For fans accustomed to watching recent versions of the Pacers ease into games, the first minute of Wednesday's game against Dallas was startling.
Rather than falling behind early and playing catch-up, they sprinted to a 6-0 lead in the first 56 seconds, forcing Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle to call timeout. Myles Turner got a dunk off Jeff Teague's penetration, Thad Young got a layup off Monta Ellis' penetration and Young got another layup off Teague's steal and assist. After the 20-second timeout, Ellis got a layup out of the halfcourt offense, then Teague picked off another steal to set up Paul George's short jumper.
The Pacers led 10-3, went on to lead by 12 at the end of the quarter and led by as many as 14 in the first half. Of course there's also the issue of maintaining comfortable leads, one of the more difficult things to do in basketball, but Wednesday's game represented a first step toward how coach Nate McMillan wants his team to play.
McMillan has been preparing for that kind of bolt out of the starting blocks by how he conducts practice. After bodies are stretched and warmed up, players are required to go all out in whatever the schedule calls for.
"That's something we want to build on," McMillan said following Thursday's light workout at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. "Every night we (want to) come out and we play that way on both ends of the floor.
"We want to be a team that starts fast and finishes strong. A lot of things we worked on in training camp, they happened in the game last night."
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The Pacers gave up their early lead, falling behind in the fourth quarter – but only twice, and only by one point. That will be something else to work on down the road. But they regrouped in overtime, holding Dallas to 2-of-8 shooting and outscoring it 15-6 in the final five minutes to seal the win.
"The way coach McMillan has been running this camp, I thought conditioning kicked in late," assistant coach Dan Burke said.
Letting the lead slip away at least led to another positive: showing resiliency by executing in overtime. The Pacers were 1-7 in overtime games last season and struggled mightily to close out tight games. The fast finish to the game was another positive step.
"You always look at your team and see how you come out of situations like that," McMillan said. "It's somewhat of a letdown when you have a game in your hands and all of a sudden you go into overtime. Can you dig deep to win this game? I liked that sign."
The next challenge is to maintain a consistent pace of play. McMillan said his team ran well the first half, but slowed in the second and lapsed into isolations and post-ups too often.
"We got a little stagnant," he said. "We have counters we want when guys are catching the ball off the block, and we didn't get to that last night."
Defense needs work
One might have thought Burke, the Pacers' defensive coordinator, needed blood pressure medication after the Pacers allowed the Mavericks 115 points in regulation and 121 in the game. Not the case.
"It was a mixed bag," he said. "A lot of good stuff effort-wise. A lot of scramble situations. The most disappointing thing was we didn't follow our pick-and-roll scheme."
Dallas got back in the game from the 3-point line by going with a smaller lineup, spreading the court and firing at will. It attempted 48 3-point shots, hitting 18, to outscore the Pacers by 24 points from the arc. The Pacers aren't likely to face that offensive approach again, but are certainly going to see a lot more pick-and-rolls.
"They made it hard and it's going to be hard," Burke said. "It's a pick-and-roll league now. But we were doing some things we hadn't practiced; I thought we handled it pretty well."
Among the unpracticed strategies was having their center, Turner, defend Dallas' small forward, Harrison Barnes. Barnes wound up hitting a 3-pointer that forced overtime with 2.3 seconds remaining, although it wasn't Turner's fault – he was out of the game at the time. Paul George had dropped off Barnes to help defend Dirk Nowitzki, and didn't get help.
"We were one switch away from winning the game in regulation," Burke said. "Just one more switch between Teague and Thaddeus (Young). They switched twice and didn't get a third one.
"You can never panic when a team is shooting that many threes. Just tip your hat on some of them."
Teague blamed himself for some of the issues with defense. Carlisle brought backup point guard J.J. Barea off the bench to run pick-and-rolls with Nowitzki, and was rewarded. Both scored 22 points.
"Our pick-and-roll defense wasn't that good," he said. "All of us could be a little more active.
"It was a solid effort, we played with a lot of pace offensively. We got the shots we wanted. We just have to be better defensively. If we get everything right and get clicking on all cylinders, we can be really good."
McMillan didn't hold Teague solely responsible for the defensive lapses, however.
"I loved the way he started the game with his intensity defensively, establishing us at both ends of the floor," McMillan said. "He was attacking, he had a couple of steals and that's what we're looking for."
Belated reward for Miles
Last season, C.J. Miles prepared diligently for the playoffs after returning from injuries that kept him out of 18 games. He put in extra time at practice, often the last to leave the court. But it didn't help, as he averaged just 3.4 points on 26 percent shooting in the seven-game series with Toronto.
Wednesday, on the other hand, he wasn't expecting to play after missing all but the first preseason game with a sore left knee. Glenn Robinson III got the first call to back up George in the first quarter, but Miles wound up playing 12 ½ minutes, some at the "four" position to counter Dallas' small lineup. He scored eight points in a 4 minute, 53-second stretch in the third period, hitting 2-of-3 3-point shots.
"He did some good things," McMillan said. "I told him to be ready and he was ready. Everybody has to be ready. It's just going to be that type of year where teams are going to try strange lineups. We're able to match up (with all lineups).
"I thought he was a big difference in us winning the game."
Miles shrugged off the irony of him contributing more off an injury than off of hard work.
"That's the way it is," he said. "I've been around long enough to know it's a crazy game. Stuff happens. Foul trouble, injuries, somebody tries to play small, whatever. I just treat every game like I'm going to play 40 minutes. I want to be able to have an impact on the game and do my job."
Miles is looking forward to Friday's game at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which brings good memories of last season. He scored 27 points on 10-of-15 shooting in the Pacers' first game there, then followed with 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting in just 14 minutes off the bench in the second game.
"I'm not going to try to figure it out; just going to let it be," he said. "It's definitely been good to me."
Notes
Aaron Brooks was available to play on Wednesday, but did not as a precautionary measure. He practiced on Thursday and could play on Friday in Brooklyn … McMillan was pleased with his team's turnover total – 16 – considering the overtime. The Pacers also kept Dallas off the foul line, limiting it to 18 attempts. Dallas' emphasis on the 3-point shot helped keep that total down, but it had been a problem for the Pacers in the preseason games … Somewhat lost amid the drama of the opening victory was the play of Ellis, who finished with 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting, seven rebounds, seven assists and three steals. He also played a game-high 44 minutes.
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