It wasn’t just about loyalty. Indiana made the playoffs last season with a young team, then added versatile guard George Hill on a draft-night trade with San Antonio and later picked up former All-Star forward David West.

Foster compares the Pacers to stock that is rising in value.

“I’m excited to be a part of a great opportunity,” he said. “Basketball’s back on the front page again. It’s something we haven’t had in years, and it’s an exciting time to be a part of basketball in Indiana.”

New coach Frank Vogel has stirred the pot since he took over, winning over fans with his positive attitude and brash proclamations. As interim coach last season, he led the team to a 20-18 record and a playoff berth.

He’s looking for more this season.

“I want expectations,” he said. “I want them having the bar set high. This team is capable. We’ve got pieces in place to do some really special things and to take this league by storm.”

All the elements to the team that pushed Chicago in the playoffs are back. Danny Granger, at 28 the oldest member of the young core, averaged 20.5 points per game last season. Last season’s other starters, center Roy Hibbert, point guard Darren Collison, shooting guard Paul George and power forward Tyler Hansbrough, all are back, too.

“I see talent,” George said. “I see All-Star potential at almost every position on this team, and that’s big.”

West, a two-time All-Star in New Orleans, averaged 18.9 points and 7.6 rebounds last season before tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in a victory at Utah on March 24. The 31-year-old had surgery on April 12.

Foster, for one, is glad to see him as a Pacer.

“I’ve had the opportunity to guard the best power forwards in this league for years, and in my opinion, he’s one of the toughest covers there is,” Foster said. “He can score on the block, he can knock down the mid-range jumper, he hits his free throws. He’s a complete player.”

Granger, who has been the focus of opposing defenses for several years, is glad he’ll have an equally dynamic weapon on the floor.

“It makes my job a lot easier,” he said. “I think it makes everyone’s job a lot easier. When you have another threat on the court, especially a scoring threat like David West, you have to honor everyone. That’s hard for defenses to do.”

Hill averaged 11.6 points and 2.5 assists last season. He played for San Antonio for three years, learning under star point guard Tony Parker.

Hansbrough emerged after coach Jim O’Brien was fired and Vogel committed to playing him. He averaged 11 points and 5.2 rebounds per game last season. Hibbert, a 7-foot-2 center, averaged 12.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocks last season. Collison averaged 13.2 points and 5.1 assists.

George gained the starting job at shooting guard late last season and played a key role in slowing down Chicago point guard Derrick Rose in the playoffs. The second-year player, listed at 6-foot-8, says he grew two inches and gained eight pounds of muscle in the offseason.

Dahntay Jones and A.J. Price add quality depth in the backcourt.

Vogel believes the very nature of the condensed post-lockout schedule, with some instances of games on three consecutive nights, plays into Indiana’s hands because of its depth.

“Teams that are old are going to struggle. We have a team that most of our guys are in their prime or entering their prime and we have the depth to sustain this type of schedule,” he said.

Vogel said his players came back ready to run, and that will make an immediate difference. He has pushed them hard in the early practices, and they have responded well.

Vogel said part of the growing process was competing well in the playoffs against Chicago. The Bulls won the first-round series 4-1, but Indiana lost the first three games by a combined 15 points. The Pacers squandered double-digit leads in the first two games and a five-point lead in the fourth quarter of Game 3.

“They left that series feeling like we should have won,” Vogel said. “That’s an exciting thing.”

Foster began his NBA career with the Pacers in 1999. He has seen it all with the franchise, from a trip to the NBA finals in 2000 to the brawl between Pacers players and Detroit fans in 2004 and a painful rebuilding process. Now, as the only remaining Pacer from the team’s better days, he sees opportunity.

“There’s a buildup,” Foster said. “There was a three-year period where our goal was to win a championship. Obviously, we’re not at that point yet, but we have a goal to make the playoffs, to continue to get better, and hopefully that goal of winning a championship comes sooner rather than later.”

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Follow Cliff Brunt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cliffbruntap

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Jeff Foster could have retired or finished his career somewhere other than Indiana.

The 34-year-old free agent decided that staying with the Pacers was the best choice.

It wasn’t just about loyalty. Indiana made the playoffs last season with a young team, then added versatile guard George Hill on a draft-night trade with San Antonio and later picked up former All-Star forward David West.

