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One game at a time Bucks need to hold home-court to have a shot
Posted: Saturday April 29, 2000 05:03 PM
After totally misfiring with my impressions of Game 2 of this series, I was almost afraid to sit at the keyboard for Game 3. Who expected the Pacers would fail to show up at their own gym, where they were 36-5 in the regular season, and had taken Game 1 from Milwaukee. Certainly not I. Indiana goes into this one with their home-court edge having been negated and with Rik Smits watching. How will that one-game suspension affect the series? If they were taking on a team with a dominant center, the impact would be profound. They're not, but they'll still miss his presence in the middle, changing shots, clogging things up and hitting the occasional jumper. But it's not as if Ervin Johnson will run wild against the Pacers, and that's not what George Karl needs out of him anyway. He needs another solid effort out of his big three (Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell) and more production from the bench, as he got in the Game 2 win. Tim Thomas, Scott Williams and Vinnie Del Negro accounted for 44 points, compared with 17 in the opener. Larry Bird has a right to be concerned about his team's mental approach. "You play like you practice," he said after Game 2. We'll see if there was more urgency in the Pacers' prep for Game 3 and if it translates into more than the pedestrian effort they gave on Thursday. The Bucks beat 'em by 14 at Bradley in December and lost on a Mark Jackson game-winner there in February. Given the boost they got from Thursday's win, the fact that they're home and the absence of Rik Smits from Indiana's lineup, the Bucks have the edge. They'd better win the next two, because I don't like their chances of winning Game 5 at Conseco Fieldhouse. But that's a story for another day. I almost forgot we've gotta take 'em one game at a time.
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