Pacers put Cavaliers on the ropes with a Game 3 win: 3 takeaways
By Ian Levy
It’s getting real. The Pacers beat the Cavaliers by in a close Game 3 and are back in control of their first round series.
The Cavaliers entered these playoffs looking as vulnerable as they have since LeBron James returned. That vulnerability was laid completely bare in Game 3 of their first round series — the Pacers came away with a two-point win and hold a 2-1 series lead.
Cleveland came out strong in the first half, running out to an 11-point lead in the first quarter and tacking six more on in the second. LeBron James, Kevin Love and George Hill were all shooting the ball well and the Pacers struggled with turnovers.
The second half…took a different course. Cleveland managed just 33 points, turning the ball over 10 times. LeBron scored 15. Rodney Hood scored 6. No one else managed more than 3. At the other end, Bogdan Bogdanovic turned into a human fireball and all of a sudden the Pacers were in front to stay.
Takeaways
LeBron can not do it himself. LeBron turned in one of the best performances of his career in Game 2 and the Cavaliers were only able to eke out a 3-point win. LeBron couldn’t hit that level in Game 3, and his supporting cast was far worse. At a basic level, Cleveland’s offense is about shooter spreading the floor around LeBron. In Game 3, those shooters were 6-of-25 on 3-pointers. This only works if Cleveland can make the Pacers pay for crashing on LeBron. So far in this series, they haven’t really been able to do that.
The Pacers depth showed up. Through the first two games of the series, Victor Oladipo and Myles Turner have been driving Indiana’s offense, averaging a combined 44 points per game. Tonight, it was Bogdan Bogdanovic who showed up to help shoulder the scoring load. Bogdanovic finished with 30 points on just 15 shots, knocking down 7-of-9 3-pointers. Turner, Oladipo and Collison were a combined 10-of-36 shooting but the Pacers still came out with the win. That should scare Cleveland as much as any other data point in this game.
Next: Jrue Holiday has the Pelicans in position to knock off the Trail Blazers
The Cavaliers are staring down eternity. 538’s projections give Cleveland just a 37 percent chance of coming back to win the series. If they can’t turn things around, it’s possible the LeBron plays just one more home game in a Cavaliers uniform. After that, there is just the dark and creeping void of a post-LeBron existence.