It's official. The streak is still on for the Pacers.
The Pacers, once a proud franchise that regularly made the playoffs, will start their summer vacation sooner than 16 other teams in the league because they'll miss the postseason for the third straight season. The Atlanta Hawks assured them of that when they beat Indiana 122-118 on Friday. "It's frustrating," Pacers center Jeff Foster said. "Seven years of making the playoffs every year and being competitive -- for a certain period of time we were expected to go to the Finals and win championships. Now we've had three years of mediocrity."
The Pacers are in their longest postseason drought since failing to make it five straight years from 1982-86.
HAWKS 122, PACERS 118: The Hawks used a 14-0 third-quarter run and shot 52 percent from the field for the game to beat the Pacers and eliminate them from playoff contention. All-Star forward Danny Granger led Indiana with a game-high 35 points. Fellow forward Troy Murphy picked up his 47th double-double of the season when he had 21 points and 10 rebounds.
