After 106-95 win over Heat, Pacers eye a better new year

Optimism rules the day on New Year's Eve, and so it is with this unclouded cheerfulness that C.J. Miles can say he believes the Indiana Pacers will improve through 2015.

The return of the teammate who sits next to him in the Pacers' home locker room, George Hill, provided some of that encouragement, as did the overall team health. On Wednesday afternoon, the Pacers' injury list looked as clear as it has been all season, with only two names, Paul George and Ian Mahinmi.

Then, the 106-95 win over the Miami Heat and his own performance as the leading scorer also gave Miles reasons to hope.

BOX SCORE: Pacers 106, Heat 95

After trailing by 11 points and allowing Miami to shoot nearly 58 percent through the first half, the Pacers' defense shut down the easy looks and outscored the Heat by 20 points over the final 24 minutes.

So, the Pacers (12-21) closed 2014 victoriously as the down-but-never-out kind of team known for clawing back. Miles, who scored 25 points, grabbed seven rebounds and added four assists, sees a reward in this resiliency.

"I just feel like the only way we can go is up, individually and as a whole," said Miles, while reflecting about his own various ailments this season. "We can't go down. We haven't even been as bad as it could've been. I feel like we fought a lot and we've done some things that people didn't expect us to."

Miles' own long suffering and rocky start has paralleled the team's struggles. As Miles has grappled with calf soreness, migraines, even more calf soreness, then an upper respiratory infection, and struggled early to find his shot, the Pacers, too, stumbled along with team wide problems. While missing starters and key players then shuffling and re-shuffling the rotation, Indiana had an early six-game losing streak then another that stretched for eight straight, the longest losing streak in five years.

For only three games now, the Pacers have operated with the starting lineup they had projected at the start of the season. Though the team had split the first two games (Brooklyn and Chicago), by Wednesday the Pacers looked a bit like their former selves in dominating the new-look Heat on the defensive end through the second half.

Through the first half, the Heat scored 26 points in the paint. On Monday, Chicago scored the same total for the entire game – a point drilled home by coach Frank Vogel to his players. Then after halftime, the Pacers limited the Heat to just nine looks inside the paint as well as only six more points. Indiana also outworked Miami with a 25-15 rebound advantage after halftime.

"When you're down, you play with a little more desperation. We weren't happy with what we did defensively in the first half," Vogel said. "Something we're really trying to get back to as the staple of our defense, becoming dominant again is dominating the paint."

"I just think dialing into that commitment was what turned the game around."

The Pacers' revitalized shot making also helped. Hill, who made his third straight start at point guard, scored 20 and hit a pair of 3-pointers to nail down the fourth quarter. Overall, Indiana connected on 10 as the shooting spiked to a season-best 55.6 percent from 3-point distance. And by the end, Miles wasn't the only Pacer thinking about brighter days.

"We're coming along," Hill said. "It's been a bumpy road so far with injuries and things like that. It's going to take time to get rhythm and gel, but we're moving in the right direction."

Though contagious, the hopefulness for the future can just as easily be squashed like one of those plastic New Year's top hats that litter Times Square at 12:01 a.m.

The Pacers face a climb up the Eastern Conference in order to make the postseason. Though the win on Wednesday helped in catching the eighth-place Heat, Indiana remains two games behind for the final playoff spot with two other teams (Boston and Orlando) ahead in the standings. Additionally, the Pacers open the new year with four straight road games, including a visit to the Western Conference leading Golden State Warriors.

So though Miles speaks with an endless supply of enthusiasm, he maintains perspective about the road ahead.

"That's the biggest thing, keep building off what we've got," Miles said. "You can't win 10 games in two games and that's the biggest thing we've got to know.

"We've got to look at it right the way."

Call Star reporter Candace Buckner at (317) 444-6121. Follow her on Twitter: @CandaceDBuckner.