Foster compares the Pacers to stock that is rising in value.

“I’m excited to be a part of a great opportunity,” he said. “Basketball’s back on the front page again. It’s something we haven’t had in years, and it’s an exciting time to be a part of basketball in Indiana.”

New coach Frank Vogel has stirred the pot since he took over, winning over fans with his positive attitude and brash proclamations. As interim coach last season, he led the team to a 20-18 record and a playoff berth.

He’s looking for more this season.

“I want expectations,” he said. “I want them having the bar set high. This team is capable. We’ve got pieces in place to do some really special things and to take this league by storm.”

All the elements to the team that pushed Chicago in the playoffs are back. Danny Granger, at 28 the oldest member of the young core, averaged 20.5 points per game last season. Last season’s other starters, center Roy Hibbert, point guard Darren Collison, shooting guard Paul George and power forward Tyler Hansbrough, all are back, too.

“I see talent,” George said. “I see All-Star potential at almost every position on this team, and that’s big.”

West, a two-time All-Star in New Orleans, averaged 18.9 points and 7.6 rebounds last season before tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in a victory at Utah on March 24. The 31-year-old had surgery on April 12.

Foster, for one, is glad to see him as a Pacer.

“I’ve had the opportunity to guard the best power forwards in this league for years, and in my opinion, he’s one of the toughest covers there is,” Foster said. “He can score on the block, he can knock down the mid-range jumper, he hits his free throws. He’s a complete player.”

Granger, who has been the focus of opposing defenses for several years, is glad he’ll have an equally dynamic weapon on the floor.

“It makes my job a lot easier,” he said. “I think it makes everyone’s job a lot easier. When you have another threat on the court, especially a scoring threat like David West, you have to honor everyone. That’s hard for defenses to do.”

Hill averaged 11.6 points and 2.5 assists last season. He played for San Antonio for three years, learning under star point guard Tony Parker.

Hansbrough emerged after coach Jim O’Brien was fired and Vogel committed to playing him. He averaged 11 points and 5.2 rebounds per game last season. Hibbert, a 7-foot-2 center, averaged 12.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocks last season. Collison averaged 13.2 points and 5.1 assists.

George gained the starting job at shooting guard late last season and played a key role in slowing down Chicago point guard Derrick Rose in the playoffs. The second-year player, listed at 6-foot-8, says he grew two inches and gained eight pounds of muscle in the offseason.

Dahntay Jones and A.J. Price add quality depth in the backcourt.

Vogel believes the very nature of the condensed post-lockout schedule, with some instances of games on three consecutive nights, plays into Indiana’s hands because of its depth.

“Teams that are old are going to struggle. We have a team that most of our guys are in their prime or entering their prime and we have the depth to sustain this type of schedule,” he said.

Vogel said his players came back ready to run, and that will make an immediate difference. He has pushed them hard in the early practices, and they have responded well.

Vogel said part of the growing process was competing well in the playoffs against Chicago. The Bulls won the first-round series 4-1, but Indiana lost the first three games by a combined 15 points. The Pacers squandered double-digit leads in the first two games and a five-point lead in the fourth quarter of Game 3.

“They left that series feeling like we should have won,” Vogel said. “That’s an exciting thing.”

Foster began his NBA career with the Pacers in 1999. He has seen it all with the franchise, from a trip to the NBA finals in 2000 to the brawl between Pacers players and Detroit fans in 2004 and a painful rebuilding process. Now, as the only remaining Pacer from the team’s better days, he sees opportunity.

“There’s a buildup,” Foster said. “There was a three-year period where our goal was to win a championship. Obviously, we’re not at that point yet, but we have a goal to make the playoffs, to continue to get better, and hopefully that goal of winning a championship comes sooner rather than later.”

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Follow Cliff Brunt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cliffbruntap

By now, we should be a week or so into the new NBA season, and Indianapolis should be awash in Blue and Gold as the Indiana Pacers return to action off their most successful campaign in half a decade. The Pacers’ late-season push into the playoffs last April left fans anxious for more and with high hopes for the current group of Indiana players. Now that the NBA lockout has wiped out a whole month of games, though, the atmosphere is changing rapidly, and the goodwill built up in the spring is blowing away with the fall leaves. After the latest round of negotiations, Pacers forward Danny Granger(notes) delivered the bad news that no resolution to the labor strife is imminent.

