Pacers erase 17-point deficit, take 2-1 series lead over Cavs
INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Pacers kept insisting this team was different.
Anyone who doubted them coming into the playoffs understands now.
On Friday, the one-year anniversary of a historic playoff collapse against Cleveland, Indiana flipped the script by rallying from a 17-point halftime deficit and held on for a 92-90 victory over the Cavaliers to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. They can take command of the series by winning Sunday on their home court.
“Last year’s team, I don’t know if we would have gone down 17, I don’t know if we would have overcome it,” forward Thaddeus Young said. “But this team, we’ve been resilient all year. We’ve overcome adversity.”
And on Friday they did it against a Cavaliers team that was 39-0 in the regular season when leading after three quarters.
Bojan Bogdanovic scored 19 of his playoff career-high 30 points in the second half, finishing 7 of 9 on 3-pointers. Victor Oladipo added 18 points, six rebounds and seven assists.
Bogdanovic also spent most of the game defending LeBron James, who finished with 28 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists and six turnovers. He joined Michael Jordan as the only players in league history with 100 double-doubles in the postseason. Jordan had 109.
James almost single-handedly rallied his team twice from seven-point deficits in the final 3½ minutes.
The three-time defending Eastern Conference champs were outscored 52-33 over the final 24 minutes.
“We were more aggressive in the first half. We had tempo, they didn’t,” James said. “Then they were more aggressive in the second half, they had tempo, and we didn’t.”
Young is one of the few players still around from the record-breaking, 26-point collapse last year, which is one reason coach Nate McMillan has continually opted not to discuss it.
After the Pacers cut the 57-40 halftime deficit to 69-63 at the end of three, the Pac-