INDIANAPOLIS — The trip started off swimmingly for Gary Harris, who not only was back home in Indiana, but had a day off to go see his family.
“I was able to go home, kick it with the family for a day,” Harris said. “It was good to have a day off back home, for sure.”
It was nearly a solid trip all around.
But then, in a flash, it wasn’t. The Nuggets collapsed down the stretch of the game and Harris, in front of a sizeable contingent of family and friends, had to leave with the loss. And that spoiled what had been one of his best games of the season. Harris scored 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting and added three assists.
He had eight points in a high-energy, hot-shooting third quarter that helped the Nuggets rally from a halftime deficit to take the lead.
But Harris’ contributions were not enough. “We didn’t get stops,” he said. “We can’t sulk on it too much; we have to get back on the drawing board and get ready for Toronto.”
Ellis busts out. Monta Ellis is already known as a score-in-bunches kind of player. All he did was put it on full display, to the delight of the Pacers.
“Just his will to win,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said of Ellis. “He doesn’t care about numbers. He carried a lot of the load in the first half. He’s a dynamic basketball player.”
Ellis scored five of the Pacers’ 10 points in overtime.
“It was really my teammates,” Ellis said. “They were knocking down shots and it was opening it up for me.”
Footnotes. All five Nuggets starters scored in double figures and combined to shoot 50.8 percent from the field. … Kenneth Faried recorded his 11th double-double of the season. … The Nuggets outscored Indiana 20-6 in fast-break points. Christopher Dempsey, The Denver Post
