Court Vision: Playoff lessons as the Wizards hammer the Pacers
Here's what we learned in the NBA Playoffs on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 as Marcin Gortat and the Washington Wizards ran roughshod all over the Indiana Pacers.
Washington Wizards 102, Indiana Pacers 79 | Pacers lead the series 3-2* We learned that when the Indiana Pacers lose, they lose in a tremendous fashion. The Washington Wizards destroyed them in this game and really opened it up in a big third quarter that guaranteed we see a Game 6 in this series. There were so many moments and stats to show the domination, but let's try to go over a few of them here to show just how bad this game was for the Pacers and how good it was for a Wizards team in desperate need of a victory.
* After the third quarter, Marcin Gortat and John Wall had combined for 54 points. The entire Pacers team had just 52 points. Wall had 17 points in the third quarter while the Pacers had 14. At that point, Nene and the Wizards' bench had combined for two points and the team still had a 24-point lead.
* Gortat was ferocious in this game. He was dunking a lot, he ruled the boards, and he was dominating the paint on both ends. He had 16 rebounds in the game to the Pacers' 23. In fact, he was outrebounding the Pacers on his own after the third quarter 16-15. He was 13-of-15 overall from the floor for 31 points and the Wizards were a plus-35 with him on the floor.
* I should probably try to say something positive about the Pacers at some point in this. Um... they're up 3-2 in the series.
* Wall has had a weird struggle with his balance in being aggressive juxtaposed to being composed in this series. He's attacked nicely for most of the series but his shot hasn't fallen and that's also made him hesitant at times. While he was a bit sloppy with the ball (five turnovers), everything else for him was well-measured. He had 27 points on the night on 11-of-20 shooting. He scored from almost every zone on the floor and really explored the space like he was playing the cowbell on a Blue Oyster Cult track.
* Washington was so dominant they didn't need 3-point shooting to cruise to the comfortable win. They made just 5-of-18 (27.8 percent) and still came out on top. Including the playoffs, it was just their seventh win in 18 games when they shoot 28 percent from 3-point range or worse.
* Wizards had 19 turnovers, gave up 23 points off of those turnovers, and still didn't have to sweat the fourth quarter. What I'm trying to say is the Pacers got smacked around.
* Some more rebounding domination fun for the Wizards fans out there. Wizards grabbed 18 offensive rebounds while the Pacers grabbed 19 defensive rebounds. They were so close to matching their offensive rebounds with the opponents' defensive rebounds, which would have been the fourth time (including playoffs) this was done this season. The Bucks beat the Sixers in this respect with 20 offensive rebounds to 17 defensive rebounds grabbed by the opponent. The Grizzlies defeated the Nuggets by matching their offensive boards to Denver's defensive boards at 19 in this season. And the Raptors matched the Nets at 19 in the same respect and beat them during Game 2 of their series.
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