Indy Teams

I took in a Pacers game last night, the second in this early season. They may be mariginally better than last year, but if they manage to make the playoffs, I doubt they survive the first round.

My assessment of the team is middle of the pack. Danny Granger and Mike Dunleavy are their main guys, and both were inconsistent in the two games I saw. Granger's a decent player, but isn't built to carry a franchise. Dunleavy's a streaky shooter who wasn't hitting much in the two games I've seen.

Roy Hibbert shows tremendous promise in the middle. He looks at times like a big man who can dominate. Then on other times he looks lost. Coaches should work with him every day on post moves, and make him shoot 100 hooks a day. Get him playing with some consistency, and develop a couple of go-to post moves, and he could be a star. But not this year.

Collison is a good looking point guard with obvious skills. But he doesn't seem to know when to pass and when to take the shot. I saw him run a number of fast breaks, where there were two defenders ready to stop his drive to the basket, but teammates running the floor with him. In every case, instead of dishing to the big man for the dunk, he decided to take on the two defenders. Sometimes he drew the foul, and the other times he turned the ball over. I also observed him missing open guys on the pick and roll, again while trying to force his own shot. Collison seems to need badly to learn that winning is better than personal stats.

Tyler Hansbrough tends to play like a rookie, but I appreciate his hustle. He plays hard and hungry, and makes plays through force of will. Like Hibbert but in a different way, he shows promise for the future, but probably won't take the Pacers to a competitive level this year.

The entire team stinks on the defensive end. They're burned on weak-side rebounds so often I wonder if they've ever heard words like "weak side help" from a coach. They're embarassingly easy to break down off dribble penetration by their opponents' point guards.

Moving on to the Colts.

I'm not sure I want to put myself through the pain of watching the Colts play New England this weekend. The crippled team barely survived the Bengals last weekend, a game the Colts of the past several seasons would have blown out of the stadum.

Jacob Tamme is playing bravely in place of Dallas Clark, but alas is no Dallas Clark. Pierre Garcon drops more passes than he catches. The Colts are down to their fourth-string running back, which doesn't give them much punch there either.

All defenses have to do is double-team Reggie Wayne and contain Tamme, and they can shut down Peyton.

The only questions left for the Colts this year are, how many starters will be back off the injury list this season, and when they come back, will they be able to ramp back up in time to make the Colts a Super Bowl contender?

It doesn't look like a good sports year in Indy.