Late last week, NBA commissioner David Stern and the league presented the players with their latest and greatest proposal, which included a straight 50-50 revenue split between the teams and the players. However, the hotly contested salary cap numbers apparently remained unchanged, and the players seem reluctant to sign any deal that won’t give the players a chance to expand their salary base. Indeed, Granger, who is the Pacers’ player representative, expects the union to reject this offer outright when they convene again on Monday. That’s really bad news, because Stern insists that the league will make no further concessions, meaning that the next step in the process would be some sort of court action.

Granger’s pessimism is a bitter pill because this latest proposal would get the season fired up on December 15 and still allow each team to play 72 games. Missing just 10 contests even with a six-week outage would have been a minor miracle, and the timing would have been just about perfect for the Pacers. With the Indianapolis Colts sliding toward oblivion, this town is ripe for the taking, and the Pacers could have made huge strides with a full pre-Christmas schedule. Maybe Stern made the offer knowing it would be rejected by the players, but the fact remains that something palatable to fans is on the table.

It stings to have bad news such as this delivered by a player, particularly by someone who is often cited as a cornerstone of the franchise, as is Granger. Reading the tea leaves for us does little to increase Granger’s likability, and may actually cost him and the Pacers some support in the long run. Perhaps he should leave the announcements to the union itself.

Adam Hughes was raised, and still lives, in rural Indiana. He has been a Pacers fan since the early 1980s and has witnessed the rise and fall of a great NBA franchise. He follows the current club closely and is anxious for the lockout to end so the Pacers can begin their next ascent.

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.

The Chicago Bulls were expected to showcase some playoff jitters during the team’s first postseason game following a league-best 62-win season, but few pegged the upstart Indiana Pacers to develop a double-digit lead with just under four minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Many pegged MVP candidate Derrick Rose(notes) to come through in the clutch for Chicago, though, and that’s exactly what All-Star guard did down the stretch for a Bulls team that seemed to gather confidence as the game went along.

Indiana roared out full of confidence, taking advantage of a sluggish Bulls team working through a noon local time start to Game 1. With all the pressure on Chicago, the 37-win Pacers were allowed to fling bombs at will, over-commit defensively on Rose, and let the Bulls own up to all those championship plaudits. The Bulls just couldn’t seem to break through against a Pacer team that was shooting way over its head. Indiana made 35 percent of its threes during the regular season, just under the league’s average, but Frank Vogel’s crew hit 10 of 18 during Game 1, a sizzling 55 percent.

All praise due to the hot hands, but Chicago coach Tom Thibodeau was succinct in his appraisal following the win, pointing out that Chicago “didn’t get it done [defensively] until the end of the game.” Though the Pacers had good looks, there was just something to Danny Granger’s(notes) hot hand, A.J. Price’s(notes) two three-point makes, and Tyler Hansbrough’s(notes) unending touch that didn’t seem long for Game 1.

So, caught in an unlikely shootout between the 23rd-ranked offense and the NBA’s top rated defense, Chicago relied on its likely star to do the most damage.

Rose was brilliant on his way toward 39 points. Though by his own admission he “didn’t hit a long range shot all game,” the Chicago native made up for his 0-8 mark from behind the three-point arc (including three long misses at the end of the first three quarters) by hitting 19 of 21 free throws.

Frustrated Pacer coach Frank Vogel was impressed with Rose, but he wasn’t exactly happy with Chicago’s point guard going to the line four more times than the entire Pacer team.

Rose is “impossible to take a charge on,” Vogel pointed out, before going on to add that there “should be a no-call” every time his players meet the Bulls All-Star in the air without hacking. “I looked at his 39 points,” Vogel said while glancing over the post-game box score, “and I am shocked.” Then again, what did Vogel predict would happen with a player he described as having “Allen Iverson’s quickness, Jason Kidd’s(notes) vision, [Chauncey] Billups’ shooting touch and Michael Jordan’s athleticism?”

