Pacers Prepared to Protect Home Court

The Pacers took care of business earlier this week in Milwaukee, splitting a pair of playoff games with the higher-seeded Bucks before heading back to Indianapolis this weekend for the next two games in their best-of-seven series.

That means the Pacers will have homecourt advantage in more ways than one when they take the court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for Game 3 on Friday night. They expect a riled up, sold-out crowd that has waited the last five years for the chance to host another playoff game. And if they can take care of business on their home court in Games 3, 4, and 6, the Blue & Gold will advance to the second round of the playoffs for first time in a decade.

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Of course, the Pacers know that every win has to be earned in the postseason. While they're excited to have 17,000-plus fans behind them this weekend, they know it's up to them to make sure they reward their supporters with victories.

"Being home doesn’t guarantee anything except a friendly environment," Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said after Thursday's practice at the Ascension St. Vincent Center. "And oftentimes what you see is that the road team has a higher level of focus when they’re on the road in that environment.

"We can’t wait to play this game with our fans in our building, but we’ve got to understand that we’re the ones that are going to have to really get them into the game."

If the Pacers can win on both Friday and Sunday, they would be in firm control of the series. Only 13 teams have ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a series.

Indiana is riding high after a 125-108 win in Game 2 on Tuesday and while it appeared like there was a chance that the Bucks could be getting reinforcements this weekend, their depth instead might be challenged even more. Two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo is officially listed as doubtful for Game 3 after missing the first two games of the series with a calf strain, while three-time All-Star forward Khris Middleton didn't practice on Thursday and is now listed as questionable for Friday with a sprained right ankle.

But history suggests that defending home court over two straight games is more difficult than one might expect. The Pacers have split the first two games of a playoff series on the road 10 times in franchise history. In all 10 of those series, they failed to sweep the subsequent two-game set at home. They ultimately lost nine of those 10 series, only prevailing in a 2005 first-round series against Boston.

Recent examples include first round series in 2018 against Cleveland and 2016 against Toronto, as well as the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals and a 2012 second-round series against Miami.

Current Pacers center Myles Turner was a part of the teams in 2016 and 2018, and both times the Pacers won Game 1 on the road before losing Game 2. They dropped Game 3 at home to Toronto and Game 4 to Cleveland, ultimately losing both series in seven games.

In their 2012 and 2013 series with the Heat, the Pacers lost Game 1 in Miami but headed back to Indy with momentum after winning Game 2. In 2012, they won Game 3 to go up 2-1, only to lose three straight games to LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. In 2013, they lost homecourt advantage immediately by dropping Game 3 and ultimately came up one win short of the NBA Finals, losing the series in seven games.

All season long, the Pacers have played some of their best basketball when they needed to be resilient. They went 23-12 in the regular season when coming off a loss, 13-5 after losing by double digits. They continued that trend this week, rebounding from a 109-94 loss in Game 1 with a convincing victory in Game 2.

Now, they face a different (and perhaps more difficult) challenge -- to keep their edge even after a victory.

"You’ve got to bounce back after a win as well," Pacers All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton said on Thursday. "When you’re riding that high — that was my first playoff win ever, a lot of us our first playoff win ever — in that moment, it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you’re now in control.

"But it’s 1-1. It could swing any way at this point. As a group, we’ve got to just understand it’s just one game."

30-year-old forward Pascal Siakam has been sensational for the Pacers over the first two games of the series, averaging 36.5 points and 12 rebounds while shooting 64.6 percent from the field. But Siakam has also been leading the way in preaching to his younger teammates how long a seven-game series can be and the importance of not getting too low after a loss or too high after a win.

"We’ve always got to remind ourselves who we’re playing against," Siakam said. "We’re playing against an experienced team, a lot of championship-caliber players on that team...It's one game. The first to four is going to be the one that’s going to win. Our focus has got to be on that."

The Pacers certainly expect the Bucks to make some adjustments in Game 3, particularly in how they defend Siakam. Milwaukee focused heavily in the first two games on limiting Haliburton's looks, so Siakam carved up the Bucks one-on-one in the midrange. If they devote more attention to Siakam, it could free up a few more looks for Haliburton and others.

"It will be interesting to see," Haliburton said. "Obviously he’s scoring the ball at a high level right now. They’re kind of living with him taking those long twos, but that’s what he does at such a high level. We’re curious to see what they do. We have an idea of what they might do and we’ll be prepared to adjust accordingly."

As for Siakam, he vowed that whatever adjustments Milwaukee makes won't cause him to adjust his mindset.

"We anticipate they might make some changes, but for me, I don’t think it affects the way I play," Siakam said. "Just continue to do what I do, playing with our pace and just making the reads."

The Pacers know how much it means to the franchise and the city to be back in the playoffs. Gainbridge Fieldhouse last hosted a game in 2019, when Indiana was swept in the first round by Boston. The Pacers made the playoffs again in 2020, but the postseason that year was held entirely inside the NBA bubble in Orlando due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pacers fans remained loyal the next few years as the team underwent a rebuild, bringing on Carlisle as head coach in 2021, trading for Haliburton in 2022, and acquiring Siakam in January. Aside from Siakam and Turner, it's a relatively young team without much playoff experience.

But now that they're in the playoffs, the Blue & Gold are hungry to make some noise. Pacers fans are hungry, too, as Indiana hasn't advanced past the second round since reaching back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals in 2013 and 2014, despite making the playoffs in five straight seasons from 2016-20.

"We have a lot of guys who haven’t won in some time," Haliburton said. "It’s important for all of us to understand that don’t take this for granted, understand that winning is hard. We’re not looking forward to anything. We’re just really taking this a day at a time. That’s really what we’ve preached all year."

Since the moment Game 2 ended, Pacers players have shared their excitement about the opportunity to host playoff games this weekend. On Tuesday night, Haliburton said "we've had regular season crowds better than what we've played in these last two games," while Turner implored Pacers fans to "scream y'all's (expletive) heads off."

Those sentiments were still present on Thursday.

"I’m really looking forward to it," second-year guard Andrew Nembhard said. "I think our fans are going to be electric. They’ve been wanting it for a while. It’s going to be a fun environment tomorrow."

"It’s going to be awesome," Siakam added. "I’m excited about it. Everyone show up. I want everyone to be as loud as they can. We’re going to try to get them to get loud...We’re going to go out there and play as hard as we can."