Nate Taylor

nate.taylor@indystar.com

Pacers at Bulls, 8 p.m. Monday, Fox Sports Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS — Paul George and C.J. Miles didn’t want to concern themselves with the small details of Thursday’s 109-102 loss to the Boston Celtics.

Sure, the Pacers scored just nine points in the second quarter, their fewest in any quarter this season, to allow the Celtics to take a commanding lead they never relinquished. The Pacers committed 19 turnovers, too, which coach Nate McMillan was quick reference after the game. And the Pacers could never a suitable solution to stop Boston’s Isaiah Thomas, who led the Celtics with 28 points and nine assists.

But instead of focusing on those statistics, George and Miles elected to take the long view of the Pacers’ season that continues to be perplexing after 31 games.

First, George acknowledged the Pacers’ lack of a true sense of their style of play on offense.

“Our identity is inconsistency,” George said. “We’ve yet to spread from the pack (in the Eastern Conference) and we’ve yet to string some games together. We’ve yet to take a step back and look at the big picture and point out some things that we’re doing well over the course of this season. So really, we have nothing to really fall back on right now.”

Miles followed by questioning the Pacers’ intensity and overall mood at times on the court. He wondered why they play certain quarters, such as Thursday’s second, with such a defeated mentality and then play with the proper energy, as they did when they tried to rally in the fourth quarter.

“You still look around sometimes and it looks like we don’t enjoy the game enough,” Miles said. “You see big plays being made and sometimes you, like, see guys exhale instead of getting hyped about it, getting excited about it. I think we’ve got to get back to being passionate and remembering we’ve got one of the best jobs in the world, to play basketball for a living. At the most, we work for two and half hours a day. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not making it sound easy, but we’ve got to remember that this is the game that we first fell in love with that got us this far.”

BOX SCORE: Celtics 109, Pacers 102

The Pacers’ best efforts Thursday came after George painfully rolled his left ankle when collided with Boston’s Marcus Smart in the fourth quarter.

Smart’s foul of George produced a loud groan throughout Bankers Life Fieldhouse from Pacers fans who feared the worst. George, the face of the franchise, laid on his back with his hands over his face as he grimaced. For a brief few minutes, it appeared George’s night was done. With his teammates surrounding him, George — who needed a few deep breaths — gathered himself. To the Pacers’ relief, he walked back to the bench under his own power.

“When I saw him get up by himself, I knew he wasn’t coming out,” Miles said of George. “He wants to win as bad as anybody. He’s the leader of our team. This is his team. Everybody in here knows that. He stepped up to show that he wanted to win the game. The guys followed suit. If he can play through that, why can’t I play hard, too?”

For the final 8 minutes, the Pacers tried to rally after George’s fall. Yet every time Indiana made a run, the Celtics responded by giving the ball to Thomas, who made deflating basket after deflating basket to deny the Pacers. Thomas used his speed and crafty shot-making ability to give the Celtics the timely baskets they needed late.

“He’s a legit scorer,” McMillan said of Thomas. “When our bigs were up, he blew by them. When our bigs were back, he pulled up and made the jump shot. When you have that ability to do so, it’s a tough guard. Every time he gets the ball he’s in attack mode. He does a good job of making reads off running that pick-and-roll with a big that can pop and shoot the ball.”

Despite Thomas’ clutch baskets, the Pacers (15-16) also knew they were defeated because the Celtics were the team that played with more energy throughout much of the game. The Celtics (17-12) beat the Pacers down the court several times in the first half for easy baskets.

They were also the tougher team, which irritated George.

“They did a great job of holding and playing physical on us,” George said. “The officiating let them get away with a lot of stuff. It made it tough for us, but regardless we have to be strong as team. I take credit on that for not getting us ready. Coach gave us that game plan of they’re going to hold and grab and play physical. I should have been the one to retaliate on that and be just as physical.”

The Celtics, unlike the Pacers, ran their offense to methodical perfection in the first half. Boston scored 17 consecutive points to begin the second quarter. From there, the Celtics controlled the game’s tempo.

Before the game, George was hopeful he and his teammates would trust each other more on offense after their disappointing loss Tuesday to the New York Knicks. Too often Thursday, however, the Pacers were reduced to playing their offense through one-on-one isolation plays. The results were unsuccessful, as the Pacers trailed by as many as 17 points in the third quarter.

After the game, Miles called the Celtics a good team. It was a distinction he couldn’t give to the Pacers.

“The good teams, they win when they’re supposed to win and they figure out how to win when they’re not supposed to win,” Miles said. He later added: “We’re a little frustrated, but not so much that we can’t do it. We’re frustrated because we can. The biggest thing is we know the type of players we have. It’s about us executing everything. We’ve got to be better as far as coming together. It’s about us wanting it.”

Call IndyStar reporter Nate Taylor at (317) 444-6484. Follow him on Twitter:@ByNateTaylor.

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