Pacers Notebook: Looking ahead to Game 7
By CHRIS GOFF
ISL Correspondent
INDIANAPOLIS — The Pacers are one win from the NBA Finals. One of the best spectacles in all of sports — a winner-take-all Game 7 — awaits at AmericanAirlines Arena on Monday night.
“We didn’t want this to be our last game,” center Roy Hibbert said after Indiana’s 91-77 victory over Miami in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals.
It wasn’t. Now, the next task is even harder.
Historically, road teams do not fare well in Game 7s, but the Pacers franchise has won two of them — in New York in 1995 and in Boston in 2005. They’ll try again a little farther down the eastern seaboard.
“It’s going to get tough in their arena,” Pacers guard Lance Stephenson said. “We just have to bring it, play aggressive like how we do at home.”
Miami guard Dwyane Wade said this is why the Heat worked all season for home-court advantage — to play the most important games in their own building.
“Our confidence is up,” Wade said. “Everybody wants to play better. We are just going to have to self-will it and see how we respond as a team.”
Pacers coach Frank Vogel said Indiana will have to play its best to win.
“Execution,” he said. “Making more winning plays. We have great respect for (Miami’s) teamwork.”
The Pacers are 2-3 all-time in Game 7s. Miami is 3-3 in Game 7s, including losses at home in 2000 to New York and in the 2005 conference finals against Detroit. So Indiana, at the very least, knows there is precedent for what it is about to try to accomplish.
