The Heat have been the championship favorite ever since they raised the Larry O’Brien Trophy last June, and it will be a tall task for either New York or Indiana to prevent LeBron James & Co. from reaching the Finals for the third consecutive year. But although they have been dominant, the Heat are not a mortal lock to win the Eastern Conference, and NESN.com NBA editor Ben Watanabe stopped by the New Hampshire Sports Night radio show to talk about why.

He also touched on what the future looks like for the recently eliminated Warriors and what Doc Rivers‘ return means for the Celtics. Click below to hear the full interview.

George Hill

All joking aside, Hill would much rather have been on the court than spend the latest edition of this Eastern Conference slugfest perched on a porcelain throne. Post-concussion symptoms forced him to retreat to the soothing blackness of the bathroom on Thursday, though, and his status for the rest of the series throws everything into flux.

The Pacers were rolling along through the first four games against the Knicks, winning in their own ugly, yet convincing, fashion three times. When Tyson Chandler delivered a hard screen to Hill in Game 4 on Tuesday, the Pacers point guard seemed jarred, but nothing more. Hill canned a game-high 26 points in that game, the Pacers took a 3-1 series lead and Indiana looked to be headed to its first conference finals since 2004.

Sometime on Wednesday, though, Hill apparently began to experience headaches and dizziness. The team’s athletic trainer held him out of Game 5 on Thursday, and the importance of this one-time role player out of IUPUI suddenly came into stark focus. Without Hill, the Pacers struggled to do things as simple as make a post-entry pass and Raymond Felton, whom Hill had helped bottle up for the most part, reverted to his pick-and-roll mastery against the outmatched D.J. Augustin and Lance Stephenson.

Hill’s situation is not just uncharted territory for the Pacers. It is uncharted territory for the NBA. Since the league instituted its current concussion policy prior to last season, there have been numerous instances in which the policy has been used. Celtics swingman Mickael Pietrus, for one, had a long, hard recovery back from a concussion after falling onto his neck in Philadelphia.

This is a unique situation, however. A relatively high-profile player’s head injury will affect how his team needs to gameplan for a do-or-die playoff series. No one is going to tell Hill to sniff some smelling salts and get back in the game, nor should they. But there is no real, time-tested plan in place for the Pacers here. How they proceed will influence how teams treat concussions in the playoffs in the future, for good or ill.

Hopefully, no one is naïve enough to believe this is the first time an NBA player has suffered a concussion in the playoffs. This is simply the first time in this new environment, where head injuries get more scrutiny in all sports, that an apparent concussion could cause an NBA player to miss playoff games. In announcing its new policy in 2011, the NBA itself allowed that the process for a player getting cleared to play after a concussion “will likely take at least several days, if not weeks.” Of course, that is a problem in the playoffs, when a couple of weeks constitute an entire series.

Players’ reactions to the concussion tests have been mixed, mostly because athletes do not like to be told they cannot play. After the cognitive tests, players need to clear a series of physical exertion tests to assure concussion symptoms do not return after athletic activity. Hill’s life right now probably consists of a lot of sitting in dark rooms and riding a stationary bike.

Hill may not enjoy that life, particularly if his team continues to crumble in his absence. But it is hard to feel too badly for him. Like it or not, this is best for his long-term health, and the NBA should be commended for making this an institutional focus after years of treating head injuries with a shrug and orders to rub some dirt on it.

In the meantime, Pacers coach Frank Vogel has his own headaches, like teaching Gerald Green to make a post-entry pass.

Have a question for Ben Watanabe? Send it to him via Twitter at @BenjeeBallgame or send it here.

As the nondescript Pacers make short work of the Knicks, they’ve not only improved their NBA odds but have also started to make a name for themselves. This Thursday, the Pacers will get the opportunity to close the books on New York once and for all in preparation for a looming Eastern Conference Finals matchup with, presumably, the Miami Heat.

While Indiana has developed a reputation of being a solid, albeit underrated, fringe contender, the stereotype may not be completely appropriate.

On one hand, the emergence of Paul George as an NBA superstar, as well as the incredibly deep Pacers offense anchored by veteran big man David West, has pushed this traditionally defensive franchise from the middle to the top of the pack. On the other hand, consistent, quality rosters are the norm in Indiana. Although the Pacers missed out on the playoffs four years in a row from 2007-10, they qualified for 16 of the previous 17 postseasons, stretching all the way back to the Reggie Miller era.

But to truly appreciate this current Pacers rendition, which has 16-1 odds to win the NBA championship despite the Miami Heat being favored to repeat, one has to take a closer look.

Pacing Indiana in the points column is George, the 22-year-old swingman sensation. George’s 18.3 points per game may seem pedestrian compared to some of the stars he lines up against, but that’s not what makes him an NBA elite.

In addition to his points, George’s 8.8 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.9 assists per game in the playoffs help round out one of the most versatile players in basketball. Perhaps the most significant contribution that George brings to the table, however, is an All-Star-caliber ability to lock down opposing teams’ best players. His sheer length — and mobility for a man of his length — makes him a nightmare on any given evening.

Assisting George are big men West and Roy Hibbert, averaging 15.2 points and 13.8 points per game, as well as point guard George Hill. With 16 points per game of his own this postseason, he’s established himself as yet another Indiana threat.

