The Indiana Pacers exploded in the second half en route to a 91-77 victory over Miami on Saturday to force a deciding seventh game in their NBA Eastern Conference final series.
Paul George led the Pacers with 28 points, while Roy Hibbert added 24 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, as Indiana held off the reigning NBA champions Heat in the fourth quarter to knot the series at three games apiece.
The Pacers still face a tough task if they want to deny the Heat a return to the NBA finals, with Miami having the luxury of hosting Game 7 today.
The winners of the series will face Western Conference champions San Antonio in the NBA championship series, starting on Thursday.
The Spurs will be well-rested against either opponent, thanks to their four-game sweep of Memphis in the Western Conference finals.
“This is where you have to compartmentalize in the playoffs and focus on the main thing,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after his team failed to wrap up the series. “We work all season long for Game 7, home court. Regardless of how you get to that point — play well, don’t play well, win a game, lose a game — it all builds up to this. It’s an incredible opportunity for a professional athlete to be part of a game seven, and that’s why our guys are looking forward to this, even after a disappointing loss.”
The Pacers led by as many as 17 points in the third quarter. Miami whittled the deficit to four midway through the fourth and were down 77-68 when Heat superstar LeBron James drove to the rim guarded by Hibbert.
James double-clutched, but Hibbert rose straight up to defend the basket, drawing an offensive foul from James who hit him with an elbow.
James, who immediately ran down the court, and Heat assistant coach David Fizdale both received technical fouls in the wake of the play, which James thought was a blown call by officials.
George Hill made both free throws for Indiana to stretch the lead back to 11, and Miami never got within double-digits from there.
“The momentum could have shifted right there if he got an easy dunk,” Hibbert said of the play.
Just as the Heat used a strong third quarter to win Game 5, the Pacers — trailing by one at halftime — came out firing in the third.
“Total domination by the Pacers in the third,” Miami’s NBA Most Valuable Player James said of a period that Indiana opened with a 14-3 scoring run, highlighted by Hibbert’s drive past Miami center J/oel Anthony for a one-handed dunk.
“I think we just did a tremendous effort of recognizing that the last game, our third quarter was really what let us down,” Hibbert said. “We tried to take advantage of that and come out aggressive.”
Even though they trailed at halftime, Indiana coach Frank Vogel said he thought his team had the better of the Heat.
“I felt like we were out-playing them, but we were just leaving a lot of plays out there,” Vogel said. “We had to complete those plays, continue the things that were working for us. We believe in our defensive plan. We’ve got to limit our turnovers, we’ve got to finish at the rim. If we do those things, we can take control of the game.”
“We knew, in Game 5, they came out and seized control of the game in the third quarter, and I felt like we could do the same,” Vogel said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but