Pacers’ Nate McMillan angered by Heat taking 52 ‘ridiculous’ free throws

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla – The Indiana Pacers find themselves on the verge of elimination after losing 124-115 to the Miami Heat on Saturday afternoon to fall 3-0 in their best of seven series in the first round.

A major factor in the loss was that the Heat went to the free throw line 52 times, including 20 trips for Heat forward Jimmy Butler alone. The Pacers have gone 28 times.

“I can’t explain that,” Pacers coach Nate McMillan said after the game. “I mean, 52 free throws is ridiculous. They had 24 at halftime, Butler is shooting 20 … this is the playoffs, and I thought some of those calls were … I can not explain it.”

Indiana is one loss from being swept away in the first round for the second year in a row and for the third time in four years. It would also be the team’s fifth straight outing in the first round of the playoffs.

When the Pacers were down 18 at halftime, it looked like they were just going to turn around without fighting too much.

But then, after the team had a discussion in the locker room, the Pacers came out in the second half with a much better effort, closing in to four points after three quarters, before ultimately losing a pinch-and-fall game with poor execution in the scope.

“At this point you have nothing to lose,” Pacers goalkeeper Victor Oladipo said of the team’s approach in the second half. “It was either ‘Make something happen or be embarrassed’. One of the two. We did a great job of fighting and getting in the game. But unfortunately a lot has happened, you know what I say? Unfortunately I tore my quad. Unfortunately none of this would have happened except for corona.

“Unfortunately, a lot of things are happening. You can make excuses, you can blame everyone, or you can just figure it out. In the second half we did a better job of figuring it out. We missed, obviously, but we have to have the same mentality in the next game and go out there and do the impossible. I know everyone thinks it’s over and thinks it’s an end. I’m sure they do too . But it’s already been done, and why can’t we do it? We have to have this mindset and really believe that if we are to accomplish something special. “

It will certainly take something special for Indiana to become the first team to come back from a 3-0 deficit and win an NBA playoff series.

To do this, however, Indiana will need to be much more disciplined than it was on Saturday. The Heat – and Butler in particular – were able to exhaust a path to and from the free throw line.

The difference between free throws made by Miami (43) and field goals (34) is the greatest this season, including regular season and playoff games; and that was the biggest difference in a playoff game since the Los Angeles Lakers had 12 more free throws than field goals against the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2012.

Since 2000, it was the sixth most free throws attempted by a team in a playoff game that ended in settlement. The other five all included players who are notoriously bad free throw shooters that the opponent would want to send to the line, such as Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, Ben Wallace and Shaquille O’Neal.

“Yeah, there’s definitely a gap in the number of free throws they’ve shot against us,” Pacers goaltender Malcolm Brogdon said. “I don’t know if it’s a mix of officials, we weren’t aggressive enough, whatever.

“But that has to change.”

One person who didn’t see a problem was Heat coach Erik Spoelstra.

“It helps you control the pace and the content of the game,” Spoelstra said of the foul line several times. “So when they would run away and gain some enthusiasm, Jimmy would find a way or Bam [Adebayo] or whoever would find a way to get to the free throw line, and that just helps you sort things out, and it’s a great skill that we don’t take for granted.

“In a playoff game, be able to have 20 free throw attempts [from Jimmy] – and they were all collisions. It’s not like he’s making his way to the line. He puts his body in there and makes contact and forces you to make the call. “