Then, foul trouble along with the tag-team of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade took over that made the Pacers lose them the game.
A puzzling thing that happened in the game, however, was when head coach Frank Vogel completely went away from big men David West and Roy Hibbert in that second half. Why?
Hibbert and West combined for 23 first-half points, exploiting their size advantage on Miami. Then in the second half, they only had 11 points.
Sure, Hibbert was in foul trouble (5 fouls), but Indiana still settled for jump shots by guys like Danny Granger and Paul George. In the second half, the Pacers were unable to capitalize on Chris Bosh being out. They were also outpaced by Miami.
Now with the news of Bosh being out for the whole series, Vogel will have to feed the ball down low to West and Hibbert to have success. Hibbert will being going against 6-10 Ronny Turiaf and 6-9 Joel Anthony for the rest of the series.
How can Vogel not be able to capitalize on that mismatch?
If Indiana can take advantage of Bosh being out, they should be able to stretch this series farther or even win it. The Pacers' gameplan has to be to keep pounding down at the reserve bigs for the Heat. If not, LeBron and D-Wade will just blow through them.
Game 2 is on Tuesday, so Vogel and lead assistant Brian Shaw should be able to have a great strategy with Bosh's absence. This series is now wide-open with him being out.
It's time to exploit the mismatches for Indiana.
Evan Sidery is a beat writer for FootBasket. He is a fan of the Colts and Pacers. You can see more about him by following him on Twitter.
