INDIANAPOLIS (Ticker) -- It was once said that it is better to look good than to feel good. The Atlanta Hawks did neither.
Wearing extremely garish green uniforms, the Hawks never led and lost for the sixth time in seven games, absorbing a 103-92 setback against the Indiana Pacers.
"They were a little different color," Hawks guard Jacque Vaughn said, laughing.
"That color of green looked like candy," said Pacers forward Ron Artest, who scored 17 points.
Throwback uniforms have become very popular over the last several years and have been marketed effectively by the NBA, which has teams wear their old togs several times during the season. But this one may have been a mistake.
The Hawks wore uniforms from the early 1970s, when "Pistol" Pete Maravich was their star player. The main color was a bright lime green with a blue stripe running down from the left shoulder, across the torso and onto the shorts. On the back, the names were below the numbers.
"I like 'em because 'Pistol Pete' is my favorite player of all time," Hawks guard Dan Dickau said. "It was pretty exciting to play with the jersey he wore. It was interesting, looking out there at all the bright colors. I think everybody liked them, (but) not for every game, because that would wear on you a little."
"When I saw them hanging up in the locker room, I kind of took a step back," Hawks coach Terry Stotts said. "But after a while, I got used to them."
Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal, who owns hundreds of throwback jerseys, weighed in with his expert opinion.
"I don't like the green," he said. "The shorts were longer than ours. I noticed that the lime green was a little distracting. I'm a jersey collector and ... I skip over that green one every time. I bought the Jazz jersey, but not the green."
Perhaps thrown off by their throwbacks, the Hawks quickly fell into a 10-0 hole and never recovered. They trailed by 21 points late in the second quarter and by at least eight points in the second half.
O'Neal scored 20 points and Fred Jones added a career-high 18 off the bench for the Eastern Conference-leading Pacers, who have won eight straight home meetings with the Hawks.
Indiana also wore throwback jerseys from the early 1970s, when it was winning ABA titles. The Pacers played like champs as they raced to a 21-6 lead, and a 3-pointer by Austin Croshere made it 50-29 with 3:38 left in the first half.
"The first half was great and I thought that set the tone for the game," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.
The Hawks closed to 59-51 with 5:33 left in the third quarter on a layup by Shareef Abdur-Rahim, who scored 19 points. But they were unable to make another push.
Pacers forward Al Harrington suffered a bruised right cheek in a collision with Atlanta's Stephen Jackson in the second quarter and did not return. X-rays were negative but results of a CAT scan at a hospital were pending. Jones received some of his minutes and made the most of them, making 5-of-9 shots and 6-of-6 free throws.
"I am making every effort to capitalize on every minute that they give me," Jones said.
