Daily NBA Fix 4-1-14: Streaking Spurs Pound Pacers
By Phil Watson
Welcome to the Daily NBA Fix for Tuesday, April 1, the morning after the Indiana Pacers lost their grip on the Eastern Conference’s top seed.
The streaking San Antonio Spurs won their 18th game in a row Monday night, hammering the Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse 103-77. That result coupled with the Miami Heat’s 93-83 win over the Toronto Raptors, pushed Miami percentage points ahead of Indiana for the top spot in the East.
If the Pacers seem panicky, it’s only because they are 1-5 in their last six games (the lone win being an 84-83 triumph over the Heat on Wednesday) and were 8-10 in March while scoring fewer points per game than any team in the NBA for the month.
"“It’s awful, we’ve been in a downward spiral and we’ve been splintering a little bit,” Roy Hibbert told The Associated Press. “We’ve had plenty of players-only meetings and plenty of sit-downs as a team with coaches and we’ve had some upper management in here, so I don’t know. Maybe we should all go to group therapy or something, sit down with Dr. (Chris) Carr and figure out some of our grievances.”"
Carr is the performance psychologist for the Pacers.
In any event, Indiana put a lot of stock into getting home-court advantage in the East and to lose it in the final weeks of the season after holding the spot all year might prompt the Pacers to need some psychological help.
Or, at the very least, a hug.
The Daily NBA Fix will deliver highlights, game capsules, the top and bottom five players, the dreaded Goose Egg, Clean and Sober and Ironman awards, we’ll recap who’s circling the drain, there will be some interesting pieces of relevant (and not-so-relevant) information and we’ll look at today’s daily lines for those people who like to wager a buck or two.
Check out the highlights below from the night that was, then get into the game capsules (home teams in CAPS).