By CLIFF BRUNT ISL Editor/The Sports Xchange INDIANAPOLIS — Lance Stephenson has been unpredictable throughout his NBA career. Now, he’s steady and dependable. The guard matched a career high with 22 points to help the Indiana Pacers beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 89-74 on Saturday night. “Lance has been our most efficient offensive player this year,” […]
Continue ReadingBy CHRIS GOFF ISL Assistant Editor It’s almost time for the Indiana Pacers’ 38th season in the NBA, so push those jerseys to the front of the closet, mark your calendars and let’s go. The Pacers come in riding serious momentum from a deep playoff run. Danny Granger’s expected recovery will add another level of […]
Continue ReadingBy CLIFF BRUNT ISL Editor INDIANAPOLIS — Danny Granger went down with an injury in the first quarter and didn’t return. Relax. It’s not that serious. Granger left Wednesday’s 92-85 preseason loss to Dallas with a strained left calf. The injury is noteworthy because he missed most of last season while recovering from surgery on […]
Continue ReadingBy CLIFF BRUNT ISL Editor Lance Stephenson has done everything right. Indiana’s electric 6-foot-5 guard knows one speed, and it’s usually faster than his opponent. He’s built like a freight train. He’s got that nickname — ‘Born Ready.’ He’s that guy who knows what he wants and doesn’t know better than to go get it, […]
Continue ReadingBy ROSS WEBER ISL Correspondent Note: The author will be a senior at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis this fall. He has been a big sports fan his entire life and is the sports editor of his school’s newspaper. He has grown up in Indiana and was part of the Diversity Sports Media Institute at IUPUI […]
Continue ReadingBy CHRIS GOFF ISL Correspondent Larry Bird’s being honored with a 15-foot-tall statue at Indiana State. Turns out all his years of honing a stone-faced expression made it easy on the sculptor. I loved Saturday’s trade for multiple reasons. Not only was it a metaphoric house-cleaning of last season’s biggest mistake (Gerald Green), but they’ve […]
Continue ReadingBy CHRIS GOFF ISL Correspondent Larry Bird’s dry sense of humor is quite amusing at times. George Hill withdrew from this week’s USA Basketball mini-camp in Las Vegas due to a scheduling conflict. Should the Pacers’ front office be disappointed? Arguably not, since it only means fewer miles on the tires and just one less […]
Continue ReadingBy CLIFF BRUNTISL Editor Amid all this excitement about the Indiana Pacers, I consider this a good time to offer some perspective. Nearly four years ago, while I was covering the Pacers for The Associated Press, I interviewed team president Larry Bird about how he was dealing with losing, something rarely attached to his name. […]
Continue ReadingBy CHRIS GOFF ISL Correspondent Let’s face it, none of us have had as much fun this month as Lance Stephenson has using Vine, a video-sharing application on Twitter. He posted 25 clips in 12 days. Of all the misguided assumptions that circled around the Pacers this year, the most foolish is the argument that […]
Continue ReadingBy CHRIS GOFF ISL Correspondent The Pacers are faced with a number of small decisions and a few big ones this summer as they try to accomplish their related goals of keeping together their core and making the NBA Finals for the second time in franchise history. To keep the payroll from reaching a level […]
Continue ReadingBy CHRIS GOFF ISL Correspondent INDIANAPOLIS – On a night they needed their defense more than ever in the Eastern Conference finals, the Pacers’ came through. An intense performance proved too much for Miami to overcome in a 99-92 Indiana win in Game 4 that evened the series. Yet it was an impossibly difficult rainbow […]
Continue Reading