‘They outcompeted us’: Pacers weren't ready to close out Bucks; will it haunt them?

MILWAUKEE -- Myles Turner paused, smiled and shook his head before he answered the question, knowing the answer was obvious but acting as if he really didn't want to be asked.

The Pacers had just missed out on their first chance to advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals since 2014 with a 115-92 loss to the Bucks at Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum on Tuesday night. The Bucks cut the Pacers' series lead to 3-2 and forced a Game 6 at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse without their All-NBA superstars Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard in the lineup.

Bucks coach Doc Rivers said after the game that he thinks Antetokounmpo and Lillard are "very, very, very close" to returning after Antetokounmpo missed the first five games of the series with a calf strain and Lillard missed the last two with Achilles tendinitis. The Pacers could see a very different and more potent Milwaukee team in Indianapolis for Game 6 than they did at any point in the rest of this series.

So Turner was asked if he considered Tuesday night a missed opportunity.

"Sure, yeah," Turner said after taking a moment to before immediately spinning to the company line. "I think we're embracing the challenge that's coming with us."

It was the second time Turner used the word "embrace" when it came to the idea of having to play Game 6, and he said earlier in his press conference that the Pacers were "looking forward to the challenge" of having two more games to try to put the Bucks away. It makes sense for the young Pacers to take that view because their ability to avoid dwelling on defeats -- even blowouts or humiliating losses at the hands of lottery teams -- has served them remarkably well. When they say they're on to the next one, they really mean it. They were 23-12 in the games after losses this season. Their longest losing streak was four games and they hadn't lost consecutive games since March 1 and 3 when they lost to New Orleans and San Antonio on the road before beating the Mavericks in Dallas.

If you gave the Pacers the opportunity to sign up for the situation they now face at the beginning of the season -- being up 3-2 on the Bucks in a playoff series heading into a Game 6 at home -- they would have surely taken it after three years of no playoffs. Even when the series began, before they knew how long Antetokounmpo would be out, they would have been more than happy with a 3-2 outcome in their favor.

That said, Game 5 is unquestionably a missed opportunity and a painful one that shows the Pacers haven't yet acquired the killer instinct that more veteran teams with extensive playoff experience have. If the Pacers blow what was a 3-1 series lead and fail to advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the first time since 2014, it is the game they will look back at as the one that got away. They’ve left the door open for one of the planet's five best players, a 6-11, 250-pound force of nature who scored 64 points against the Pacers in one game this season and 54 in another, to return and change the series simply because they didn't sustain the level of intensity they had in Games 2, 3 and 4.

"We just didn't play with the consistent compete level we needed to," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. "I'll take responsibility for that. I didn't have these guys ready the way they needed to be ready to play this game."

Carlisle said he saw that something was amiss in the first quarter even as the Pacers started well. They took a 10-point lead and finished the period up 31-23, making 11 of their 21 field goals including 7 of their 13 3-point attempts to post 1.48 points per possession.

"I don't think we were playing with the kind of intensity we needed to even when we had the lead," Carlisle said. "We paid the price for it."

Once the outside shots stopped going in, the bottom fell out. In the second period, they were outscored 30-17, making just 7 of 20 shots and 2 of 8 3-pointers. The third was even worse, as that tally was 34-19. The Pacers were just 7 of 17 in that period and they missed all five of their 3s. The 64-36 stretch put them down 87-67 heading into the fourth and they had lost all hope of coming back.

The Pacers had some similar execution issues to ones they had on Sunday night in their Game 4 win, but their 22 3-pointers in that game covered those up. The Bucks used zone and switching defenses to make it very hard for the Pacers to get the ball in the paint and it took them until the second half to really push the issue. Just 14 of their 41 first-half field goal attempts came in the paint and the Pacers made eight of those. They made more of a point to get the ball in the lane in the second half, making 13 of 19 attempts after halftime, bu they were still outscored in the lane 50-42.

"That was more us on ourselves as opposed to their defense," Turner said. "I think we settled. I think their defense enticed us to settle on some of those open looking shots as opposed to those games where you have 30 assists or whatever it may be. That's when you're playing Pacers basketball. I think we got away from ourselves and it showed."

The paint points were just one example of the extent to which the Bucks controlled the game. The vaunted Pacers transition game finished with just five fast-break points to the Bucks' 11, and their series-low 81 field goal attempts was a sign that the game wasn't played anywhere near Indiana's pace. The Pacers had just two more turnovers (13) than the Bucks (11), but Milwaukee was much more effective at converting those into points with 23 points off turnovers to the Pacers' 14. Milwaukee won the rebound battle 44-36 and the second-chance points battle 16-9.

For the Bucks, everyone who was being asked to step up their game with Antetokounmpo and Lillard out did so. After he was ejected in Sunday's first quarter, Bobby Portis -- starting in place of Antetokounmpo at power forward -- scored 29 points on 14 of 24 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds. Veteran wing Khris Middleton, who has had to return to go-to scorer status, scored 29 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out five assists. Veteran guard Patrick Beverley became the primary ball-handler with Lillard out and scored 13 points while dishing out 12 assists. Guard Malik Beasley, who re-entered the starting lineup in Lillard's absence, scored 18 points on 7 of 11 shooting including 4 of 6 from 3-point range.

The Pacers couldn't say the same. They had five scorers in double figures, but no one with more than 16 points and the players who got there were mostly either inefficient or not aggressive enough. All-Star Pascal Siakam, the hero of the series' first two games, scored just 12 points on 5 of 12 shooting. Point guard Tyrese Haliburton had 16 points but was 6 of 14 with a modest six assists. Turner had 13 points on 6 of 9 shooting but acknowledged he needed to be more assertive after scoring 29 in each of the last two games.

Carlisle caught heat on social media for his substitution patterns and some of that may have been deserved as bench-heavy lineups struggled early in the second period and late in the third. Veteran point guard T.J. McConnell, the lynchpin of the Pacers' bench unit all year, is shooting just 37.0% from the floor in these playoffs and he was 3 of 10 from the floor on Tuesday and -18 in 16 minutes. Forward Obi Toppin picked up an early technical foul and was -18 as well and eight of his 12 points came in the fourth quarter when the game was mostly decided.

Still, the Pacers' bench outscored Milwaukee's 32-14 and it wasn't as if putting the starters back in turned the tide in any way. Every player who entered the game for the Pacers posted a negative plus-minus rating other than rookie Jarace Walker, who played 4:58 of garbage time in the fourth quarter.

"They outcompeted us tonight," Pacers All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton said. "They played harder, played better. They kinda just dominated us in every facet of the game tonight."

They did, so the Pacers still have to find a way to embrace the daunting challenge ahead of them rather than simply moving past this round.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers could be haunted by Game 5 loss at Milwaukee