Paul George Pushes Pacers Past Heat to Avoid Elimination

Indiana Pacers' collective backs were up against the well. They faced elimination last night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse as Miami Heat could have ended the trilogy between the two teams with an emphatic whimper. But Pacers would not be deny as they won 93-90 with a strong second half from Paul George, propelling the team for a return to South Beach and try to force an inexplicable Game 7.  There was much to go over from this game ranging from the favorable whistle, Lance being Lance to the final non-shot by LeBron James.

Indiana needed its superstar to be great, and George did exactly that in the second half with 33 of his 37 points coming in the final two quarters. He made 15 field goal attempts with five of them coming from 3-point range. If you take out the nine missed threes from George's stat line, he made 15 of 20 baskets from the field making it a more impressive stat line. He looked in full control for the first time in the series. It showed the importance of LeBron James in foul trouble because George was able to take control of his basketball game with The King spending much of the time on the bench. It also nice to see a player back up his talk after George's bizarre Game 4 comments, it seemed like he had a purpose out on the basketball court. Curious to see how he carries it over to Game 6 on Friday night.

You never want to be 'that person' in the group whom blames everything on the officials, but man, it sure did look like the zebras did their best to help Indiana.  At one point, Grantland's Bill Simmons points out Miami had 19 fouls to Indiana's 10. What exactly happened?  LeBron is definitely not known for getting fouls called against him. Personally, I believe LeBron should average around four fouls a game leading to him fouling out more often, but the league is selective on when to call fouls on Bron. Maybe he put himself in consistently bad situations allowing for fouls to be called or maybe the officials listened to George's $25,000 complaints after Game 4. The whistle against James had much to do with him struggling last night going 2/10 from the field with seven points. LeBron never got into a rhythm affecting how he played last night.

Lance Stephenson continued to be the pest of the playoff after blowing in LeBron's ear and jumping into the huddle between a couple Heat players. He is baseball's version of Manny Ramirez.  There should be just Lance headlines because he is the only capable of pulling some of this shit. He picked up a 10,000 dollar fine for flopping last night in addition to the antics above. I do think wherever Lance goes this offseason because it will not be Indiana, we need to keep him in whatever conference LeBron is in so we can get at least three or four games of this plus a playoff series. Odds LeBron punches Lance next season are pretty high. Just needs to happen once.

Speaking of James, much criticism has come from James deciding not to take the layup at the rim. Those are the closest LeBron hate squad jumping on every mistake he makes in life. A couple things worth noting as to why James likely gave up the shot to Chris Bosh in the corner. One, LeBron had five fouls. They go to overtime and James fouls out, it is curtains for the Heat plus extra five minutes spent playing Game 5.  Two, Bosh has hit those shots all year. ESPN's Bomani Jones nicknamed him Big Shot Bosh because he found a way to hit late-game jumpers. Granted, Bosh's shot wasn't the greatest yet still, not a terrible decision. If you buy into the old adage, 'Play for overtime at home, win on the road', James tried to do exactly that on Wednesday night.

If anyone thinks this series is going the full seven, they are either a perpetual drunk or a Pacers homer because LeBron is ending this thing on Friday night. We are in store for an iconic James performance on Friday night and I hope Lance is ready for it along with his other Pacer teammates.

Charlie.