The Indiana Pacers’ season is already tilting in the wrong direction, and Saturday’s loss to the Denver Nuggets in Mexico City only sharpened the concern. Without Tyrese Haliburton on the floor, Indiana has struggled to generate anything close to reliable offense, and that problem showed up again when the Pacers couldn’t produce enough scoring to keep pace.
Pascal Siakam did what he could, finishing with 23 points on 10/18 shooting. After that, the scoring drop-off was steep. Larry Nance Jr. was the team’s second-leading scorer with 15, which tells the story of how thin the offense looked against Denver.
The bigger issue is how hard Indiana has to work for every decent possession without Haliburton. There’s no steadying presence to organize the rotation or create the easy baskets that settle a team down. Instead, the Pacers are playing in a frantic style that keeps putting them behind, and the schedule isn’t about to offer much relief.
Indiana is 3-7 and has a pair of more manageable games next against the Dallas Mavericks and Washington Wizards. Neither opponent is viewed as a playoff team in its conference, so those matchups offer a chance to stop the slide. But the stretch after that is where things get ugly.
The Pacers are set to play seven straight games against teams expected to contend, with the Oklahoma City Thunder being the exception in terms of health. Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia and Houston are all on the docket, and the Knicks and Sixers will face each other multiple times over the next two weeks as part of that run.
That leaves Indiana staring at a stretch that could define how the rest of the season is viewed. Even if the Pacers come through the next two games and reach 5-7, they would still be walking into a brutal portion of the schedule with 20 games already played. If they are 10 games under .500, or even close to it, the conversation around the season will have to change.
At that point, the question becomes whether it is enough for Haliburton to return to top-10 form, even if injury concerns remain. For a Pacers team that is about to get very expensive and a front office that has been cautious about paying the luxury tax, that may not be enough to keep this group intact.
In Other News...
Tyrese Haliburtons Latest Injury Absence Leaves Pacers Waiting Again
Tyrese Haliburton is staying in Indianapolis for treatment of a left hamstring strain and will not travel with the Pacers to Mexico City, another reminder of how carefully Indiana has had to manage its point guard early in the season. Rick Carlisle said Haliburton is going through treatment that includes time in a hyperbaric chamber, and the coach added that the star guard is in good spirits as the team hopes to get him back soon.
For a Pacers group trying to keep its rhythm while juggling injuries, Haliburtons absence changes everything from pace to late-game organization. Indiana has had to keep moving without him while also monitoring the rest of the roster, and the latest update only adds to the sense that the team is still waiting for its full identity to come together. [Read more 🡒]
Pacers Just Weighed In On A Growing NBA Expansion Debate
The NBAs expansion conversation keeps getting louder, and Rick Carlisle added a little more fuel to it this week. The Pacers coach said a team in Mexico City is certainly possible as the league continues sorting through where and when it might grow next, with commissioner Adam Silver saying expansion is still a few seasons away and that Las Vegas and Seattle remain the most active candidates.
Mexico City is hardly a blind spot for the league, either. The NBA has already staged games at Arena CDMX, where the G Leagues Mexico City Capitanes play, and the idea of a full-time franchise there has long carried real traction around the league. Carlisles comments fit into a broader debate that now includes player reaction as well, even if the final shape of expansion is still very much up in the air. [Read more 🡒]
Rick Carlisle Sees Something Bigger In This Pacers Showcase
Rick Carlisle has been around long enough to see the league change in just about every way, and now the Pacers coach is adding another milestone to a rsum that already puts him in rare company. In his 25th season as an NBA head coach, Carlisle recently reached 1,000 career wins, becoming just the 11th coach in league history to do it, a reminder of how much basketball he has seen while moving from one organization to the next.
Now comes a different kind of stage for Indiana, which is set to play its first game in Mexico against the Denver Nuggets. Carlisle has been reflective about the path that brought him here, praising the organizations and players he has worked with along the way, but he also sounds energized by what this Pacers group is building. For a team still shaping its identity, an international showcase offers more than a novelty trip. It is another chance to see how far that identity can travel. [Read more 🡒]