Written by Kathal Kelly at The Globe and Mail.com
Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey was born in this city, and raised just over the state line in rural Kentucky.
His mother was an Indiana Pacers fan. His brother and sister are Pacers fans. The local paper had him run through his native bona fides, name-checking streets and recalling the creek he used to chuck rocks into.
“The Pacers legacy is still in [my] family,” Casey said. “Except when they play [Casey-coached teams] Seattle, Dallas and now Toronto.”
As it pertains to basketball, Indiana is close to the main folkloric source. They’ve got the history. What have the Raptors got? At the moment, everything else.
Led by a resurgent DeMar DeRozan, Toronto came to Indiana and embarrassed the series’ pedigree franchise. Unless something changes in a hurry, inertia has gotten on top of the Pacers and is now carrying them downhill at a jarring and accelerating rate.
Looking completely untroubled and on-point at every position and in every phase of the game, the Raptors dismantled the Pacers 101-85. You have to reach back to the turn of the century to locate a Toronto team with a 2-1 series advantage in the post-season.
Exactly how unusual was Thursday’s result? It was only the fifth road playoff game won by the Toronto organization. Ever.
Assuming you are rooting for the Raptors, you will know how it feels to be a Pacers fan right now. You lived it for 20 years.
Asked ahead of the game whether he’d yet seen the best from his opponents, Frank Vogel, the irrepressible flibbertigibbet who coaches the Pacers said, “No.”
When he realized everyone was hoping to hear something slightly more expansive, he segued into a small soliloquy about DeRozan’s as-yet unrealized capabilities.
A couple of hours later, Vogel got what he wasn’t wishing for.
His detailed post-contest breakdown? “They outplayed us in most areas.”
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