you have a post player, you put the ball in his hands, you've got to work around it a little bit and guys have to learn how to play around him. And he has to learn how to play around the other players as well, in terms of getting up and down the floor, when to post, when not to post, when to set a screen, things like that."

Brand must have been pretty comfortable Wednesday in Toronto. He led the Sixers with 25 points on 12-of-21 shooting. Another key for Philly was hitting 6-of-11 from downtown (including 3-of-4 from Willie Green), while the Raptors hit just five of their 21 shots from beyond the arc.

That's almost a complete reversal from when the two teams met on opening night in Philadelphia. In that game, the Raptors shot 10-for-16 and the Sixers shot 5-for-20 from long range.

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Last Friday, Allen Iverson's debut with the Pistons was spoiled by a career game from the Nets' Devin Harris. Harris went off in the second half, with Detroit guard Rodney Stuckey getting burned quite a bit by Harris' quickness.

After the game, Pistons coach Michael Curry was asked why he didn't make a defensive switch and let Stuckey guard someone else.

"[Stuckey]'s the point guard," Curry responded. "What we do here in Detroit, you guard your position. When he comes in the game, Allen [Iverson] slides to the two. Allen, you go over and guard the two. Stuckey, you guard the one. If Devin Harris is outplaying you, you've got to get better, and that's what you're going to have to do, play your matchups. That's it. It's simple basketball."

Looking forward to Friday's matchup with the Lakers at STAPLES Center (10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), does that mean that small forward Tayshaun Prince, one of the best defenders in the league, won't be guarding shooting guard Kobe Bryant at all?

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Before they get to L.A., the Pistons are visiting the Warriors in the second game of tonight's TNT doubleheader. In the first game, the Cavs put their five-game winning streak on the line against the Nuggets, who come in to Cleveland having won three straight themselves.

LeBron James is now averaging 37.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 2.0 steals and 1.0 block while shooting .530 from the field over his last four games.

He's good.

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The Numbers Game Redux: Last season, the Nets led the league with an assist-field goal ratio of .674, meaning they assisted on 67.4 percent of their field goals.

This season, their assist-field goal ratio is down at .537, which ranks them in the bottom 10 of the league.

One of the reasons for the change is Lawrence Frank's new dribble-drive offense. The Nets are scoring off the dribble more often, so there are less assists.

Another reason is roster turnover. The Nets have eight new players on the roster this season and 12 of their 15 were not in New Jersey at this time last year.

"It's going to take a little bit of time just to get everyone acclimated," Frank said.

"The games that we've played well, the ball doesn't stick as much and we're not pounding it as much. And as the season goes on, that number will get there.

"It doesn't necessarily have to happen. As long as we're getting to the paint, then I can live with it. If we're just shooting jump shots and we have a low assist number, then that's a problem."

It should be noted that a high assist-field goal ratio doesn't necessarily correlate with offensive efficiency. While the Nets were No. 1 in the former last season, they were the sixth-worst offense in the league. Meanwhile, the Warriors ranked 25th in assist-field goal ratio last season and were the fourth-best offense in the league.