Candace Buckner

candace.buckner@indystar.com

Phoenix hands Pacers 23-point home loss.

Pacers at Mavericks%2C 8 p.m. Monday%2C FSI



In the days leading to the Phoenix Suns game, the Indiana Pacers were fully aware of the challenges in facing this Western Conference nemesis. Last season, the upstart Suns swept the two-game series by either pick-and-rolling the Pacers' defense to extinction or blitzing them from the 3-point line. Indiana lost both games by an average of 16 points, so at least by Saturday night, there was a precedent in place for what happened on the Bankers Life Fieldhouse court.

In terms of offensive execution, the Suns did not stray far from the how-to-beat-the-Pacers playbook, which includes chapters on stretching the defense, running as much as possible and, when possible, attacking once the rim protector's out of the game.

"We expected that coming in – well, we expected their speed and size and their ability to score the ball," point guard Donald Sloan said. "We didn't expect to get blown out."

The Pacers fell 106-83 as more injuries added to the weight of the loss. Starting center Roy Hibbert stayed around for only 6 minutes because he sprained his left ankle in the first quarter. In the fourth quarter, backup guard Rodney Stuckey – who had scored 14 points on 3-of-10 shooting – tripped over a cameraman and remained on the floor, grimacing while holding his left wrist. The team later announced that Stuckey had suffered a sprain.

The extent of both injuries may not be known until later, but Pacers coach Frank Vogel said both players will be questionable for the next game, which means the Pacers (5-8) will soon embark on a tough two-game trip to Dallas and San Antonio with uncertainly surrounding their most aggressive bench scorer and more significantly, their defensive foundation.

During his pregame talk with reporters, Vogel described Hibbert's role with his young and inexperienced teammates. While the Pacers have missed the perimeter defense of injured starters Paul George and George Hill, they have preserved some of the status quo with a scoring defense that allows just 93.0 points per game, fourth in the league.

"We don't have the foot speed on the perimeter … but Roy Hibbert behind them the last couple years has allowed them to be extra aggressive and that's been the case with our perimeter players this year," Vogel said. "While they're trying to overcome the foot speed differential, they have the confidence that they can get up and pressure and try to really get after people knowing that Roy or Ian (Mahinmi) is behind them."

This wasn't so much of a prediction, but a statement of fact that would be proved accurate through a stretch late in the second quarter.

With Hibbert out and Mahinmi in foul trouble, the Suns, who had mostly remained on the perimeter and attempted two shots directly at the rim, immediately attacked inside. Eric Bledsoe zipped through the paint and scored an easy layup. After backup Suns center Alex Len stole the Pacers' next possession, Bledsoe wrecked the transition defense with a short floater through a late foul by Sloan. The Suns finished with 23 points scored off the fast break.

"Everything we try to do is based around Big Dawg being in the middle and being the rim protector that he is," Sloan said. "If you don't have him in the game, we don't have the athleticism and the abilities of Paul George and George Hill being able to do two things at once. We rely on Big Dawg a lot, as far as help coverage.

"So when he goes out," Sloan continued, "it's a big blow for us, at least defensively."

Though Phoenix played the previous night in Philadelphia, the back-to-back road games did not down its fast and relentless attack. The trio of Bledsoe, Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas combined for 36 points and the team shot 44.7 percent compared to the Pacers' 36.9 percent.

While the Pacers got limited production from the starting frontcourt (Chris Copeland scored eight and Luis Scola finished 0-for-4 with one point), the Suns steadied themselves with balance, and former Pacer Gerald Green scored a game-high 23 points. While mixing in 12-of-31 3-point shooting, the Suns maintained double-digit leads through the second half.

"We may struggle at times with a faster paced team but … when we lose Roy, we lose our trump card," Solomon Hill said. "The one guy that they probably couldn't stop goes down and now we're trying to play a fast-paced game."

While not getting many stops, the Pacers also couldn't make enough shots. In their attempts to run an offense and share the ball in the third quarter, the Pacers committed six turnovers and especially got sloppy near the end.

Indiana had the ball with the quarter ticking down from 34 seconds and tried to score quickly to possibly get one more crack at a bucket before the buzzer – a sequence commonly known as a two-for-one – but Stuckey lost the possession out of bounds. Thomas turned this mistake into two points with a pull-up jumper, then, with one final chance to score before the end of the quarter, A.J. Price lost his dribble and could not get a shot off before the buzzer. By that time, Phoenix led 80-64.

"We just didn't play well enough," Vogel said. "We knew they were a matchup problem for us with their speed and 3-point shooting, so we knew we would have to play a great game to beat them and we didn't play a great game. A lot of guys didn't have good nights. Obviously, losing Roy, losing Rodney, all of that combined too much to overcome."

Follow Star reporter Candace Buckner on Twitter: @CandaceDBuckner.

Pacers at Mavericks, 8:30 p.m. Monday, FSI