There is nothing cool or fashionable about what the Pacers are doing to the Knicks. In the fourth quarter of Game 4 on Tuesday, with the Pacers building their lead in what would become a 93-82 victory to take a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals, Lance Stephenson drained a 3-pointer and commenced some sort of growling, flexed-muscle conniption. Whatever it was meant to be, it looked out of place. That sort of preening is not the Pacers, typically, and it is not how they have dominated the Knicks thus far.

With the Knicks now one game from elimination, it has become clear that for all their talent, they have difficulty enforcing their style of play on opponents. It was a struggle for them in their opening-round series against the Celtics — which they barely survived — and it has become a crisis in the second round. The Pacers have imposed their identity on the series. Game 4 made that as brutally clear as any of Indiana’s three wins.

The point total, of course, spoke for itself. Any time the winning team reaches 90 solely because its opponent had to resort to fouling in the final minutes, offense clearly is not the focal point. In a shooting contest, the Knicks win at least four out of seven times. They know this. Carmelo Anthony knows this. J.R. Smith knows this. The Pacers know this, too, but unlike New York, they are capable of doing something about it.

If you watch a lot of college games between mismatched programs, you are familiar with teams that will … just … not … shoot. They walk the ball up the court. They eat all 35 seconds before taking a shot. They defend and box out like demons, but they are also not afraid to commit a foul when necessary. They can make a 40-minute game feel like 40 hours.

The funny thing is, extending the game this way in real time actually shrinks it in game-clock time, and this is entirely by design. Asheville Polytechnic (a spunky little program in the Blue Ridge Mountains I just made up) knows that the more possessions it allows North Carolina to get, the more likely the Tar Heels’ superior talent will gradually begin to win out. While the talent disparity is not as great between the Pacers and Knicks, this series has demonstrated the same set of principles.

Smith missed seven of the 10 threes he took on Tuesday and his percentage actually went up to 28.3 percent. Anthony finished with a respectable line of 24 points on 9-for-23 shooting and 2-for-6 from three, but he missed every meaningful shot he took against Paul George‘s hounding defense. The Knicks had the fifth-best 3-point shooting percentage in the regular season and took the most threes of any team in the NBA this year, but the playoffs have been a different story. Only Steve Novak (who cannot get off the bench), Pablo Prigioni (who hardly played on Tuesday) and Iman Shumpert (who is dealing with knee soreness and went 0-for-5 from deep in Game 4) have shot 37 percent or better in the postseason.

This is about more than just Mike Woodson refusing to play his shooters, although that is a factor. It all starts with George cutting off Melo, the head of the snake. George Hill has challenged Raymond Felton, both offensively and defensively, as Avery Bradley and Jason Terry failed to do in the first round. Most significantly, Roy Hibbert and David West are creating the matchup problems Boston could not, forcing the Knicks to play undersized with Anthony defending one of the behemoths or to go against their nature and play two big men at a time to match Indiana’s size.

Increased size, when the Knicks have gone that route, has not made much difference at the defensive end, where the Knicks were marginally successful contesting shots but were helpless as the Pacers racked up 16 offensive rebounds and 19 second-chance points. On the offensive end, it has been an unmitigated disaster. With Kenyon Martin logging 29 minutes, Amar’e Stoudemire pitching in 11 minutes and Tyson Chandler continuing to play below his standards, the Knicks missed 56 of their 87 shots overall and 20 of their 28 threes.

So if the Knicks are getting trounced at both ends of the court, why did they only lose by 11 points in Game 4? How come their Game 1 win, which was generally considered an utterly dominant display, only came by seven points? That takes us back to shrinking the game. When the Pacers play their ugly, deliberate style, possessions are at a premium. A four-point edge for the league’s best defensive team is like a 10-point advantage for most other clubs. In other words, that 11-point disparity might as well be 30.

When Tyler Hansbrough is flopping around on defense or George spends more time rolling around on the hardwood than seems fit for a reigning NBA Most Improved Player, it might look like the Pacers are losing their footing. Do not be fooled. They live for referee confusion, loose balls and offensive rebounds leading to extended possessions. They are playing exactly the way they want to, and so far there is not much the Knicks can do about it.

Have a question for Ben Watanabe? Send it to him via Twitter at @BenjeeBallgame or send it here.

In the past three days, illness has added to insult for the 27-year-old guard. Smith played just under 25 minutes in the Knicks’ Game 3 loss on Saturday, then missed practice Sunday and Monday with what the team termed an “illness.” It is unclear what type of illness he has. So far, it does not appear Smith has been subjected to any Luol Deng-type spinal taps.

No one is questioning whether Smith is injured, just as very few people doubt that Bulls guard Derrick Rose really is hurt. Kenyon Martin has also joined Smith on the sideline due to illness the last two days. But like Rose, who has not played since tearing his ACL more than a year ago, Smith is starting to hear murmurs that health might not be all there is to the story.

Rumors of Smith dating Rihanna and spending a night on the town prior to Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals are low-hanging fruit. Smith’s poor play predates that night, as Smith has been off his game since he was suspended for Game 4 of the first round. As Frank Isola of the New York Daily News notes, Smith has spoken to the media twice in the past week and has not tweeted since May 6, despite previously active Twitter fingers. (He is the type who tweets #greatmorningworld every day, for instance.)

I do believe J.R. Smith is not feeling well but the Knicks are also doing everything they can to limit his media availability.