Danny Granger was less fawning, in a way. Rose is “like a crazy stalker ex-girlfriend. Every time you tell her you don’t want to talk to her, she shows up at your door again.” So there’s that. Anything you’d like to discuss with us, Danny?

Rose’s final two and a half minutes featured seven points, two rebounds and two assists (one for an open three, one for a three-point play), all with the derring-do and TV-ready execution that has made him a must-watch player since entering the league in 2008. With rookie forward Paul George(notes) curiously guarding him over the final three minutes, Rose was able to turn the corner consistently, moving into empty spaces that had previously been filled up by the moving feet of Pacers center Roy Hibbert(notes).

And even after getting to the line 21 times, Rose looked fresh as, well, a Rose following the game.

When asked if the Pacers’ playoff fouls were a step up from the usual hacks and bumps he took in during the regular season, Rose was dismissive. The fouls were “hard, but not that hard. I knew they would be physical but I still tried to get to the basket.”

Aiding Rose along his way to a playoff career-high was Luol Deng(notes), who came through with a needed double-double, ending his afternoon with 18 points, 10 rebounds (five offensive), while finishing off several broken Chicago plays. Though Deng had his issues chasing Danny Granger (who led Indiana with 24 points) around the court, his surprisingly-poor defensive effectiveness shored up as the game moved along. The same couldn’t be said for Carlos Boozer(notes), who was one of several Bulls that allowed Tyler Hansbrough to notch 22 points in his NBA playoff debut, including six deep two-point jumpers.

Indiana just couldn’t sustain the shooting. The Bulls had allowed teams to shoot over 50 percent just 10 times in the regular season, and the Pacers managed just 38 percent from the field in four games against Chicago during the regular season (losing three times). And though the Pacers entered the fourth quarter shooting just under 51 percent, something had to give. Indiana managed just 35 percent from the field as the Bulls hounded them in the fourth, pulling in just three offensive rebounds (two coming in a fruitless final 10 seconds as Josh McRoberts(notes) was stuffed twice at the rim by Joakim Noah(notes)).

It was a startling peek into the two biggest elements behind Chicago’s just-as-startling 62-20 regular season run. Lights-out defense, punctuated by stunningly effective play from Rose.

And, typically, followed by a taciturn, focused post-game setting that sees both Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau (“This one is done. We have to learn from it, make our corrections and get ready for the next game. For us, what we got to do is go step by step. The next step is Monday’s practice”), and Rose eschewing all manner of soap opera-y narrative. Though Rose did loosen up long enough to admit that “life is pretty good” as the Bulls enter the playoffs with the league’s best record.

For Indiana, life has to be pretty frightening. They came at Chicago with a desperate, pell-mell attack, making shots they usually don’t make, and watching as Chicago missed shots they usually put in. And even though Indiana outplayed Chicago for about 44 minutes of a 48-minute game, they’re still staring at a 0-1 advantage before Game 2′s Tuesday tipoff.

Chicago? As it’s been all year, they’re looking toward their coach and top player as they point toward the team’s next practice. And we wonder where they get it from.

Related: A.J. Price, Tyler Hansbrough, Roy Hibbert, Derrick Rose, Josh McRoberts, Joakim Noah, Danny Granger, Luol Deng, Jason Kidd, Carlos Boozer, Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, 2011 NBA Playoffs

Read More: Indiana Pacers, Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Bulls hope to make quick work of the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the 2011 NBA Playoffs, and they’ll get an opportunity to burst out of the gate with the league’s first postseason game. The Bulls, who on Wednesday claimed the top record in the NBA, host the Pacers Saturday at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN.

If Chicago sweeps, the series could be over as soon as a week from Saturday. But Indiana will be pressing to stretch it out and get back to Chicago for a Game 5 on April 26.

Here’s the full schedule:

Game 1: Sat., April 16 in Chicago, 1 p.m ET, ESPN
Game 2: Mon., April 18 in Chicago, 9:30 p.m., TNT
Game 3: Thu., April 21 in Indiana, TBD, NBA TV
Game 4: Sat., April 23 in Indiana, TBD, TNT
Game 5: Tue., April 26 in Chicago (if needed)
Game 6: Thu., April 28 in Indiana (if needed)
Game 7: Sat., April 30 in Chicago (if needed)

Be sure to check out our Bulls vs. Pacers preview.