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What a strange journey! It hasn’t always been pretty but the Pacers defeated the Bucks and Knicks and now face off against the heavy favorites, the Boston Celtics!

The journey to the in season tournament is being replicated in a similar way in the playoffs. Lots of offense again today with enough defense to win the series.

Bring on the Celtics. Gotta get them early before Porzingis gets back from injury.

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jowglenn wrote:What a strange journey! It hasn’t always been pretty but the Pacers defeated the Bucks and Knicks and now face off against the heavy favorites, the Boston Celtics!

Pacers will be heavy underdogs and that's okay. But the national media thinking Boston will smash the Pacers are out of their minds. They will give Boston a run for their money. The season series was 2-2 and was pretty juicy.

Siakam & Turner will need to be stars this series.

With the next game being Tuesday the Pacers did a really smart move by not returning to Indy and heading to Boston which reduces the air travel.

I give much credit to the Celtics for their great record of 64-18 this season best in the Eastern Conference. Brad Stevens has built a solid team of stars and youth who can ball. I’ve thought all season long that they could win the championship.

I have the Celtics winning 3 games of 5 contests this season over the Pacers including the tournament contest. Pacers 2 wins were both in Indy.

The Pacers are on an emotional confidence building run currently and have to be believing that they can win the next series vs the Celtics.

As of now the season has been a huge success and if they don’t win the series then it’s more experience and a taste of next year’s goal.

I’m making my prediction that the Pacers hang in with the Celtics and take the series in 7 games against a mostly healthy Celtics team.

Pacers Forever wrote:
The Pacers are on an emotional confidence building run currently and have to be believing that they can win the next series vs the Celtics.

As of now the season has been a huge success and if they don’t win the series then it’s more experience and a taste of next year’s goal.

That's the nice thing about the Pacers being such underdogs, they are playing with house money. They've already exceeded expectations and can just let it rip and see where it goes.

I’m making my prediction that the Pacers hang in with the Celtics and take the series in 7 games against a mostly healthy Celtics team.

I want to say Boston in 6. I think Indy might pull off a upset in game 1, Boston might be rusty, Pacers flying in on a high from game 7 still. I think tiredness comes to the Pacers game 2 and they lose easily. Return home and lose a nail biter in game 3, then i think Pacers have a great shooting night and beat the celtics in game 4 and then i think boston wins game 5 and then finishes us off in game 6. Thats how i see it right now.

As a reminder of the last meeting the Celtics(37-11) beat the Pacers(27-21) Jan 30th in Boston 129-124.

Pacers starting lineup was
Siakam 23 points and 6 rebounds
Nesmith 26 points 12 rebounds and 7 assists
Turner 17 points and 5 rebounds
Haliburton 13 points and 10 assists
Hield 12 points 6 rebounds and 4 assists

Bench
Toppin 11 points and 8 rebounds
Smith 7 points 4 rebounds
Nembhard 15 points 4 rebounds and 5 assists
Sheppard 0 points and 2 rebounds

DNP
I Jax
TJ McConnell
Mathurin injured

Celtics were led by
Tatum 30-7-7
Brown 25-6 rebounds
White 24-5 assists
Porzingis 17-12 rebounds
Holiday 17-5-4

Bench
Hauser 9 points
Pritchard 3 points 4 rebounds 3 assists
Queta 4 points
Brissett 0 points

DNP
Banton
Kornet
Horford

In summary this was the only game that Siakam has played against the Celtics since joining the Pacers.

As a Raptor Siakam had 17 points and 7 rebounds plus 3 assists in a Raptors loss at Boston. Then in a close loss at home he scored 23 points 6 rebounds and 5 assists. In a close Raptors loss in Boston he had 27 points 5 rebounds and 5 assists. In another Raptors home loss he had 17 points 5 rebounds and 4 assists.

Grang33r wrote:

Pacers Forever wrote:
The Pacers are on an emotional confidence building run currently and have to be believing that they can win the next series vs the Celtics.

As of now the season has been a huge success and if they don’t win the series then it’s more experience and a taste of next year’s goal.

That's the nice thing about the Pacers being such underdogs, they are playing with house money. They've already exceeded expectations and can just let it rip and see where it goes.

I’m making my prediction that the Pacers hang in with the Celtics and take the series in 7 games against a mostly healthy Celtics team.

I want to say Boston in 6. I think Indy might pull off a upset in game 1, Boston might be rusty, Pacers flying in on a high from game 7 still. I think tiredness comes to the Pacers game 2 and they lose easily. Return home and lose a nail biter in game 3, then i think Pacers have a great shooting night and beat the celtics in game 4 and then i think boston wins game 5 and then finishes us off in game 6. Thats how i see it right now.

Gotta agree,... no matter what happens in the ECF,.. from here on out. This has been a great season for the Pacers. No reason to not just go out and go for it! When you have the chance,... take it. Getting back to the ECF won't ever be easy.

This one is going to show us where are heart is. Historically, Pascal's toughest opponent has been Tatum. (Samson Folk quote from Pod with CC just after the trade.) from the top of the lineup to the bottom, these teams match up,.. usually with Boston having an advantage in experience, talent, or (so far) performance. Each game we win,.. will have to come from teamwork & heart.

This is going to be fun.

Pacers in 7 written all over the wall. Shocking the world one playoff series at a time. I’m a believer how about you?

Anyone care to place a bet on how long it takes for any of the ABC/ESPN talking heads to start talking about the Knicks instead of the Pacers/Celtics? I'll say under one minute.

Tom White wrote:Anyone care to place a bet on how long it takes for any of the ABC/ESPN talking heads to start talking about the Knicks instead of the Pacers/Celtics? I'll say under one minute.

LOL - you win,... and 24 hours later,.. they are still talking about the Knicks or Steven A. Smith & the Knicks,... =}

SunsRback4Good wrote:Pacers in 7 written all over the wall. Shocking the world one playoff series at a time. I’m a believer how about you?

I'm not. But, I'd love for you to be correct.

game six is in Indy so if that's the last game I think we'll have won the series. I don't see the Celtics closing it out in our house.

I signed up for some $20 for 6 months HBO subscription and while it wasn't my intention that this was to watch basketball it has worked out that way. Max carries the TNT games so I got to watch a bit of the Pacers so far in these playoffs rather than just following boxscores on my phone. However, I felt like they always lost when I watched. I looked it up and the Pacers were 2-5 on TNT these playoffs and 6-0 when they aren't on TNT. For whatever reason, the Eastern Conference Finals are all on ESPN/ABC while TNT is just covering the Western Conference. So, Pacers in 4. It's a long shot, but the numbers don't lie.

Game 1 going to the Pacers I just don’t see how the Celtics can keep up with their offense. Hali is going to eat tonight.

Pascal's got this!!

Could be worse

I don't love Ben guarding Tatum

Calling Mark Monteith. It's a theorem game.

Mama there goes that man!