—
Frank Isola (@FisolaNYDN) May 13, 2013

Knicks coach Mike Woodson has not been shy in recent days of saying Smith would sit if other bench players are playing better. Proven shooters have gone through cold spells before and have snapped out of it when the time was right. Mike Miller was basically out of the rotation for the Heat last year, having missed 12 of his last 13 threes, before going 7-for-8 from beyond the arc in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Miller was not in ideal physical shape, either, so there is hope for Smith.

Then again, everyone knew what the issue was with Miller. His body was basically broken. With Smith, we know he is struggling and that he is not feeling well. His relative silence, however, makes us wonder what else is keeping the Knicks’ X-factor from being all he can be. If the public is in the dark, the Knicks had better have some inkling, for their part. If they do not figure it out soon, Smith won’t be the only Knick feeling sick to his stomach.

Have a question for Ben Watanabe? Send it to him via Twitter at @BenjeeBallgame or send it here.

If you’re Dwyane Wade, those glasses don’t even have lenses.

So, of course, Pacers center Roy Hibbert nearly took the eyewear trends to its natural conclusion recently. After the Pacers’ 82-71 Game 3 win over the New York Knicks, Hibbert was called to the podium to talk about his 24-point, 12-rebound night.

For some reason, Hibbert had a monocle with him, and thought that he just might make a fashion statement of his own. However, thankfully, teammates and the Indiana public relations department talked him out it.

“I asked my teammate Paul [George] if I should do this,” said Hibbert. “This is my first time at the podium basically all year. I know a lot of people always wear crazy get-ups and stuff like that, so I said to myself before the game, ‘I’m going to have a great game tonight.’

“I was advised by Paul George and David Benner not to set a trend by wearing a monocle, so I’m not putting on the monocle.”

Incidentally, Rachel Nichols managed to get a picture of Hibbert with the monocle, if not wearing it. Check out that image in the tweet below.

NBA fashion game - Pacers Roy Hibbert and the monocle he brought to the podium. #UppingTheAnte @Hoya2aPacer http://t.co/e1vdMRcllU

—
Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) May 12, 2013

Mike Woodson

These are good problems for Woodson to have.

Should the Knicks coach go with a plan floated Wednesday of cutting J.R. Smith‘s minutes if the mercurial guard does not start hitting some shots, those problems could go from good to highly sensitive. Even as a reserve dynamo, Smith has never dealt well with coming off the bench. He even said earlier this season that he felt he should start. Seeing his playing time diminish while still coming off the bench is probably not at the top of Smith’s wish list. Yet Woodson’s willingness to address Smith’s cold shooting as the troublesome issue it is, and not some touchy subject that must be swept under the rug, shows just how much things have changed for the Knicks under Woodson.

Former Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni went to great lengths to avoid the slightest suggestion that some aspect of his team’s approach had to change, whether by himself or his players. This is not a referendum on D’Antoni. The former NBA Coach of the Year would have quickly lost Smith, not to mention the rest of the locker room, with his unceremonious way to relaying messages to his team and the media. Such glib, straight talk has been welcomed by some players, like Steve Nash, and grated on others.

Woodson seems to have no such trouble. While insulating his players from outside criticism, Woodson seems more comfortable discussing potential changes in public, trusting that the respect he has built up among the players will lessen the backlash.

“I’ll gauge J.R. as we go along, and if I feel he’s not giving me anything, I could always turn to other guys on that bench,” Woodson told ESPN Radio, according to ESPN.com. “I feel good about the guys that come in off that bench, just like I feel good about J.R. But if he’s struggling and I feel the need [that] I’ve got to pull him, then I will do that as the head coach, and then other guys have got to come in and step up and play.”

What a brilliant answer. If three tidy (OK, run-on) sentences, Woodson supplied the pertinent news that Smith could see less playing time, provided the reasons why and framed the issue in a way that will make Smith look awful if he tries to protest: Woodson feels comfortable sitting Smith because he has faith in the rest of the Knicks’ reserves. If Smith makes a fuss, he would therefore be suggesting his teammates are not capable. The narrow-eyed looks from veteran leaders like Jason Kidd and Tyson Chandler would be enough to make Smith stop talking.

Pretty much since Smith made his bold claim that the Knicks’ first-round series against the Celtics would be over if he had not been suspended for Game 4, the St. Benedict’s Prep product has struggled. He has shot 15-for-57 from the floor in his last four games, which includes Games 5 and 6 against the Celtics and Games 1 and 2 against the Pacers. Considering how poorly Smith played, it is rather remarkable the Knicks managed to split those contests.

Smith needs some time to regroup. That is not to say he needs to be benched. The three-day break between Games 2 and 3 may be enough for him to catch his breath and come out on fire on Friday. It is not all that likely — Smith was limited to eight points on Tuesday, and he averaged 14.2 points per game this season in games following a single-digit scoring performance — but whatever the best course of action, Woodson knows how to handle it. More importantly, he clearly feels comfortable handling it however he sees fit without Smith going off the reservation.

And if Smith does, so what? Woodson would probably just give him a quick chewing out and sub in the next best player.

Have a question for Ben Watanabe? Send it to him via Twitter at @BenjeeBallgame or send it here.

