Don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, Pacers fans, but there is hope that this team could make the playoffs this year.  New coach Frank Vogel is confident they will after a gutsy 100-87 home win over the banged up Portland Trailblazers -- the Pacers' third in a row (the first time this season).

Wins over Toronto and Cleveland were expected, but now Vogel finally has a win over a quality team, even if they have been struggling with injuries.  However, it's the way these new Pacers have been playing that has me excited.

Darren Collison (11 points, 7 assists) and AJ Price (7 points) are playing with more freedom and we're seeing their confidence and aggression grow with every game.  Tyler Hansbrough (13 points, 8 rebounds) and Paul George (6 points, 4 rebounds) are getting playing time and making the most of it.  Roy Hibbert (15 points, 6 rebounds) is finally playing with confidence again.  And even Danny Granger is starting to feel more comfortable by taking better shots -- he led the way with 25 points and 9 boards today.

The problem with Jim O'Brien was that he kept the players in the dark with his bizarre rotations.  Sure, the players have been professional and have been ready, but mentally, not knowing whether you'll play or how much you'll play game-to-game must have affected them.  Furthermore, players were too afraid of making mistakes because it meant O'Brien would toss them on the bench (or inactive list), but all that did was limit the minutes of the young guys, while the veterans continued to make the same mistakes, or worse.

Vogel is giving the players new life by infusing them with confidence again.  The young guys are given the green light to go out there and do their thing, and even if they make mistakes they'll get to keep playing.  And as a result, the team is playing hard and they are playing to their strengths.  They're getting good shots by dumping the ball low to Hibbert, setting screens and using the pick an roll.  Plus they're running whenever they get the chance.

The defense is also getting better.  Players are helping each other out, closing in on big guys in the post and closing out on shooters on the wing.  Of course, Portland missed a lot of open shots today, but the Pacers also contested a lot of others.

The Pacers are now 20-27, and are only percentage points behind Charlotte for the 8th and final playoff spot in the East.  They have a great chance right now to make a push.

Next up is the New Jersey Nets (road game) which the Pacers can and should win if they play like they did today.  After that, all the games until Feb 25 should be winnable with the exception of two games against the Heat (Charlotte, Minnesota, Milwaukee, Washington and Detroit twice).

I won't deny it.  I was scared of this game.  The Cavs had lost 21 games straight and were desperate to get a win, and I'm sure they looked at the struggling Pacers as a fantastic opportunity to break their drought.

On the other hand, this was an opportunity for new Pacers coach Frank Vogel to guide the team to a rare road victory.  Whichever way you look at it, this was an interesting game.

When the Pacers raced out to a 10-0 start, I thought this game would probably end in a blowout.  But the Cavs, through great hustle and an uncanny ability to continuously get to the line, managed to crawl their way back into the game and eventually took the lead in the fourth.

Uh oh.

But fortunately for the Pacers, they kept their poise, and for the second game in a row, their opponents were the ones that imploded down the stretch.

The Pacers were down 108-107 when Mike Dunleavy hit a big three in transition to pull the team up 110-108.  Then, with the score tied 110 apiece, Granger drove into the lane and dished it back out to a wide open Collison, who nailed another three to give the Pacers a 113-110 lead.  The Cavs scored again to make it 113-112, and when Granger missed, the Cavs had a great chance to win the game.

But they came up empty twice (the Pacers were lucky to get away with a no-call on the first one) and Granger hit four free throws to complete the tight win -- 117-112.

You could look at this win in two ways.  One, the Pacers were horrible and were lucky to get away with a close win against the worst team in the NBA.  After all, they did give up 112 points and blew an early 15 point lead.  On the other hand, you could view this as a good win against a desperate team.

Collison was the star of the game again, finishing with 22 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds and 4 steals, with 3 turnovers.  I'm really liking what I'm seeing from the second year player, who really should have made the Sophomore team at the upcoming All-Star Weekend in LA.  With Jim O'Brien gone, we're really starting to see Collison becoming more comfortable and aggressive, and hopefully this will continue for him as he establishes himself as a leader and a big time player on this team.

