PACERS GAMING SWEEPS GEN.G IN MAJOR VICTORY

INDIANAPOLIS – In one of the most historic and exciting nights in franchise history, No. 7-seed Pacers Gaming qualified for the eight-team, in-person championship round of the NBA 2K League THE TURN Tournament presented by AT&T with a 2-0 upset best-of-three series sweep Thursday night over No. 3 seed Gen.G Tigers of Shanghai. The Blue & Gold will travel to Washington, D.C. to battle for the event crown next week. The Pacers captured Game 1, 54-48 with an incredible comeback that saw the Blue & Gold outscore the Tigers 15-10 in the third quarter and 24-11 in the fourth quarter.  Indiana, down by 12 with four minutes left in the third quarter, had shot 17% from the field in the first half!  The Pacers, who trailed by one at the half in Game 2, outscored the Tigers 20-16 in the third quarter and 23-11 in the fourth to complete the sweep and take the victory, 67-50.

Things did not look good for Indiana in the first half of Game 1, trailing 27-15 at intermission after scoring just five points in the second quarter.  But the Pacers rallied, outscoring Gen.G 39-21 in the second half. Down 12 with just four minutes left in the third quarter, Indiana pulled within 37-30 after three.  Finally, with just 2:46 left in the game, GREENLIGHT (Dylan Sanderson) found RANGE (Gil Santiago, Jr.) for a three-pointer to put Indiana ahead for the first time, 44-43.  GREENLIGHT had called the play on the inbounds possession. CHESS (Kory Taylor) paced the Indiana attack with 15 points, followed by GREENLIGHT with 12 points and eight assists and JAYSNAGS (Julio Laboy) with 12 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals.  Veteran center BIG REIGN (Blaine Wilson) scored eight points and pulled down a remarkable 18 rebounds, fourth-best individual total in team history.  GALLOW led the Tigers with 22 tallies, followed by RETURNofDJ with 14.

Down 0-1 in the best-of-three series, the Tigers stormed out to a 18-15 advantage after one quarter and led 25-24 at intermission in Game 2.  Indiana trailed 34-31 with just under three minutes left in the third quarter before a late Pacers spurt, punctuated by a buzzer-beating three pointer by GREENLIGHT gave Indiana a 44-39 lead after three quarters.  The Pacers scored the first 12 points of the fourth quarter to pull away for good and earn the upset sweep.  GREENLIGHT led the Pacers with 27 points, seven assists and three steals while CHESS added 26 points.  BIG REIGN pulled down 13 rebounds for Indiana.  GALLOW led Gen.G with 16 points and RETURNofDJ added 14.