Smith caught the ire of the Knicks’ head coach early on in New York’s win over the Pacers in Game 2. After Smith was called for a travel, Woodson channeled the frustration of legions of Knicks fans with the only suitable reaction to about three-quarters of Smith’s plays. Woodson’s comments were clearly caught on the TNT broadcast.

Check out the humorous moment, featuring some PG-13 language, in the video below.

The event ignited a decades-long feud between Miller and Knicks fans, and movie director Spike Lee, who is a courtside fixture at Madison Square Garden, certainly hasn’t forgotten the incident.

On Tuesday night, Miller himself was on the call for TNT, 18 years after his last-second heroics, to broadcast another playoff game between the Knicks and the Pacers, and Lee couldn’t help but taunt Miller a bit during one of Miller’s live shots.

In the video below, Lee is seen walking behind Miller with an incredulous look on his face.

Miller, now an analyst for TNT, was back to torment New York one more time Tuesday — on the 18th anniversary of the night he scored eight points in 8.9 seconds to beat the Knicks in the playoffs, no less. With Miller wearing a headset instead of outplaying John Starks and Patrick Ewing, the Knicks prevailed 105-79, but that didn’t keep Miller and a still-bitter Knicks crowd from enjoying the anniversary.

Miller tweeted earlier in the day in anticipation of the game.

Sooooooo looking forward to hearing the Garden's faithful crowd as Kevin Harlan, Rachel Nichols and myself come into the building... Smile..

—
Reggie Miller (@ReggieMillerTNT) May 07, 2013

Knicks fans, however, had the best moment of the night. With the fourth quarter winding down and the win in hand (what — you thought New York fans would pull out their taunting too early?), they serenaded their old foe with some “Reggie sucks” chants.

Check it out in the video below, then scroll below that for the beginning of Winning Time, which is still one of the best 30 for 30s out there.

No matter how many 3-pointers the Pacers have put up in the first two games of their second-round playoff series against the Knicks, this is not who they are. Inexplicably, the Pacers have gotten into a shooting match with the Knicks. While Game 1 at least featured enough balance for the Pacers to come out with a win, their 105-70 loss in Game 2 illustrated how dangerous it can be for a team to play outside its identity in the playoffs.

If the Pacers plan on maintaining home-court advantage, which they seized by virtue of their victory in the series opener, they need to maintain their dedication to establishing Roy Hibbert and David West in the post.

“We knew we weren’t going to sweep or anything like that,” Hibbert told reporters after calling his team “timid” and “soft” after Game 2. “We’re just going to have to grind it out, make sure we take care of home and then come back here. It’s going to be a fun series. It’s obviously going to be physical.”

The Pacers are not very complicated, and that is part of their charm. They play slow, defend and treat the 3-point line with the contempt of a 1970s traditionalist shaking his fist at this malarkey brought over from the ABA. They played the seventh-slowest pace in the league and averaged only 19.7 threes attempted per game in the regular season. Only the cadaver-stiff Celtics and football-on-hardwood Bulls averaged fewer 3-pointers among Eastern Conference playoff teams.

Meanwhile the Knicks, who do not play with the verve of the 1980s Nuggets, either, prefer shootouts to slugfests. The Knicks attempted a league-high 28.9 threes per game in the regular season, more than nine more than the Pacers. New York was last in points in the paint at just 33.6 points per game, nearly seven points fewer than the Pacers. The Pacers grind. The Knicks preen.

In other words, the Pacers best chance of winning the series is forcing the Knicks to play their style. Instead, through two games the opposite has happened.

The Pacers have taken 48 threes, one fewer than the Knicks, and have actually been eclipsed by the New York team in points in the paint so far. They held a 76-56 advantage in points in the paint through the first six quarters of the series, but in the second half of Game 2, they forgot who they were. Paul George, Lance Stephenson and George Hill each took at least three 3-pointers in the half, while West and Hibbert earned just seven shots total after halftime.

The number of raw shots is not the best way to judge the Pacers’ play, obviously. They actually took more threes in Game 1, but that was a product of an inside-outside attack that helped D.J. Augustin get free and go off. After the Game 2 loss, the Pacers tried to frame this as a case of shots simply not falling. False. George, Stephenson and Hill were every bit as aggressive from downtown as they were in Game 1, but there was never any attempt in the second half of Game 2 to get the ball inside to Hibbert or West. Tyson Chandler and Kenyon Martin‘s defense on Indiana’s big men should not be discounted, but the Pacers made it easy on them.

Chandler and Martin had zero blocked shots in the second half of Game 2, after combining for four blocks in the first game. This was significant because those Game 1 blocks were a byproduct of the ball constantly being around the rim for the Pacers on offense. Yet with the ball seldom around the basket in the second half on Tuesday, the Knicks rarely had opportunities for blocks. Jump shots are tough to block — sometimes, a simple contest and close-out is better, anyway.

The Knicks are a long way from controlling this series. The road team’s goal typically is to try to steal one of the first two games, and the Pacers accomplished that. If the Pacers stick with the gameplan that got them to this point, they are still the favorite in this series. But if they get caught up in trying to outshoot the Knicks, Carmelo Anthony soon will be celebrating his second career trip to the conference finals.

Have a question for Ben Watanabe? Send it to him via Twitter at @BenjeeBallgame or send it here.

