“The good thing is, the guys in the locker room are not happy being 10-9,” Indiana coach Jim O’Brien said. “It’s good to have a winning record, but I think if you ask anyone in a Pacers uniform, if we had done the things that we did tonight on a regular basis, it would be a lot better than a game over .500. But that’s a learning experience.”

Rush is finally starting to show consistency this year and shown that he can be part of the Pacers plan for the future. Rush was ten-of-18 from the field and six-of-eight from the three-point line. Rush was unstoppable from behind-the-arc. His last shot of the game came towards the final seconds of regulation with a three-ball, which is a nice ending to this.

“Larry Bird said to him a couple weeks ago, ‘You’re playing like the guy I thought I drafted,’ ” O’Brien said. “He’s playing great. He’s playing really strong defense and scoring off the dribble.”

Darren Collison was six-of-seven for 17 points while Roy Hibbert had 13 points, six rebounds, and six assists. He also had two blocks, which seems to be an X-Factor for Indiana’s strong defense. Indiana is continuing to build chemistry and showing they can be an easy-playoff team. But the player still have a lot more learning to do to be one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

“Even though they’re familiar faces to our fans, they’re still inexperienced,” he said. “They’re starting to click. If they can continue to click in all phases then we’ll be a playoff team.”

Jose Calderon led the Toronto Raptors with 21 points and four assists.

The Pacers are showing they can be a top-six seed at least then the bottom-two playoff-seed. Indiana is on pace for a 47-35 record, according to John Hollinger’s playoff-odds at ESPN.com. Indiana is rolling and is well on their way to a successful season.

They’re clicking.

The 9-9 Indiana Pacers will host the 8-12 Toronto Raptors. The Pacers are off to their best start in three years and have been getting a lot of love from the media. They are looking great this season. However, coming off of two losses in their road trip against the Western Conference, they can’t play like they did against the Phoenix Suns. They need to get to business against Toronto.

Indy struggled with turnovers and they can’t let the Raptors take advantage of that. Indy finished 2-2 on the road-trip, but could have gone 3-1.

“We’re not a happy group right now, nor should we be,” coach Jim O’Brien told the team’s official website. “We had a chance to make this a very good road trip and we didn’t do it.”

Danny Granger has been playing well this season, averaging 21.8 points per game this year, but was limited to eight points with two-of-13 shooting against the Suns.

“We’re disappointed, a little frustrated we let one get away in Phoenix with 100 turnovers or whatever it was,” Granger said. “We’ve just got to come back (Monday) night (against Toronto).”

The Raptors have been struggling, as they are 2-3 in their last five and were coming off a devastating 116-99 loss to the New York Knicks in their last game. Despite Toronto had multiple players in double-figures, they struggled.

“You can go through the list and see who didn’t play well for us,” Coach Jay Triano said. “When your list is that long you’re not going to beat the better teams.”

Indy has won four straight versus Toronto, and the last game between these two was in February when Indy won, 130-115. Match-up of the night will be Andrea Bargnani against Roy Hibbert. Looks to be a good one as both players have been putting up good numbers this year. We’ll see how that turns out. But Hibbert is stronger and more dominant in the paint and I see him taking over tonight. Granger looks to have a good game as well. Actually, the whole big three!

Accu Score predicts an 81-percent chance for Indy to win while Toronto has 19-percent.

I see Indy destroying.