Pacers 109, Bucks 96
MILWAUKEE — Only Reggie Miller could have saved the Indiana Pacers — so he did.
Miller scored 34 points with a vintage barrage of outside shots as the Pacers beat the Milwaukee Bucks 109-96 Saturday night to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-five playoff series.
With a sellout crowd at Bradley Center booing his every move, and his teammates mostly ineffective, Miller turned in yet another amazing playoff performance. Almost singlehandedly, he staved off a fired-up Milwaukee team aching for its first home playoff win in a decade.
Indiana, the Eastern Conference's top seed, can clinch the series with another road victory in Game 4 on Monday night.
The game was marred by the ejections of Milwaukee's Sam Cassell and Indiana's Dale Davis with six minutes to play. The players confronted each other and received double technical fouls for the second time in another intensely physical game between bitter rivals.
Miller, who was largely shut down by Ray Allen in the series' first two games in Indianapolis, scored 16 points in the third quarter as the Pacers turned a 12-point deficit into a three-point lead in less than six minutes.
After Milwaukee pulled within 87-85 with eight minutes to play, Miller and Jalen Rose keyed a 13-2 run that sealed the victory. Rose finished with 27 points, hitting three straight long shots during the deciding run.
When Rose hit a deep 3-pointer with 2:45 left to put Indiana up 100-87, normally unemotional Indiana coach Larry Bird pumped his first and screamed "Yes!" at the heckling Milwaukee crowd.
Indiana's Travis Best scored 11 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter, including a 3-pointer with 1:32 left that made it 105-91.
Allen and Glenn Robinson each scored 26 points to lead Milwaukee, but they had just five points apiece in the fourth quarter as Indiana pulled away. Cassell had 13 points and 12 assists, but the Bucks floundered on offense when their point guard was ejected.
With the game in hand, Miller acknowledged a small band of Pacers fans in the upper deck. When he left the game with just seconds to play, he pointed to the "Indiana" on his jersey while the fans booed.
Center Rik Smits watched the game from the Pacers' hotel while serving a one-game suspension for elbowing Ervin Johnson in Game 2.