First, it was big man Roy Hibbert posterizing Atlanta’s Ivan Johnson near the tail end of the first quarter. Former Slam Dunk champion Gerald Green then followed suit about seven minutes later, abusing Josh Smith — himself a former dunk contest winner — with a vicious right-handed slam.

Check out both dunks in the videos below.

A few minutes after accepting the league’s Most Improved Player Award, the 6-foot-9 swingman promised to work even harder to attain the biggest rewards of all — an NBA title and perhaps an MVP.

“I think I can play at an MVP level,” George said. “I think that’s very much within reach. For me, it’s all about being consistent and having that aggressive mindset.”

George has already emerged as one of the league’s top young players, which explains his runaway victory in the balloting. He received 52 of 120 first-place votes and 311 points, more than double the total of New Orleans’ Greivis Vasquez, who had 13 first-place votes and 146 points. Milwaukee’s Larry Sanders was third with 141 points and was one of three players to receive 10 first-place votes.

As part of the award, a 2012 Kia Sorrento will be donated to the Hawthorne Community Center, George’s hand-picked charity.

George is also expected to be one of the top vote-getters for the Defensive Player of the Year Award, an honor coach Frank Vogel lobbied hard for Tuesday. The question is whether George has what it takes to challenge for the league’s top individual honor.

“With the physical talent he has, with the drive he has, there’s no ceiling for him,” Vogel said.

If 2012-13 proved anything, it’s that George is a man of his word. Before leaving town after last season’s Eastern Conference semifinal loss to LeBron James and eventual champion Miami, George walked into Vogel’s office and promised to come back with a more aggressive mindset and as a more versatile scorer.

James’ guidance helped him reach those goals.

The two worked out together in Las Vegas as the U.S. team prepared for the Olympics, but all the while George was watching and learning from the best — not just James.

“It was huge,” George said. “Me, growing up, idolizing guys like Kobe [Bryant], watching his whole regimen, watching what time he got up to work out, watching what he was putting in his body. The younger guys, we was totally the opposite, so I had to kind of take notes and follow what they were doing.”

The results impressed his teammates, coaches and many around the league.

George averaged 17.4 points and 7.6 rebounds this season, both career highs, and was the only player in the league with at least 140 steals and 50 blocks. He earned his first All-Star appearance, led Indiana to its first Central Division crown in nine years and became the fourth Pacers player to win the Most Improved Player Award since 2000. The others were Jalen Rose, Jermaine O’Neal and Danny Granger.

In 2011-12, George averaged 12.1 points and 5.6 rebounds and made just 19 of 52 shots from the field in the 4-2 playoff loss to the Heat.

The announcement came less than 48 hours after George played his most complete game of the season, too. He joined Mark Jackson as the only players in franchise history to record a triple double in the NBA playoffs. George finished with 23 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists in the Pacers’ 107-90 Game 1 win over Atlanta — giving Indiana its first 1-0 series lead since 2006. Game 2 is Wednesday night in Indy.

After showing steady improvement through each of his first two NBA seasons, George finally got his chance to lead when Granger went down with a left knee injury. Granger, Indiana’s top scorer the previous five seasons, played in only five games. So George took it upon himself to make up for the absence.

“He’s a rare breed with his purity for the game and his willingness to play team basketball at both ends of the court and his drive to get better,” Vogel said. “I think he was ready to explode whether Danny was in or out.”

Despite shooting just 3 of 13 from the field Sunday, George made his first 17 foul shots to tie Reggie Miller’s postseason mark for best free-throw percentage in a single game, then missed his 18th and final attempt.

Soon he was picking up his first big award.

He doesn’t expect it to be his last.

“A lot of players don’t get an opportunity to make the playoffs and have a team that can win the championship,” George said. “Coach says all the time that this could be your last time in the playoffs. So I’ve really not focused on where I need to get better or thought about the offseason yet.”

Check out George accepting his award in the photo below.

Danny Granger

Through no fault of his own, the Pacers no longer really need Granger, who underwent season-ending knee surgery in early April. They could use his outside shooting, maybe, and his presence might help spread the floor for Roy Hibbert and David West in the post. The team has moved on, however, and Tuesday’s announcement that Paul George has been named the NBA’s Most Improved Player underscored just how far the Pacers are from the era when Granger was a vital element of their success.

George is now the face of the franchise — maybe not on billboards or on last-second possessions, but in style and substance he personifies the Pacers’ style. His performance in Game 1 of Indiana’s first-round playoff series against the Hawks was definitive. Despite shooting just 3-for-13 from the field, George was utterly dominant. His performance could not be captured on the stat sheet, yet he racked up 23 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds, while the Hawks put up 90 points without ever looking like much of a threat. Until LeBron James came out later that night and did normal LeBron things, George’s outing was the most impressive opener of this year’s playoffs.

It took less than two minutes into Sunday’s game against the Hawks for George to display his understated excellence. After a miss by Hawks guard Jeff Teague, George hopped over to grab the rebound and took the ball up the court himself. With apparent ease, George drove into the lane — “glided” might be a better word — drew an extra defender and kicked the ball out to a wide-open George Hill for a corner 3-pointer. In a matter of eight seconds, George did things normally reserved for a power forward, a slashing wing player and a point guard, respectively, to generate a basket without actually taking a shot himself. It went on like that, with George continuing to control the game even as he tossed up brick after brick.

