addByline("Chris Gehring", "WashingtonWizards.com", "cdgehring");
Coach Brooks said Sunday at Wizards practice that the beauty of the NBA is that you almost always have an opportunity to get back into the gym the day after a tough loss. Sunday’s session in Indianapolis certainly qualified after a Saturday night loss to the struggling Cavaliers. What’s ahead for Washington on Monday is a Pacers team that’s on a three-game winning streak without its star in Victor Oladipo. The Wizards, who will be without John Wall, will want to finish their four-game road trip on a high note after winning the first two games of the stretch in New York and Atlanta.
Game Info
Bankers Life Fieldhouse | 7:00 P.M. | NBC Sports Washington | 1500 AM
Probable Starters
Wizards: G – Austin Rivers, G – Bradley Beal, G/F – Tomas Satoransky, F – Otto Porter Jr., C – Thomas Bryant
Pacers: G – Darren Collison, G – Tyreke Evans, F – Bojan Bogdanovic, F – Thaddeus Young, C – Myles Turner
Injury Report
Wizards: Dwight Howard (L4-L5 lumbar microdiscectomy procedure – out), John Wall (sore left heel – out)
Pacers: Victor Oladipo (right knee soreness – out)
Storylines
Pacers minus the ‘pace’
Indiana does not want to play quickly. They’re 27th in the NBA in pace entering Monday’s matchup at just 98.71 possessions per game. That will make for a tug-o-war as far as dictating the tempo goes, as the Wizards are the sixth-fastest team in the league in terms of pace. Whichever team can play they way they want more will certainly have success in this game.
This season, Indiana’s relatively plodding pace has led to them being in control of more games this season than not. The Pacers don’t necessarily embrace the wave the NBA is currently riding in terms of shot selection, with a league-leading percentage of their points coming from 2-point areas. It’s worked, with Indiana’s 52.9% mark in effective field goal percentage coming in at eighth in the NBA. The Pacers always have been defined by a team-oriented approach to scoring, but it’s especially going to be true without their star in Victor Oladipo. They’ve still been able to thrive thanks to an 18.1 assist ratio (amount of possessions that end in an assist), a mark that’s eighth in the NBA.
Defense wins
The Pacers come into Monday’s game with the third best defensive rating in the NBA and a propensity to force turnovers (16.5 per game, sixth in the NBA). They’re also among the best at scoring off of turnovers, scoring 20 points per game off of opponent miscues (third in the NBA). The good news for the Wizards is that they're good at the same game, entering Monday forcing 16.9 turnovers per game (fourth in the NBA) and scoring 18.8 points off of turnovers per game (seventh in the NBA).
Defending the rim is key to any team’s success, and Indiana is the second-best team in the NBA at protecting the paint, allowing just 41.6 points per game. That can understandably make them vulnerable at defending the 3-point shot, something the Wizards know can be an advantage. Pacers opponents shoot 37% from 3-point range, tied with Washington and others for the second-worst mark in the NBA. So while a lack of perimeter defense will be something Washington will hope to use to its advantage, it’s also something that the Wizards will have to pay attention to themselves on the defensive end. The Pacers don’t shoot a lot of 3’s (third-least in the league), but they shoot the fifth-best percentage from deep (37%) when they do.
Know your opponent
Since the Pacers make their living on defense, their scoring doesn’t light up a stat sheet. A player the Wizards are familiar with, Bojan Bogdanovic, will be Indiana’s active leading scorer with Oladipo out of the lineup. So far this season, Bogdanovic is scoring 16.1 points per game and shooting a red-hot 48.6% from 3-point land. Indiana’s other offensive threats include their duo down low in Domantas Sabonis (14.3 points, 10 rebounds) and Myles Turner (11.4 points, 6.5 rebounds). Turner also averages 2.72 blocks per game, the third-best mark in the NBA. As for role players to watch, the veteran trio of Thaddeus Young, Darren Collison, and Tyreke Evans round out what’s been a very efficient group of Pacers so far this season.