Kravitz: Mismatch describes this series

[Pooh]

April 24, 2004

BOSTON -- There's nothing terribly complicated about this. What we're witnessing is a flogging. What we're seeing is one team that has a real shot at the NBA le and another that didn't deserve to be in the playoffs in the first place.

If the Pacers and Celtics looked like an epic mismatch on paper, it's looked even bigger in real life.

Is it too late to restore the best-of-five format?

By the middle of the third quarter of the Pacers' 108-85 Game 3 victory Friday, even Paul Pierce, the only guy left on this roster who can call himself a true Celtic, seemed resigned to his team's grisly fate. The Pacers had not only shut him down again, but after his team had promised to draw a line in the sand for this Game 3, he saw Indiana do things to his team that would be illegal in most states.

"These are nights when it's a little hard because you played a very talented team and they have a way of making you look bad," soon-to-be ex-Celtics coach John Carroll said. "It's very embarrassing. But give them all the credit. They just gave us an old-fashioned butt kicking. That's how good they are, and that's why they're No. 1."

After Game 2, Chucky Atkins, the Celtics' loquacious point guard, suggested his team shouldn't show up for Game 4 if they lost Game 3.

It might not be a bad idea.

What gives anybody the silliest idea the Celtics can make this thing remotely compe ive?

One thing about Carroll, a man who's been thrust into this impossible situation: He's not putting up a false front. He sees what everybody sees. There's a reason one team won 61 games and the other won 36. And there's no compelling reason to think anything has a chance to change.

"It just makes you marvel at what (the Pacers) have put together and how deep their team is," Carroll said. "And how they have an answer for everything. They have length, they have strength, they have depth, they have an inside game, an outside game. And so I know the focus is on what we weren't doing and I'm not trying to deflect that for one second. I'm just saying, they're a really good, well-coached, disciplined, powerful team. And if you are not of the same caliber, they can make you look a little silly at times."

Once again, the Pacers' bench put on a clinic. Al Harrington is having his breakout playoff series. Jonathan Bender, a man they've waited to display for years, has become a force. Fred Jones, who needed a bus token to reach the floor last year, has looked more and more like Reggie Miller's heir apparent.

Once again, the Pacers owned the paint.

Once again, the Celtics, who have spent the past few days criticizing themselves for being too soft, showed they have neither the ability nor the inclination to edit the Pacers' highlight film. Forget all that stuff about the Pacers' grind-it-out style. Right now, they're the highest-scoring team in the playoffs.

When the series began, the Celtics' only chance to make this remotely compe ive was to have Pierce go off for one of his 40-point nights. But that's not happening, and it won't happen. He simply doesn't have any help. And he wonders, justifiably so, what direction this franchise is now heading.

"This is not that type of franchise," Pierce said. "This is one of the best franchises in all of basketball. If we don't have the guys who are going to accept that and have the pride to put on that uniform and compete at a high level every night no matter who is out there, then we need to get guys who do."

We knew this had the chance to be ugly. But not quite this ugly. Little wonder the Pacers-Celtics series can't get much national, prime-time exposure. (We're hearing Game 4 will be shown on the Oxygen network, by the way.)

The last time the Pacers had a playoff game here, they were closing the lid on a season that had been suffering for quite some time.

It ended indecorously, with Ron Artest tussling with Pacers director of player personnel Mel Daniels, with Jermaine O'Neal sitting in front of his locker, still in his uniform long after the game, wondering out loud whether enough of his teammates really wanted the season to continue.

It was an unhappy and desperately lost team.

Here, one year later, they are looking like a team that can reach the NBA Finals. They are not beating the Celtics in this first-round series. They are toying with them.

Simple enough, really.

[God31]

Take out the Brooms tomorrrow... because it's sweep time!!!

GO PACERS GO !!!

[SycamoreKen]

I agree. Let's finish this off and wait for the Bugs and Heat to finish.