October 16th, 2006

Jermaine O'Neal scored 25 points tonight and had the biggest influence in the game tonight
INDIANA PACERS 96 : 95 MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES
4th quarter intervention
[ Pacers boxscore ][ Timberwolves boxscore ]
Tonight Indiana Pacers and Minnesota Timberwolves met at the Conseco Fieldhouse Center, the match between 2 ambitious teams, with great forwards as the team leaders: Jermaine O'Neal at the Pacers and Kevin Garnett at the Timberwolves. O'Neal won this unofficial fight and got his Player of the Game title tonight.
All the game was very close, only the 4 point lead was the biggest jump. The halftime ended with a 1 point advantage by the Pacers. At the 3rd quarter they increased their lead to 6 points. Jermaine O'Neal and Al Harrington were the leading scorers at the Pacers, while Kevin Garnett and Ricky Davis at the Wolves. So the final 4th quarter started, with Wolves' wishes to close the game.
And Timberwolves take the initiative and scored some important layups and dunks, especially by Ricky Davis, which you can find at the end of this recap. Pacers were still fighting, but Jamaal Tinsley was struggling with several missed shots and Timberwolves take the lead, they were leading 81 : 80 now. Coach Rick Carlisle asked for a timeout with the new hopes. He benched Jamaal Tinsley, letting to step up for Sarunas Jasikevicius. Saras felt that he may be the hero of the game, so he was very concentrated.
And timeout finished and the game was resumed. But then, despite the Pacers timeout, Wolves were storming the place with excellent dunks by Ricky Davis and Kevin Garnett. So the score became 93 : 84 for the Wolves. Only very optimistic Pacers fans believed that they still can win at the remaining of the 2 minutes. But then two good passes from Sarunas Jasikevicius to Jermaine O'Neal, the accurate layup by Marquis Daniels and the score is closed to 3 at the remaining of 1 minute. Wolves missed the very important shot and Danny Granger used the opportunity and closed the lead to 1 point.
The most interesting minutes came then, and with a joy to specators at Conseco Field Wolves lost the ball and another shot by Al Harrington was made, after that followed another points from Pacers, which recorded the 12 : 0 run at the end of the game. The score was 96 : 93 for the Pacers now, and Wolves had last 10 seconds to finish the game gaining the overtime. But Randy Foye had only the ability to attack from the 2 point line and made the jumper. Only 1.6 seconds left for the Pacers and they used that time perfectly, not letting to be fauled, such ending the game 96 : 95.
Rick Carlisle was happy only with the score and with the last 2 minutes of the game. We can't play as we played at the first 8 minutes at the 4th quarter. And the whole game didn't make him very good feelings. We must improve our game at the backcourt, Jamaal and Sephen must play better, also I'm missing the decent game from Saras and Daniels. So the main purpose for us at the remaining preseason games will be to strenghten our backcourt.
Now Pacers will have the trip to Denver to face with Denver Nuggets, after then, they will return to Indianapolis to play against Bobcats and the last 3 remaining games will be at Minnesota, Charlotte and Utah.
Special Ricky Davis dunk gallery: [ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ]
Some other players highlights: [ 4 ][ 5 ][ 6 ]