Granger had 23 points but shot only 5-13, but what I did like was that he got to the line often, hitting 12-13, including those four big ones to ice the game.  That's what we need to see more of.

Hibbert also shot 5-13, which is still not good enough, but we'll take 13 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks from him right now if we can get it.

Another great thing to see was Vogel continuing to play Hansbrough and George -- Tyler played 22 minutes and Paul played 21 as both contributed 13 points.

Fantastic start for Frank Vogel as he is now 2-0 as the head coach of the Pacers.  But these were two wins against two of the worst teams in the NBA.  Next up is the real test -- Portland at home.

And so the Frank Vogel era begins with, as expected, a victory against the struggling Toronto Raptors, who came into the game with an 11 game losing streak.

With Jim O'Brien finally gone from the picture, his 37-year-old apprentice looked every part the new head coach as he guided the Pacers to a comfortable, if not somewhat nervewracking 104-93 win.  The Pacers improve to 18-27 and look to build on this start against the only team that's struggling worse than the Raptors right now -- the Cleveland Cavaliers, who just got throttled by the Miami Heat to earn their 21st consecutive loss.

It's too early to judge Vogel just yet.  This was a game the Pacers were expected to win and would have won even with O'Brien at the helm.  Heck, they may have won more comfortably.  They started out kind of shaky before breaking the game wide open in the second quarter behind some strong play by Roy Hibbert and Tyler Hansbrough, raising the lead up to 20 points before sloppiness and laziness allowed the Raptors to come almost all the way back.

Fortunately, the Raptors imploded in the late stages of the fourth quarter to allow the Pacers to escape with a W.

But I guess it could have been worse.  The Pacers could have lost.

The biggest, and most pleasing difference tonight was Roy Hibbert, who showed flashes of the Hibbert we saw at the start of the season.  Hibbert missed a couple of shots early, but he eventually settled in and dominated the Raptors down low to finish with 24 points, 11 rebounds and 2 blocks on 9-19 shooting in 30 minutes.  This was a more confident, more aggressive Hibbert, which brings credence to the argument that O'Brien was the one that stifled Hibbert's confidence.

That said, Hibbert was playing against the Raptors' smaller and weaker big men, so we won't really know if he has really turned the corner until he plays a team with decent bigs.

Another positive Vogel brought with him was the rotation -- ie giving Tyler Hansbrough and Paul George decent minutes, especially the latter.  Hansbrough threw up 13 shots in 15 minutes to finish with 14 points and 6 rebounds, and George was solid again with 16 points in 25 minutes.  Hansbrough was just returning from pneumonia, so his minutes were probably limited on purpose.  Hopefully we'll get to see both guys play at least 20-25 minutes a night for the remainder of the season.

Other positives?  Allowing Darren Collison to play through his mistakes.  I'm a big fan of Collison and what he can do for the team, at least on the offensive side, and tonight he had 16 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds -- numbers he is capable of putting up every night -- but he also had 6 turnovers.  I'm glad Vogel allowed Collison to play through these mistakes instead of going to say TJ Ford, who didn't play tonight.

Also not playing was James Posey -- another good idea.  I still don't understand why O'Brien continued to give him so many minutes with the team losing and young guys not getting minutes.  It wasn't like Posey was doing anything apart from hitting the rare three pointer.

In all, a good victory for the Pacers considering Danny Granger struggled from the field (11 points on 3-15 shooting) -- but he did have 9 rebounds and 5 assists, and would have had a lot more if his teammates hit their shots.  I liked what I saw from Granger tonight.  He tried to play within the flow of the game and let his teammates get involved.  His defense was also better.

As for the negatives?  Well, the Pacers should have put the game away pretty much at halftime because they raced out to that 20 point lead.  Vogel couldn't (or at least he couldn't get his players to) stop the bleeding as the Raptors chipped away at the lead to just trail by 6 points at the half.

