Al Harrington scored 18 points and Jermaine O'Neal added 16 and 12 rebounds as the Pacers pulled away for a 92-82 victory over the Spurs.
On November 23 at Conseco Fieldhouse, the Spurs were led by Tim Duncan's 30 points and 18 rebounds in a 97-79 victory. In that game, the Pacers were outrebounded, 62-40.
On Friday, Duncan collected 22 points and 12 boards but shot just 6-of-18 from the field. Frontcourt partner David Robinson was limited to six points and eight rebounds and the Spurs were outrebounded, 54-42.
 Even in a disappointing night for Tim Duncan, he managed to bring his league-leading double-double total to 26. D. Clarke Evans /NBAE/Getty Images |
"I think it was a pitiful performance on our part," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "Give Indiana credit. They had energy and played agressive. They came to win and they earned it. It was a soft performance.
"We were mentally soft throughout and that's a bad combination when you're not hitting from the perimeter."
The Spurs had a chance to take control, trailing 64-63 after three quarters. They outscored the Pacers 6-1 to take a 69-65 on two free throws by Duncan with 10:12 left.
But Indiana countered with a 19-6 run to put away the game. It started with Harrington's layup with 8:14 left that gave Indiana a 72-70 lead that it would not relinquish.
After Harrington's layup, Austin Croshere hit a 3-pointer, Jeff Foster had a follow shot and Harrington hit a jumper that made it 79-73 with 4:37 left.
The jumper came after he forced Duncan to throw the ball out of bounds. Overall, the defense forced Duncan into six turnovers.
Croshere's easy dunk made it 85-75 with 2:47 left and the Pacers never let their lead fall below seven points. Croshere collected 10 points and 14 rebounds.
The duo, who had emerged as Indiana's top offensive weapons in recent weeks, was limited to just 16 points in the Pacers' 89-87 loss to Miami on Monday.
But on Friday, they combined for 13-of-30 shooting and 19 rebounds. Harrington, along with Foster, was also part of coach Isiah Thomas' strategy against Duncan.
"We wanted to stay big and keep Harrington put there to get a lot of those long rebounds from their 3-point shooters," Thomas said. "I thought Foster did as good a job on Duncan as possible.
"We wanted to keep changing the rhythm up on him. If you don't, he's good enough to feel that rhythm up on him and pick you apart. We wanted to make it hard for him to pick up on what we were doing."
The Pacers could have put away the game earlier as they held a 41-26 lead with 6:54 to go in the second period. But the Spurs responded with a 19-8 burst to slice the deficit to 49-45 at halftime.
After Indiana answered by scoring 12 consecutive points, the Spurs did the same and took a 63-62 lead on Antonio Daniels' jumper with 1:01 left in the third quarter.
"We gave ourselves the opportunity to win and just didn't make plays," Duncan said. "We turned the ball over, gave them offensive rebounds. They just wanted to make plays more than we wanted to."