He had a team-high seven assists, and was one of the primary lubricators of an offense that produced a season-high 118 points, a season-high 71 points from the bench and tied a franchise record with 17 3-pointers.
So what if Rodney Stuckey scored 34 points in 30 ½ minutes in a 32-point win over Orlando at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Tuesday? That was a mere byproduct of a dramatically improved offense and a blossoming team chemistry that rivals any in franchise history. He just happened to be the most obvious benefactor, not to mention the hottest. This time.
“Just shooting the ball,” he said after hitting 13-of-19 shots, including 6-of-9 3-pointers. “Coach always tell me, shoot when you're open, and they were going in tonight.”
They went in from the outset, so fast and furiously that he led the Pacers back from an eight-point deficit late in the first quarter to a 12-point halftime lead that was never challenged. Stuckey, playing off the bench as he prefers, entered the game midway through the first quarter in place of Damjan Rudež, who started in place of the injured C.J. Miles (sore feet). He hit a 3-pointer on his first possession at 5:41, then blocked a shot at the other end. He hit a 17-foot fading jumper at 4:50, another 3-pointer at 3:53, a mid-range jumper at 1:33, another 3-pointer at 1:11 and a 19-footer at 36.1 seconds.
He had hit all six field goal attempts at that point, but missed his final shot of the period when called up on to run down the clock on the Pacers' final possession and wound up forcing a 28-foot three-pointer. He played the entire second quarter and hit three more shots, two of them three-pointers, before missing a three-pointer that he forced up to beat the shot clock.
He had 25 points at halftime, added seven more in the third, then wound down with a lone layup out of the halfcourt offense in the fourth. Coach Frank Vogel did him the courtesy of waiting for the first dead ball after a timeout to take him out, with 5:15 left, so he could get a standing ovation from the fans. Many of them chanted “Stuck-ey! Stuck-ey” Others went with “Rod-ney! Rod-ney!” Neither had quite the ring of a good old-fashioned “Reg-gie!” but the point was made.
And the point was that Stuckey had an outstanding game without showing a hint of greed. He had to force a few shots to beat the shot clock, but other than that stayed within the flow of the offense. There wasn't a single heat-check among his 19 field goal attempts.
“He could have gone for 50 if he really wanted to,” Vogel said. “He didn't force at all. He was our best ball-mover tonight. You're going that well, you're 8-for-9, you're 9-for-11, and every time you see two on the ball you're sharing it and hitting the open man and playing the right way. That's really impressive.”
Equally impressive is Stuckey's sudden accuracy. He was a career 29 percent 3-point shooter entering this season, and hit just 27 percent last season for Detroit. He started poorly here, too, but is now shooting .404 from the 3-point line, to be exact. He says he's simply putting in extra time, going off with Rudez and assistant coach Popeye Jones after every practice to put up about 100 3-pointers. But his compatibility within the offensive system, and even within the franchise, seem to be factors, too.
“I just think it's a matter of him being comfortable with this team and this culture and this locker room,” Vogel said.
Vogel has expanded the comfort zone by expanding the offense in recent weeks. He's put in some tweaks, adding more read-and-react elements to his system rather than relying on patterned plays. It's a way of staying a step ahead of the advance scouts who send game plans back to opponents, and his players are making it work by making the extra pass.
Stuckey just happened to be Tuesday's poster child.
“I think it's just our ability to get guys open,” said Solomon Hill, who had six assists. “We just collectively make the extra pass. It's not him going one-on-one and taking a hard three, it's us driving the ball, one more (pass), one more (pass) and he's wide open – and he knows he can make that shot.”
Stuckey doesn't reject any theories, but doesn't dwell on the subject. And that's why the Pacers have won 12 of their last 14 games and six in a row. Nobody's caring who scores, which is obvious by a glance at the season stats. Ten players are averaging between 13.8 points (George Hill) and 8.6 (Luis Scola) and that group doesn't include capable scorers such as Chris Copeland, Lavoy Allen and the rapidly improving Rudež, who scored 17 points on 6-of-8 shooting on Tuesday.
“We have so many guys who can contribute and play basketball the right way,” Rudež said. “At one point in the game I was on the bench and watching the game develop and I thought, We're really playing good solid fundamental basketball now, making all the right decisions.”
Considered a hopeless wreck by many a couple of months ago, the Pacers are rolling. They have an endless cast of drivers for their vehicle, and another very important one likely to jump in before long. It will be fascinating to see where they wind up.
Have a question for Mark? Want it to be on Pacers.com? Email him at askmontieth@gmail.com and you could be featured in his next mailbag.
Note: The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Indiana Pacers. All opinions expressed by Mark Montieth are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Indiana Pacers, their partners, or sponsors.