There were also a few stretches where the Pacers kept turning the ball over (they had 25 for the game and still won!) without even putting up a shot, and he didn't do enough to steady the situation.

But at the end of the day, a win is still a win.  The Pacers now have a day off before taking on the Cavaliers in Cleveland.  That game is kind of like this one -- a game the Pacers should win, but a dangerous one because the Cavs are so desperate for a win.  A good opportunity for Vogel to show that he can get his team prepared mentally.

The true test, though, is the Portland game at home two days after that.  If the Pacers can pull that one out, then I'm sure you'll start to hear that maybe firing O'Brien now was the correct choice.

Hurray!  After years of hoping, Pacers fans have finally gotten what they've asked for.  Head coach Jim O'Brien has been fired.  Assistant coach Frank Vogel is expected to coach the team for the remainder of the season.

Perhaps the last game against Chicago was the last straw.  After finally snapping a six-game losing streak against the lowly New Jersey Nets, the Pacers went into Chicago hoping to catch the Bulls by surprise.  It was never going to be easy to get a win against the Bulls, but O'Brien made it almost impossible with his decisions.  Josh McRoberts, who had 20 points and 8 rebounds, was the only guy keeping the Pacers in the game, and O'Brien inexplicably pulled him out with the game very much in reach and allowed the Bulls to run away with it (110-89).

Then, with the Pacers trying to make a final run, O'Brien gets called for a tech foul for chirping at the refs, even after the Pacers ended up with the ball.  And then to cap off a disappointing game, O'Brien gets tossed for another tech with the game blown wide open.

And that really about sums up O'Brien's performance as Pacers coach.  A 121-169 record (0.417) over 3.5 years is simply not good enough, even with the lack of talent on this roster.

That said, O'Brien's departure won't instantly turn these Pacers around.  If anything, they might struggle even more as they try and adapt to a new coach and a new system.  But at least it gives fans some hope that things could be different.

It's about time.

As expected, the Indiana Pacers broke their 6-game losing streak today agaisnt the lowly New Jersey Nets, who had been playing arguably better basketball than the Pacers as of late.  However, the surprising thing was that the Pacers won in dramatic fashion, pounding the Nets 124-92 without both Tyler Hansbrough (pneumonia) and Brandon Rush (ankle).

A few interesting points in this one.  First of all, Roy Hibbert finally played a decent game, putting up 20 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks in 25 minutes while shooting 7-12 from the field and 6-7 from the line.  Hopefully this is a sign that Hibbert has finally turned the corner and will revert back to his earlier season form, or at least something a little closer.

Secondly, the Pacers kept the Nets to 92 points.  Sure, the Nets aren't the greatest scoring team in the NBA, with the game blown wide open in the second half, it's good to see that the Pacers still played good defense for the rest of the game and kept an opponent to under 100 points.

Thirdly, Dunleavy was red hot, finishing with a game high 30 points and hitting 12-16 shots, including 6-7 from downtown.  When Dunleavy is shooting like this, he is the most lethal weapon the team.  No one expects this from him every night, but it's up to him to find more consistency because when he's off, he's really off.

Fourthly, Paul George continued to play strongly, tabulating 15 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists on 6-7 shooting in 24 minutes.  Please, JOB, play this guy as much as you can.  Let him make some mistakes, but at least he'll learn from them.

Ok -- next game tomorrow against the Chicago Bulls, who have already beaten the Pacers a couple of times this season, both comfortably.  Not expecting the Pacers to win, but with Noah still out and Rose battling two stomach ulcers, and the fact that the Bulls are also played a back-to-back game, the Pacers will at least have a chance.

If they can pull out of the victory then they'll have a chance to go for their first 3-game winning streak against the Toronto Raptors, and after that, a potential 4-game streak as their next opponent is the Cleveland Cavaliers.