Playoff physicality be damned, Pacers keep running in victory over Cleveland, and nothing is going to slow them down

The post-season is supposed to be a grind. Somebody forgot to tell the Pacers.

The Pacers are not supposed to be doing this. I’m not talking about winning playoff games; they’ve done plenty of that in the last two years, reaching the Eastern Conference Finals one season ago, knocking off the Bucks in five this season. I’m talking about running, playing with pace, playing free-wheeling, assist-heavy, high-scoring basketball, which is not supposed to be possible during the rock ‘em, sock ‘em, physicality-heavy post-season.

All they did Sunday night was drop 121 points on the Cavaliers, one of the stoutest defensive teams in the league, ranked eighth in defensive ratings. All they did Sunday was hit 19 of 36 3-pointers, 52 percent, some of them wide open but a number of prayers with the shot clock expiring. All they did was play the way they’ve played all season, the way they played in their gentlemen’s sweep of the Bucks. In this playoff run, they’ve now had four 30-plus assist games; the rest of the league has managed three.

During that previous series, Bucks coach Doc Rivers was asked about the common adage that the game slows down and becomes more physical in the playoffs. The point of the question was, the Pacers don’t seem to be impacted. They play at a breakneck pace regardless of the competition or time of the season.

“I’ve never believed it; I’ve never bought into that,” Rivers said. “Did anyone watch the Magic Johnson Lakers? I don’t remember them walking the ball up the floor. Did anyone watch the 11 titles of the Celtics? All they did was run and push the ball up the floor. So I’ve never known where that adage came from…I think it probably started back in the Knicks days when I was there (1992-94); no one was running because we were tackling everybody. You could foul on every play. You can’t do that now. It does slow a tad but not enough to affect teams.”