Cleveland – Kenny Atkinson has a simple message for his Cleveland Cavaliers in his semifinal series of the East Conference against the Indiana Pacers.
Put your track shoes.
The best sown cavaliers had the best NBA offensive in the regular season, averaging 121.9 points. The sowed room paers averaged 117.4 points (the best seventh), but they have one of the fastest teams in the league, and like to accelerate.
“We have athletics and speed, it is only the initial shock that they do so consistently,” Atkinson said. “I give (coach) Rick Carlisle and his group so much credit because he plays in his staff. The message to our boys is how resistant we can be with our career. We do it three times, they will do four. Can we do it for a longer time?”
The confrontation that everyone will see when the series begins Sunday night at the Rocket Arena will be between Tyrese Haliburton in Indiana and Donovan Mitchell de Cleveland.
Haliburton, who averaged 17.6 points against Milwaukee, is averaging better 11.6 playoff assistance per game that run the offensive five outside the Pacers. He was also the first Indiana player in 11 years to start a series of playoffs with four consecutive double doubles.
“He is a talented player. From the star game recess, he has been averaging as 20 points and 11 assists,” Mitchell said. “I respect him a lot and what he brings there. We understand how important it is for that group. It is a threat and we have to make sure we try to find ways to neutralize one of the greatest threats of his team.”
Mitchell averaged 23.8 points against the Miami Heat in the first round. If the All-Star Guard puts 30 points on Sunday, it will be his eighth consecutive game with at least 30 points in a first game of the series, which would exceed Michael Jordan.
“They are the best team in the east for a reason,” said Haliburton. “They have a lot of depth. They shoot the ball well, they defend themselves at a high level, they obtained edge protection, they have everything. We are excited to compete against those boys, and there are not a lot of movies, which have all their boys and we have all our boys.”
Both teams have had time to prepare for what is expected to be a long series. Cleveland closed Miami in four games on Monday night, while the Indiana series against Milwaukee concluded on Tuesday.
The initial guard Andrew Nembhard, one of the main defenders of the Pacers, believes that extra time will benefit the Pacers because they avoided another physical battle along the way.
“It is definitely a great advantage, we don’t have to go to Milwaukee and play 6,” he said. “We are better when we rest.”
Darius Garland de Cleveland will be a game time of play, since it continues to deal with persistent feet injury. The All-Star Guard, which was lost the last two games of the regular season and then games 3 and 4 of the Miami series after aggravating the injury, did not practice on Saturday, but had a great workload and went through a complete contact session on Friday.
Atkinson said Garland will probably have to deal with the injury for the rest of the playoffs.
“The foot of the foot is difficult,” said Atkinson. “There is pain and all that. But the good when we see him shooting at this time, he is moving well.”
Yes, the Pacers are playing their second consecutive playoff series against an enemy of the division, but it could be very different from the Chippy Milwaukee series.
While the Pacers and Bucks fired 20 times in the last two seasons, including the first consecutive round series, both won by the Pacers, these teams have not met in the postseason since the consecutive first round clashes in 2017 and 2018, when LeBron James was the star player of Cleveland.
In fact, they have not even square this season with any of the teams with all their strength. The result: Indiana has resorted to some unique ways of preparing.
“I WOULD BET THAT’S NOT HAPPENED A LOT IN NBA HISTORY,” HALIBURTON SAID “I MISSED TWO GAMES, A GAME AND A HALF, SO I MEAN THE FILM IS WEIRD. BUT I THINK YOU Your imagination at sum Point, Watching The Last Series and Seeing Howler (Herro), How He’s Attacking these Guys Offensively.
When San Antonio announced Friday that Gregg Popovich would no longer train the Spurs, the coach of the Pacers, Rick Carlisle, uploaded the second on the list of active coaches.
Carlisle needs seven regular season victories to become the 11th coach to reach 1,000 wins and during his 23 seasons of the NBA, Carlisle has gone through many difficult confrontations. And he does not want anyone to overlook this series, which presents two of the smallest but well -backed market teams in the League.
“Indianapolis and Cleveland are two large cities and very underestimated cities,” he said. “I have been in Cleveland enough times to know that its fans are rabid, its building is one of the loudest. Therefore, it will be a high level of competition.”
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The sports writer AP Mike Marot in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
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