As the stories of George’s award are written, you will read about all the bumps in George’s statistics. You will hear that he increased his scoring average to 17.4 from 12.1 points per game, boosted his rebounding to 7.6 from 5.6 per game and raised his assists per game by almost two-thirds, to 4.1 from 2.4.

None of that effectively explains why this award was so deserved for the third-year pro out of UNLV, but it is. When Indiana’s championship prospects come up, Granger’s absence occasionally gets mentioned as a knock against the Pacers. This is how Granger helps separate those who have been paying attention from those who have not. Anyone who has been tuned in all year knows that Granger would now be, at best, the Pacers’ fourth-best player. (The biggest impediment to a Pacers title is the guy in Miami with the headband and the receding hairline, not the loss of a very nice career 38-percent shooter from deep.)

The Pacers’ identity is different now. They are intimidating defensively, like Hibbert, their 7-foot-2 rim protector. They are deliberate and steady, like West, the old-school power forward with a soft shooting touch and a creative ability to score around the basket. They are versatile yet unassuming, like George, the guy who just keeps getting better.

Have a question for Ben Watanabe? Send it to him via Twitter at @BenjeeBallgame or send it here.

The Celtics on Tuesday outlined their refund policy for fans who hold tickets to the matchup. Ticketholders who purchased single-game tickets through Ticketmaster or its affiliates will be refunded in full within the next two business days, the team announced on its website.

Season ticketholders, premium clients, mini-plan holders, group ticket-buyers and suite renters will be contacted within the next 24 hours to outline their refund and credit process.

All additional questions can be directed to the Celtics at contactus@celtics.com.

All the hype surrounding South Beach, however, has allowed the Indiana Pacers to lay low with some of the most intriguing NBA odds available.

With one of the game’s brightest, longest and most defensively gifted young stars leading the show in Paul George, the Pacers have 18-1 odds of winning the NBA championship. Their title bid, however, goes deeper than that.

Joining George both in franchise-defining spirit and the points column is veteran big man David West. The power forward has raised his game in 2012-13 to the point where the Pacers are no longer just a team to look out for on the money line. They’re also an outright championship threat.

This Friday, the Pacers will get the opportunity to test their mettle against the top team in the Western Conference. While the Oklahoma City Thunder may be neck-and-neck with the San Antonio Spurs in the win column, there’s a reason the flashy young Thunder are the only alternative option at the top of Bovada’s NBA futures.

Expect big things out of the deepest team the East has to offer when George and West are joined by ex-Spur George Hill and 7-foot-2 force Roy Hibbert. If their names aren’t familiar yet, that’s about to change.

Although no doubt the beneficiaries of some luck after Derrick Rose was deemed unable to suit up for the reigning Central Division champion Chicago Bulls, the Pacers have been proving themselves since the beginning of the season.

What’s more, they’ve been a playoff — or close to playoff — team every year since 1990. Is this the year the Pacers prove to the NBA betting world that they’re more than a fringe postseason bracket-filler?

Bet on the NBA at Bovada.

George had 24 points and eight rebounds, and the Pacers broke open a close game in the third quarter to beat the Mavericks 103-78 on Thursday night.

With the game tied at half, the Pacers outscored the Mavericks 34-17 in the third. George had eight points in a 20-5 run to open the second half.

Pacers coach Frank Vogel said his team’s defense allowed Indiana to pull away in the second half.

“Our defensive effort keeps getting better and better,” Vogel said. “I’m very impressed with how dialed in our guys are and how disciplined they’re playing on the defensive end.”

The Central Division-leading Pacers won their fourth straight and have a half-game lead for the second-best record in the Eastern Conference.

Indiana is 2-0 on a four-game Western Conference trip. The Pacers beat the Houston Rockets 100-91 on Wednesday night.

“It was great win,” George said. “For us to come out and match their same intensity was huge, especially on their floor.”

Dirk Nowitzki scored 21 points for Dallas, which remained 1 1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Lakers in the race for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

“Having a dud like this on our home floor is definitely disheartening,” Dallas center Elton Brand said.

Nowitzki and five of his teammates have grown out beards since early February and vowed not to shave until the Mavericks (35-37) got back to .500.

Those unshaven Mavericks will have to put their razors away for at least a few more days as Indiana denied Dallas a chance to even its record for the first time since Dec. 12.

Pacers center Roy Hibbert didn’t want the Mavericks to pull out the clippers just yet.

“We heard something about them wanting to shave or doing something like that,” Hibbert said. “We wanted to shut that [stuff] down to begin with. They wanted to get to .500 so they gave us their best effort in the first half. Whatever gimmick they need to rally themselves, that’s fine.”

Hibbert had 16 points and 11 rebounds one night after scoring a season-high 28 against Houston, and Tyler Hansbrough added 13 points and nine rebounds off the bench for Indiana, which announced before the game that former All-Star forward Danny Granger will have season-ending left knee surgery.

David West scored seven points in his return for the Pacers after missing six games with a lower back strain.

The Pacers outrebounded the Mavericks 55-34 and scored 15 second-chance points. Dallas suffered its 11th loss of 20 points or more this season.

“It was a wipeout for us as far as the rebounding,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “That’s been a challenge for us.”

Vince Carter had 14 points, and Darren Collison added 10 or Dallas. The Mavericks shot 38.6 percent (32 of 83) against the NBA’s top-scoring defense.

