Bright Offense Helps Pacers Top Mavericks

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Indiana Pacers thrashed the Dallas Mavericks 103-83 on Friday night, shooting 47 percent from the field and getting to 100 points first time in seven games.

David West had 15 points, two assists and seven rebounds, while George Hill added 15 points, seven assists and five boards.

The Pacers coach Frank Vogel made a few changes in the team's strategy to give the players a new outlook to the game and it paid dividends. "Coach challenged us that we needed to change immediately," the Associated Press quoted Hill as saying. "He came in with different types of offensive sets that kind of helps us as athletes, who we are on this team, young and athletic.

"It kind of helped us and challenged us to make plays for others and not just ourselves. I like the direction that we're going."

The Pacers were already very good in defense with Vogel demanding a better offensive performance, which was shown against the Mavericks.

"I didn't like being 30th (last) in scoring and 30th in field goal offense," Vogel said. "I didn't like guys standing around.

"I didn't like the speed in which we were running our offense. I didn't like the lack of physicality in our screening. There was a lot to not like. So changes were needed.

"We talked about re-establishing a belief in ourselves as a basketball team, belief in ourselves individually that we're capable to do great things and continuing to believe in our teammates that are struggling.

"It's an important element in getting yourself out of a rut and getting a team out of a rut it to continue to trust that we have good players on this team that when the ball's moving and we're sharing it that we're going to be pretty good."

For the Mavericks, O.J. Mayo was the top scorer with 19 points. Vince Carter and Darren Collison scored 10 points each.

"The game got away from us," Rick Carlisle said. "A lot of guys got hot. Collectively, I think their collective will was stronger than ours. After a really encouraging first half and a couple minutes in the third quarter, it just went the other way."

"We put ourselves in good position to win the game in the first half, then we come out and we couldn't stop anything in the second half," Mavericks forward Shawn Marion added. "I don't know why we are doing these things. We can't seem to sustain anything. We are continuing to have lapses, mental lapses."

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