Indiana Pacers power past Magic in five NBA games

Danny Granger scored 25 points as the Indiana Pacers punched their ticket to the second round of the NBA playoffs by beating Orlando 105-87 in game five of their Eastern Conference series. The Pacers advanced past the first round for the first time since 2005, winning the best of seven series 4-1. "We feel like this is just the beginning of a big run. We're excited about where we're at as a basketball team," Pacers head coach Frank Vogel said. The NBA postseason could shift dramatically Tuesday night as the Pacers were one of four teams in action holding 3-1 series leads. Philadelphia and the Western Conference's Los Angeles Lakers were hoping to join them in the next round. The Atlanta Hawks avoided elimination Tuesday by beating Boston 87-86 to cut the Celtics series lead to three games to two. Darren Collison scored 15 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter for Indiana who will play the winner of the series between the Miami Heat and New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. George Hill added 15, David West finished with 12 points, eight rebounds and Roy Hibbert had 11 points and seven rebounds. Jameer Nelson nailed five-of-eight three-pointers en route to a game-high 27 points for Orlando, who won the first game of the series before losing four straight. The Magic elimination marked the first time in his NBA career that a team coached by Stan Van Gundy had won the first game and not gone on to win the series. "That team fought extremely hard the entire series and really made it a challenging series with their style of play, their energy and their effort," Vogel said about the Magic. "My hat is off to them." Orlando was playing without all-star center Dwight Howard, who is out for the season after back surgery. The last time the Pacers lost the opening game and then came back to capture the series was in the 2005 postseason against Boston. Al Horford and Josh Smith played through injuries to keep the Hawks' season alive. Horford missed most of the regular season with a pectoral problem while Smith has a bad shoulder. Horford finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds while Smith scored 13 points and had 16 boards on Tuesday.