Candace Buckner

candace.buckner@indystar.com

Pacers at Bulls%2C 8 p.m. Saturday%2C FSI

The flickering light through the season's fog of injuries and re-injuries has been the Indiana Pacers' persistence to play hard.

They may not have been as talented as the Memphis Grizzlies, the Washington Wizards or the Atlanta Hawks, but the Pacers pushed those opponents farther than expected. Each one ended as a loss until finally this undermanned team startled the Miami Heat with a win on the road earlier this week.

However on Friday, the constantly working, endlessly hustling Pacers took the night off.

With a 108-87 landslide, the Denver Nuggets shredded the Pacers' defense as well as their early season reputation as a never-say-die challenger. Though the Nuggets walked into Bankers Life Fieldhouse as losers of six straight games, with a few embarrassing moments mixed in the streak – like giving up 84 first-half points to the Trail Blazers on Wednesday – they switched roles with the Pacers. Denver appeared to be the hyper-focused underdogs while Indiana crumbled into a Swiss cheese defensive team, severely outworked and outplayed on its home floor in front of an announced crowd of 16,286.

"We're not good enough or experienced enough to not play harder than our opponent," coach Frank Vogel said. "Credit to them, they came in with the right level of desperation and urgency and got the job done."

It may be too much to expect players like Solomon Hill, Chris Copeland, Lavoy Allen, Donald Sloan and Damjan Rudež to perform consistently on this intense stage night after night since each one has a limited NBA backstory. However, it is a burden they must bear while their more proficient teammates recover and return to the lineup.

So while understandable, the effort on Friday night was indefensible.

The Pacers, now 3-7, allowed the Nuggets to shoot at or above a 50-percent clip through the game. After playing a close start, the game favored the aggressors.

In the second quarter, Denver hit 12-of-20 shots, including three beyond the arc, and reached 34 points – the most scored by an opponent this season. With 3:11 remaining until halftime and after a made 3-pointer, the 6-9 backup forward J.J. Hickson picked up Sloan 93 feet away from the basket and hassled the speedy point guard so much that the Pacers could not in-bound the ball. It didn't help that Roy Hibbert had no other teammate to throw the ball to because all others failed to recognize the pressure, and the Pacers were forced to call a timeout.

"I think it was just our energy, was the biggest factor," said A.J. Price, who scored a team-high 14 points off the bench. "It wasn't about Xs and Os. It wasn't about game plans (or) schemes. It was just our energy. Our energy was lackluster."

In the third quarter, Denver opened a 33-point lead. During the onslaught, Hibbert picked up a technical foul, pushing center Timofey Mozgov when he talked a bit too much trash after blocking a Sloan drive. But while Hibbert was angrily sticking up for a teammate, he should have been more displeased by the defensive effort all around him.

After holding the Miami Heat to only 75 points during the win on Wednesday, the Pacers folded into their worst defensive performance of the 10 games this season. Even Fishers native and Denver rookie Gary Harris, making his NBA debut against the Pacers, scored 13 points in a little more than 18 minutes of play.

"We need to bring it every night, that's the bottom line," Vogel said. "We play tomorrow night so it should hurt, we should be angry about our performance tonight but we got to move on from it right away and we got to regroup and get ready for a game tomorrow night."

However, just when the Pacers thought they could welcome back one of the veterans who might help, CJ Miles, who had missed the previous four games in what the team described as experiencing "migraine symptoms," the return was short lived. Just 4 minutes and 7 seconds into his comeback, Miles strained his right calf muscle, the same injury he experienced during preseason.

After the game, with emotion thick in his voice, Miles turned to the word "frustration" several times while explaining his current plight. This season, Miles, a 34.6 percent career 3-point shooter, has only made 5-of-29 shots from beyond the arc in his five games as a Pacer. Still, not being able to help his overmatched teammates hurts more than any personal slump.

"The thing that's frustrating to me is you want to be able to help the dudes, the guys standing beside you," Miles said. "You want to gain the trust of them and of the coaches, and everybody. You want to do what you do, what they brought you here for. That's the thing that makes me the most upset. The thing that frustrates me the most is that I'm not doing right now what I do."

For a night, neither did his teammates.

Follow Star reporter Candace Buckner on Twitter: @CandaceDBuckner.

Pacers at Bulls, 8 p.m. Saturday, FSI