The team announced Thursday that Granger will miss the rest of the season. He will have surgery on the bothersome knee that has slowed him since last year’s playoffs.

“He’s at peace with it,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said in Dallas before a game against the Mavericks. “He’s disappointed, but you have to make the best decision.”

The move comes just two days after Vogel told reporters he expected Granger to return during the current four-game road trip.

“These games will be sort of his rehab assignments, and we’re going to manage it the way we did before, with 15 or 20 minutes per game,” Vogel told reporters after Tuesday’s practice.

But instead of getting Granger back, the former All-Star consulted with the team’s medical staff and Dr. James Andrews, the noted sports physician. Together they decided that after spending most of the season treating the injury conservatively, surgery was now the best remaining option.

Granger sat out the entire first half of the season with patellar tendinosis after undergoing a second injection to treat the injury in October. He returned for five games in February, coming off the bench each time and averaging 5.4 points, before the knee flared up again. He hasn’t played since, and Vogel knew time was running short for Granger to make a significant contribution in the playoffs.

“We know we can win without Danny in the lineup,” Indiana forward Paul George said. “As much as we do want Danny back, our mindset is still to prepare to win in the playoffs.”

The Pacers say Granger should be healthy for the start of training camp.

After the Pacers fell to the visiting Lakers on Friday night, a game in which Kobe Bryant played 12 minutes and failed to record a single point, George Hill had some harsh words for the Indiana crowd.

“It sucks. It was 70 [percent Lakers fans], 30 [Pacers fans] out there,” Hill told Mike Wells of Indystar.com. “These are the same people that wants autographs after the game. We’re out there in the community. We’re doing our job, doing what we’re supposed to do on and off the court. Something has to change.

“I tip my hat to this team. We’ve been trouble free. Been out in the community shaking hands, we’re winning. It shouldn’t feel like an away game, especially with an important game like this. [Friday night], that’s what it felt like.”

Certainly winning isn’t the problem in Indiana, as the Pacers are currently ranked second in the Eastern Conference. Indiana’s front office might have to figure out a way to fill Bankers Life Fieldhouse with more of their own fans in the coming weeks — unless they want all of their playoff games to feel like road games.

Photo via Facebook/Pacers from B/R

Final, Celtics 83-81:

Doc Rivers drew up an absolutely brilliant play out of the Celtics’ timeout, using Paul Pierce as a decoy to get Jeff Green a layup off the feed from Kevin Garnett with five-tenths of a second left on the game clock. The Celtics claimed their fourth straight win and a sweep of this road back-to-back.

Garnett had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Celtics, and Green once again led Boston off the bench with 11 points and seven boards. The Celtics fended off an irritating Pacers squad that was led by Paul George, who scored 16 points, and David West and Roy Hibbert, who each posted double-doubles.

Fourth quarter, :23.2, game tied 81-81: The Celtics are no strangers to overtime this season, but they probably would prefer to end this now. After a long offensive possession, Garnett finally found Bradley underneath for the tying layup. Then Boston stood tall and turned away the Pacers twice, with Garnett corralling the rebound of a Hibbert miss to give the Celtics the final look.

Fourth quarter, 2:09, Pacers 81-79: Well then. This was marked up as a nice showing for the Celtics against the Eastern Conference’s second-best team, but it looks like the Celtics might not be content with a moral victory.

Terry dropped a floater, Bradley got some help on a goaltending call on his fastbreak layup and Pierce drilled a high, arcing triple to pull Boston within two points late. Here we go.

Fourth quarter, 5:18, Pacers 78-72: Hill is a one-man wrecking crew. He was for the last 59 seconds, anyway, as he went on a personal 8-2 run to extend Indiana’s edge.

Rivers and the rest of the Celtics would really like an explanation from the refs right now, who might be the real wrecking crew. The officials watched idly as Green was hammered on a drive, but they kept their whistles silent. Quickly, that miss turned into a dunk by Hill at the other end.

Fourth quarter, 6:44, Pacers 70-69: They might not let on, but the Pacers are getting worried.

Hibbert, who was a beast on both ends early, passively stepped back on back to back defensive possessions when he switched onto Green. The first resulted in a simple driving layup by Green, the second a makeable righty hook sweeping across the lane that came up short.

Garnett caught Hibbert with a between the legs crossover (yup, this guy is a 7-footer) and drained a free throw line jumper to pull Boston within one, just as Pierce prepares to re-enter the game.

Fourth quarter, 8:55, Pacers 70-65: Garnett and Hibbert have been battling in the trenches all game, which is why Hibbert is the only Indiana player in any real foul trouble. The refs pretty much said “Don’t hurt us!” and whistled KG and Roy for a double foul, whatever that means.

End of third quarter, Pacers 68-58: Things are getting personal at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. In addition to Pierce and Stephenson’s conversation, the rest of the Celtics are starting to get exasperated with the foul disparity. The Celtics have drawn only eight fouls and attempted just seven free throws so far, one of which came on a defensive three-second violation.

If the Celtics do not get a call soon, somebody is going to get mighty upset. (Our money is on Garnett.)

Third quarter, 4:07, Pacers 63-53: Pierce got a bit offended by Stephenson, a relative whipper-snapper compared to the 35-year-old Pierce, showing him the ball and then firing up an airball. Pierce let the young’un know how he felt about that, and the two kept jawing the next three or four times up and down the floor.

