Pacers running out of time to regain form

The Pacers suffered what was their most embarrassing defeat of the season, 107-88 to the visiting Atlanta Hawks Sunday night. The Pacers are now 53-25 while the Hawks are 34-42. The Pacers are now a full game behind Miami for the top seed in the East and two games behind in the loss column.
Forethoughts
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse than losses on the road to Washington and Cleveland last week, well it got worse, a lot worse in this one. The Pacers scored a franchise low 23 points in the first half. For most of the last month and a half, it was easy to use excuses such as the Pacers are waiting on the playoffs to start, or that they are going through one of those tough stretches that any NBA team goes through from time to time during the 82-game season. But this is serious now. It's no longer safe to think the Pacers will have time to right their ship in a couple of early round playoff series. The question they and Pacers fans have to ask now is if they can even win a series. That's how bad it has become. The Pacers have now won just two of their last seven games. It's hard to say where this all started. Was with the acquisition of Andrew Bynum, who was so much of a cancer in Cleveland that they basically told him don't come around here no more? Was it with the departure of Danny Granger, who while certainly not the player he used to be, was still highly respected by his peers and may have had the right words to squelch such play before it became this much of a problem? Was it Evan Turner coming over from a win-challenged Philadelphia team being so accustomed to not doing the little things right and getting away with it that some of the others followed? Was it coach Frank Vogel having too much patience and being too much of a Mr. Positive guy when things started to go a little bad? Maybe it's a little bit of all those things. The big question now is if the Pacers can get it fixed. The answer is, nobody really knows and that's a scary thought with the playoffs less than two weeks away.
The Big Plays
How about these: The Hawks were up 9-0 and then 17-3. Their lead was never under double digits after that.
The Ups

The Pacers' Roy Hibbert did not have a point or rebound Sunday.

1) I thought Vogel taking out the starters at the six minute mark when they had worked the deficit to 17-3 was a move that has been in some ways long overdue. It was without question a risk because a coach doing that at the professional level may well be in danger of losing his team's respect. But at this point it was a risk Vogel had to take. The lack of attention to detail and the knack for not getting to loose balls first has been going on way too long. Hopefully it will get the attention of all the Pacers. Whether it works or not, who knows? But Vogel had to try something.
The Downs
1) The first one here is obvious and easy. The 23 points in the first half included 20 percent shooting and just one assist in the half. Sure, there were a few easy missed shots. But there was a lot more one-on-one play, too.
2) I've long been a Roy Hibbert fan, but the zero points and zero rebounds in nine minutes, that speaks for itself.  Hibbert didn't play in the second half and Vogel said it was because the center needed rest. Something tells me that was just part of the truth, but just the guys inside the locker room know that for sure. The fact that Hibbert declined comment after the game was also disappointing.
Next Up
The schedule maker can't do the Pacers any better favor than it did in
this one with a game at Milwaukee at 8 p.m. Wednesday. The Bucks have the worst record in the league at 14-63. The Pacers defeated the Bucks 110-100 on Feb. 22, 101-96 on Feb. 27 and 104-77 on Nov. 15, back when the Pacers used to blowout bad teams. The Bucks are led by Brandon Knight at 17.5 points and 4.9 assists, Ramon Sessions at 12 points a game, Khris Middleton at 11.8 points, O.J. Mayo at 11.7 points, Ersan Illyasova at 11.2 points, John Henson at 11 points and 7.2 rebounds and Jeff Adrien at 10.7 points and 7.2 rebounds in 23 games for the Bucks.