OTHER VIEWS

What other papers are saying about the NBA finals:

BILL BENNER, Indianapolis Star

So what do the Indiana Pacers do now?

Well, they go home, and that’s as good of a place as any to start before these NBA finals are over.

Which, acknowledging the reality, could be sooner rather than later.

But perhaps the change of venue will bring the Pacers the change in fortune they desperately need to make this an extended series instead of a cameo.

Maybe the Conseco Fieldhouse rims will be more receptive, and certainly, the crowd will be. But as they flew cross-country and into the sunrise Saturday morning, the Pacers had to be scratching their noggins.

How do they beat the Los Angeles Lakers? And, more importantly, how do they tame the beast that is Shaquille ONeal?

Friday night in Staples Center, the Pacers were no longer the star-struck team not prepared for the lights, cameras, action and pressure of an NBA finals.

They played, as Coach Larry Bird had urged beforehand, not like it was the second game of this series, but “like it would be our last game.”

They laid it all on the line, and even picked up the benefit of injury when the Lakers’ young star, Kobe Bryant, limped to the sideline with a sprained ankle in the first quarter.

Reggie Miller, despite foul trouble, emerged . . . through three quarters, anyway. Jalen Rose became the force he has to be and the player he hasn’t been for much too long. Austin Croshere was again sensational and determined off the bench. The Pacers, led by Dale Davis’s 10 rebounds and nine apiece from Rose and Mark Jackson, battled the league’s best rebounding team to a dead heat on the boards. They got off to the good start that they absolutely had to have.

And against O’Neal, they expended every strategy, every weapon and, yes, every foul they could muster, sending the league’s MVP to the free-throw line for an NBA-record 39 attempts.

Of which he made but 18, leaving 21 misses. You’d take that, wouldn’t you?

But it was all for naught. All the energy and all the toughness that was missing from Game 1 couldn’t make up the difference.

And it couldn’t negate O’Neal, whose 40 points, 24 rebounds, four assists, and three blocked shots were not only numbers, but numbing. So the Pacers lost, 111-104, and now they come home to the Fieldhouse, a 2-0 deficit and an absolute must-win Game 3 today. If not, the only team returning to Los Angeles next weekend will be the Lakers, and they’ll have a parade waiting.

“We’re still confident,” Rose said. “We understand we have what it takes to beat L.A.”

“We’ve got to find a way to win one,” Bird said.

Setting aside the issue of winning four.