After coming up big in Boston, the Indiana Pacers continue to roll after beating the Charlotte Bobcats 99-77 to boost their record up to 6-2. The victory also helped Indiana improve their home win-record, which now stands at 3-0.
Roy Hibbert led the way with 20 points and eight rebounds. However, Indiana didn’t start picking things up until the second half. For much of the first half, Indy trailed with flashy showings by D.J. Augustin, who scored 20 points and seven rebounds in the game. It was 49-43 at the break, but after that, it was Indy’s ball game as they outscored Charlotte 56-28 in the second half.
The Pacers showed that they have a strong, young team. Doc Rivers said after the C’s loss to Indiana on Friday night that this Pacers squad reminds him of his 2007 championship team. They are young, fast, and are looking to reek havoc in the Eastern Conference.
Indiana is not all about their starting five, as they have great guys to contribute off the bench like George Hill and Tyler Hansbrough. And they showed that in the victory, outscoring the Bobcats 21-11 on the bench.
“We’ve got eight guys, maybe nine that could probably start on other NBA teams,” Pacers forward Danny Granger said. “That’s a lot of depth. I’d like to say we have more depth than most teams.”
Danny Granger finished with 13 points, as he is starting to get better and better throughout the season. Hopefully, once things start picking up, he’ll be back to putting up his 20-point scoring games again. However, a scary incident happened early in this match-up when Granger sprained his ankle. Thankfully, he was able to return and help in the win.
Hansbrough added 15 points to the win while Collison had 14 and George Hill had 13. David West put up ten points.
“Handling home,” Hill said. “It’s something that we preach. We want to be unbeatable here and .500 on the road. Any time you can do that, it can get you a long way.”
Unlike the past few nights, Indiana was on fire from shooting, with 51-percent of their shots made from the field. Their defense was on top of their game as well with holding Charlotte to only 33-percent shooting, the fifth time this season they held an opponent under 40-percent.
“It says a lot about our team because it was a grind-it-out game against a veteran team,” Granger said. “We grinded them out, we put our defense out there and played to the best of our ability. Those are the kind of games you have to win.”
Indiana is playing great right now. They’ll play the Philadelphia 76ers next on the road on Monday night as they look to improve to 7-2 against the Andre Iguodala-led team.
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