Stephenson would be well served to not tick off the future Hall of Famer, and Pierce may want to turn his attention to more important matters. Namely, working out of his 2-for-9 shooting slump and wiping out this double-digit deficit.

Third quarter, 5:36, Pacers 62-49: Well, the Celtics have done just what they need to do to turn around that foul number. They have started going to the hoop more often, which usually leads to more fouls. Pierce and Lee have been particularly aggressive.

The officials have yet to reward the Celtics for their efforts, though. Pierce was visibly upset when a drive to the basket did not produce a bucket or a foul, and halfway through the third quarter the Pacers have been whistled for all of six fouls. The Celtics have picked up 13.

Halftime, Pacers 47-42: Pierce has been around, so he knows exactly how much time he needs to dedicate to each and every one of his moves. His familiarity with, well, himself paid off when he used up all 14.4 seconds exactly to score a running layup as the clock expired.

Aside from the last play, though, Pierce has had a rough time so far. George and Stephenson have each taken their turns checking Pierce, who is 1-for-6 with two costly turnovers. The Pacers are strong defensively everywhere, but especially so on the wing, where George is one of the best in the game.

The Celtics have a 12-5 deficit in fouls, as you probably have heard a certain announcer complaining about, but take a look at the points in the paint breakdown. The Pacers have 30 to the Celtics’ 12, because the Pacers are attacking and getting out on the break (where they have an 18-9 advantage), and those situations lead to fouls.

Second quarter, 5:57, Pacers 32-26: This is the case whenever the Pacers play, of course, but Tyler Hansbrough is already well under his opponents’ skin. Green and White have had to deal with the UNC alum’s shenanigans, and it even led to a foul on Green tussling with Hansbrough for a rebound.

It is always tough to call out any Celtics opponent for instigating. Garnett is an all-time master, after all. But there is a big divide between the gamesmanship employed by Hall of Fame players like Garnett, Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman and the actions of fringe pros like Hansbrough.

But hey, he is getting paid. Can’t hate on that.

Second quarter, 8:17, Pacers 30-24: D.J. White made his Celtics debut, fittingly, in the state where he made a name for himself in college ball. The IU alum joined a lineup heavy with his benchmates to begin the second quarter and immediately helped narrow the gap, however slightly. The bench unit of Green, Terry, Jordan Crawford and White looks better prepared to match the energy of Indiana’s Hibbert-less lineup.

End of first quarter, Pacers 27-19: Listen, we tried to warn you. These Pacers can play, and they are giving the Celtics a heaping helping of that league-best defense right now.

The Celtics missed 15 of the 23 shots they took on the first quarter and were outrebounded 16-10. A six-rebound differential is massive for just 12 minutes of action — that translates to a difference of 24 rebounds in the game, for those of you scoring at home. Hibbert has been dominant in ways he has not been consistently all year, scoring 12 points on 6-of-9 shooting as Indiana scored 14 points in the paint to Boston’s two.

Yup, two.

First quarter, 3:00, Pacers 20-19: Hibbert is playing so well, Boston’s best course of action is to get him in foul trouble. That is exactly what they have done, sending Hibbert to the pine with two personal fouls just eight minutes into the action.

The Pacers play well enough without Granger, but let’s see how well they do without- two of their top players.

First quarter, 5:26, Pacers 16-13: Roy Hibbert figures to spend a lot of time in the paint, so Garnett can expect to be open for his patented 18-footers whenever he wants.

The Celtics’ big man responded by draining his first three shots, including a straight-away 3-pointer, in the first two minutes. Hibbert has been just fine down low, thank you, scoring eight points on a variety of lefty hooks, righty hooks and two-handed putback dunks.

Offense has not come easily for Indiana’s 7-foot-2 behemoth, so this is a good sign for the Pacers as the playoffs approach — and bad news for the Celtics on this night.

6:23 p.m.: The Pacers will not give the Celtics the runaround when it comes to whether Danny Granger will be in the lineup. The Pacers forward, who has been limited to five games this season with a knee injury, is not expected to play for Indiana.

That only makes beating Indiana marginally easier. They still have their three most important players suited up in Roy Hibbert, David West and Paul George, and George Hill will be no picnic for Avery Bradley and Courtney Lee to check. The Celtics’ fight for a fourth straight win will not be easy.

The projected starters appear below.

Celtics
Kevin Garnett
Brandon Bass
Paul Pierce
Courtney Lee
Avery Bradley

Pacers
Roy Hibbert
David West
Paul George
Lance Stephenson
George Hill

8 a.m. ET: The Celtics are in for a real test. After taking care of business with wins over the Warriors and Sixers — wins that should be expected — they drive into Indianapolis to face one of the league’s toughest up-and-coming squads.

The Pacers (38-22) are really good, especially defensively. They allow the second-fewest points per game and hold opponents to the lowest field goal percentage in the league. For an old-school, grinding defensive club, they provide something for the advanced stats crowd, too. They lead the league in defensive efficiency at just 96.2 points per 100 possessions allowed and also hold their opponents to the league’s lowest effective field goal percentage, which gives 3-pointers more weight due to the extra point you get for making those shots.

In case you have not caught our drift, the Pacers are a quality opponent, and the Celtics (32-27) would make a statement by beating them.

Join us for updates and analysis during the game, which tips off at 7 p.m. ET.