Oh you didn't know? Trying to shoot over Roy Hibbert is a terrible idea

At this pace, Roy Hibbert will have 574 blocks this season...



...assuming he plays 82 games he will smash Mark Eaton's record 5.6 BPG (456 total) by 118 blocks.

Needless to say, Hibbert won't keep up this pace (career average 1.8 BPG) but it only reminds me that Roy Hibbert is one of the best centers in the league when it comes to forcing defenders into misses (Opponents are shooing 26.3 percent at the rim against him.). The Magic shot just 45.16 percent from the restricted area, a zone they shot over 60 percent from last year.
Obviously one game is a small sample size, but that's all we have to go off of right now, and the Pacers did exactly what they needed to do. Another note would be that's not all Hibbert: That's the force of nature that is the bigs of Indiana. The starting center and forwards of Orlando went 10-29, a 34.5 percentage. Ouch.

Orlando's Shot Performance Vs. Indiana 10/30/13

While the paint isn't the best place to attack the Pacers from Indiana did a great job making sure Orlando was pedestrian from the rest of the court as well, save the left corner three. Last season we saw that it's hard to do more than a 50 percent performance against the Pacers defense with no real liabilities on the floor and a system that encourages crashing the boards without giving up transition baskets. That doesn't look to have changed between this year. Considering you have 7'2" Hibbert, 6'9" David West, and even a 6'8" Paul George finding one way or another to make opposing shooters lives a living hell, it isn't entirely surprising. Yes it was Orlando but anytime you keep a team below their normal average, you are doing something right. Also consider the fact that Indiana didn't force the Magic to shoot any differently than they did last year, they had them to take the same shots but with worse results.

The Pacers playing good defense is no surprise. They won, but for a team that thinks it is going to win the title this year, they are going to have to be more efficient. The Pacers were outscored in the second quarter and went into halftime trailing. Going 8 of 18 and turning the ball over 11 times is no way to go through life son.  On the plus side, George was more efficient than last year finishing at the bucket and shooting threes, but let's wait one, two, or ten games before making any bold proclamations. West actually didn't finish well around the rim but Lance Stephenson showed some improvement.

Just one game. But one win.