Pacers lose pace over Phoenix

by Princess Elisha Caibigan Phoenix

Suns beat the Indiana Pacers with a 113-103 victory on January 22, 2022, at Footprint Center, Phoenix, Arizona.

The Suns started the unconcerned, taking a 10-4 early lead but became careless, letting the Pacers have open shots. The Suns took the early game easily, while the Pacers quickly grabbed the chance to be in the lead and took a 20-18 scoreline.

Despite being a little behind in the early game, the Pacers still managed to end the first quarter in the lead, 25-24. Chris Paul returned to start the second quarter and brought the Suns back on the lead with the scoreline being 43-35.

Paul plays aggressively and scored 14 points with 9 assists, 2 rebounds and a steal. Mikal Bridges also plays aggressive and contributes to the Suns with 13 points. The Suns began to catch up with a 59-54 scoreline in halftime.

Phoenix point guard, Cam Payne, is out in the remaining second half after getting his wrist injured. Putting Sun’s Elfrid Payton on the game for the second half. Bridges put the Suns up with a 75-61 score, halfway through the third quarter.

The Suns led by as many as 20 points in the third quarter, 92-74, with a huge advantage in the fourth quarter. The Sun’s Jae Crowder left early in the third quarter with a left wrist injury. The Suns finished the game with a 113-103 scoreline and beat the Pacers. The Pacers were not able to duplicate the effort they gave on January 20 in their battle with Golden State.

“I liked our start to the game. We weren’t perfect but we were doing a lot of good things, we were grinding even though we turned it over a little bit and had some off-kilter possessions. What came out of the first with a one-point lead which was a positive and then the second and third were tough, we just didn’t play particularly well, they really picked it up. Third quarter got us back on our heels but I was really encouraged by our fourth quarter, you know Phoenix is a great fourth quarter team so to win that, win the fourth by eight is a positive force but in the end there were too many turnovers and we had some miscommunications on defense which were very costly,” Pacer’s coach, Rick Carlisle, stated in a post-game interview.

Bridges scored 23 points and Bismack Biyombo had 21 points with 13 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks for the Suns. Paul added 18 points, 16 assists and 4 steals. JaVale McGee had 13 points with 12 rebounds and 3 blocks. Devin Booker contributed 11 points.

Indiana’s Chris Duarte and Lance Stephenson each had 17 points. Goga Bitadze scored 16 points with 11 rebounds and Jeremy Lamb had 14 points for the Pacers.