This Pacers series has shades of OKC vs Portland in 2019. In fact, it’s damn near an identical scenario, it’s uncanny.
The Blazers had a disappointing playoff exit the year prior much like the Bucks last year, in that scenario they were swept in the first round as the 3rd seed the previous year by the Pelicans.
Blazers followed that season by snagging the third seed again in 2019, as we have earned the third seed this year. Much like us this year, everyone chose the 6th seed Thunder with Russ and PG to beat the Blazers in 6 or 7; [here’s the proof](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26500537/expert-predictions-first-round-2019-nba-playoffs) (https://www.espn.com/nba/story/\_/id/26500537/expert-predictions-first-round-2019-nba-playoffs). Very similar to our situation now where the established narrative by the media is that the Bucks will lose to the Pacers in 6 or 7.
The Blazers had lost all four of their regular season matchups that year to OKC. We lost 4 of 5 to the Pacers this season.
Add even another layer of similarity to that, Russ and Dame had beef going into that series because Russ was talking crazy trash in the regular season games to Dame. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before… Haliburton… the Dame Time celebration fiasco from the IST.
One more parallel to our current series, the blazers were without their franchise big man Jusuf Nurkic who suffered a leg injury close towards the end of the season… Now obviously Nurk and The Freak aren’t comparable as players, but Nurkic was very important to that Blazers team because he was/is a great playmaking big that could make decisions from the high post whether scoring or facilitating, as well as anchoring their defense.
We all know how that OKC series ended; Blazers in 5.
If Doc really wants to win this series as it appears we may be playing without Giannis for another game or two at least, he should strategize to get Dame open when they double him as opposed to running weakside actions and relying on our role players to make decisions and take shots. I’m not saying abandon that completely, but you can’t win games if you are allowing the Pacers to effectively shut Dame out of the offense by using him as a decoy. It worked in game 1 because we had such a big lead going into halftime, but it’s not the entire answer.
Dame does not let anyone get away with slighting him, ever! If you put it in his hands, I know we are winning this series if only based on the sole fact that Haliburton was talking crazy earlier in the season and Nembhard has been mouthing off in this series. More importantly, he knows even without Giannis, this is one of if not the best team he’s been on in his entire career. If you leave it up to him, we are not losing this series. Damian Lillard is not losing in the first round to Tyrese Haliburton (typing that out doesn’t even sound plausible). It may be a stretch to believe for some fans because he hasn’t earned the goodwill of the fans here like he did in Portland, but what you’ve seen of him this season is as a second option. If Doc puts the ball in his hands and he knows that it comes down to him, we are not losing this series!
by Ghetto_Cyclops
