It might not be a must-see-TV type of game, but the Indiana Pacers consider Friday’s contest against the Utah Jazz in Indianapolis as another must-win matchup.
The Pacers (45-31) have a three-game lead on the No. 4 spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs with six games remaining, and they’re hoping to hold onto that position and the accompanying first-round home-court advantage.
That means Indiana will try to remain focused on the task at hand, even though they are heavy favorites against the Jazz (16-61), who own the NBA’s worst record.
“We’re still trying to get home-court advantage,” Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton said. “The point remains, we’re still trying to win games every night. Having that top four seed, we think is really beneficial for us just because we feel very comfortable playing at home. … The NBA is better when you get to sleep in your own bed, keep your same routine. It’s cool that we clinched a playoff berth, but we really want a top four seed and we want to take care of business there.”
The Pacers earned a 14-point win against another team near the bottom of the NBA standings — beating Charlotte 119-105 on Wednesday — but that game caught their attention because the Hornets made several runs before fading down the stretch.
It was Indiana’s eighth victory in 10 games and came on a night it clinched a playoff spot. Haliburton scored 22 points with 10 assists; Pascal Siakam had 15 points while playing on his birthday.
“This game mattered to us,” Siakam said. “To them, they’re just going out there and having fun and just playing free. They don’t think about anything. It’s hard. You go into this game thinking, ‘Oh man, we’re gonna beat them by 20 real fast and we might get to sit down and relax.’ It don’t always go like that.”
The Pacers have a couple more trap games like that on their schedule, the Utah visiting Friday and Washington coming in on Tuesday.
The Jazz, meanwhile, are just trying to gain as much experience for their younger guys as possible before the worst season in the franchise’s 50-year history wraps up.
Utah lost its seventh consecutive game and fell for the 17th time in 18 outings on Wednesday at Houston. Isaiah Collier had 22 points and 10 assists in the team’s 143-105 blowout defeat at Houston.
“I don’t want to call the team soft, (but) we got outphysicaled,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “They had their way with us in the paint and at the rim so the score ends up very lopsided.”
“The most important thing for our team, for our staff, for anybody that actually cares, is to try to cut through the lazy narratives of the final score and try to actually understand and look at why the game went the way it went.”
It certainly didn’t help that the Jazz shot 25 percent (10-for-40) from 3-point range while Houston lit it up beyond the arc at 42.2 percent (19-45). Utah was also outrebounded 63-39.
Siakam scored 10 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter to help Indiana eke past Utah 112-111 in Salt Lake City on Feb. 3.
