NBA: Pacers improve to 3-2, ground Hawks late

The Indiana Pacers continued their trend of winning at home, holding the Atlanta Hawks to just 16 points in the fourth quarter, en route to a 106-83 victory and a 3-2 quarterfinals series lead, Wednesday (Thursday, PHL time) at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

The two sides split their initial four games, with Indiana taking the first two, 107-90 and 113-98, before Atlanta evened the series on their home turf, 90-69, 102-91.

After six lead changes and two deadlocks in the first period, the Hawks were up by a single point, 22-21, with only Roy Hibbert's 10 markers keeping the home team in the game. Six straight points by David West in the middle of the second period though lifted the Pacers ahead, 36-31, before a DJ Augustin triple gave Indiana their biggest lead of the first half, 50-41, except a 23-footer by Devin Harris got that down to seven entering the half, 50-43.

An 18-7 run by the Pacers kick-started the third period, giving them a mighty 68-48 advantage, 5:42 left in the quarter, but the more aggressive-minded Hawks kept getting to the line, eating into their deficit slightly, 81-67, with a quarter left.

In the third alone, the Hawks went 16-of-19 from the line, compared to just a 7-of-8 clip by Indiana.

The fourth quarter saw an Al Horford jumper shave off a point from the Pacers' lead, 83-70, three minutes gone by, but it was all Indiana from then on, as they unleashed a 13-2 blast to grow their advantage all the way to 96-72, 4:33 left in the game.

With the Atlanta starters hitting the bench a minute prior, Anthony Tolliver and Shelvin Mack scored to make it a 22-point game, 99-77, but another trey from Augustin and a dunk from Jeff Pendergraph were the exclamation points to this one-sided finish.

David West ended with a game-high 24 points on 11-of-16 shooting, adding five rebounds and a steal in his 35-minute stint. Paul George missed just one of his eight shots, en route to 21 points, and he also chimed in with 10 boards and five dimes, versus just one turnover.

Center Roy Hibbert narrowly missed a double-double with 18 points and nine rebounds, while George Hill completed the feat with 15 markers and 10 assists.

The Hawks got 14 points apiece from their one-two punch of Al Horford and Josh Smith, the duo combining also for 14 rebounds. Devin Harris added 13 markers, while Kyle Korver fired in 10 off the bench.

Atlanta was held to 28.6 percent shooting and six made field goals in the final quarter as the Pacers led by as much as 27 points.

Overall, the Pacers converted on slightly more than half of their 69 attempts from the field, while holding the Hawks to 33.3 percent shooting. Indiana also ruled the glass, to the tune of 51-28, and made the extra pass 24 times, 10 more than their foes.  - AMD, GMA News