Peja kills former team with amazing performance
November 3th, 2006
Predrag Stojakovic is shooting one of his three 3 pointers. He had 37 points in this game.
INDIANA PACERS 102 : 108 NEW ORLEANS HORNETS
3th quarter intervention
[ Pacers boxscore ][ Hornets boxscore ]
The first season game at the Conseco Field was not successful, as Chris Paul along with Peja Stojakovic killed Pacers combining 68 points both. Peja, who played half of the previous season in Indiana, after being trade from Sacramento for Ron Artest, seemed very comfortable in his new place. After the match he said that it was nice to play against former team and wished best of luck in this season for Pacers.
So the real disaster started at the begining of the 3rd quarter. Peja began to shoot 3 pointers and he made 3 of 4 in this quarter. 2 of them were very painful, when the lead was increased to the double digit lead. Pacers simply had no answers for him, as Danny Granger were poor defensively against him. Then Marquis Daniels was forced to play defense against him and he did quite well. Peja was shut for a while, but then came the time for Chris Paul.
He started his show at the end of this quarter, when hit some jumpers and the quarter ended with a 13 point lead for the Hornets. Pacers wished to change something in the last period, but the effort was useless, when Paul continued his job. He outplayed Pacers' point guards at the both ends. Saras couldn't help defensively as he also struggled today with poor shooting. The same or even worse could be said about the main point guard Jamaal Tinsley. He missed all his 10 shots in the game and had only 1 point hiting one free throw.
So having such opponents, sophomore guard Chris Paul was able to do whatever he want. And he ended tonight with 31 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals. Peja had 37 points grabbing also 6 rebounds and gaining the honors of the Player of this game. The spectators were disappointing with the game especially when the lead increased 21 points after the several minutes of the start fo 4th quarter.
Thank God Pacers didn't surrend yet, and were trying to close the lead and play till the end. And they were almost near their aim of the game, when the lead was closed only to 4 points in the last minute, due to the relax of the Hornets and hard effort of the Pacers, but the time was limited and Pacers couldn't do more in this game. They lost by 6 points tonight and the game showed a lot of weak parts of their play.
One of them is just weak point guard position. Pacers' point guards made only 1 shot from 20, although dished 10 assists but were unable to defend Chris Paul. One of the brightest sides was Marquis Daniels, who stopped Peja Stojakovic at the end of 3rd quarter and also scored 19 points with great shooting percents. 4 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals were also the proof of his good all around performance. Pacers' frontcourt again were great and the coach is happy with them so far.
The coach after the game said that he was disappointed with that play in the 3rd quarter. "We will have to strengthen our defense in the next matches. This is very bad example how it is need to play defensively against this team. Of course the loss is a loss and there will be more in the season, but at first we have to think how to improve our game"- added Rick Carlisle. And the team will try to do this next day, when they meet with New York Knicks at the Madison Square Garden.
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