You might be thinking to yourself “these two again” and I don’t blame you. The Bucks and Pacers
will clash for the 5th and final time this regular season with the Pacers leading the series 3-1 so far. This will be a rematch of the clash that went down in Milwaukee two days ago, as the Pacers came out on top by 9 points. Although Indiana has seemingly had the Bucks’ number this season, there’s nothing like a Giannis Antetokounmpo revenge game. We saw that earlier in the year when Indy eliminated the Bucks from the IST, Giannis responded with 64 points the next time they met. Obviously, I’m not expecting that tonight, but the Bucks should be able to respond here.
After the IST hangover, the Pacers are back on track with 4 wins on the bounce, with 3 of those games coming on the road. The play of Tyrese Haliburton has been a highlight in particular, he had two games of 20+ points and 20+ assists against Chicago and New York during this streak. I’m interested to see if he can keep it up tonight against the highly motivated Bucks. The Pacers have been steadily covering the spread vs Eastern Conference opponents lately, doing so in 8 of their last 11 such games. They’re doing it by playing efficient offensively and not caring too much on the other end, that’s fine during the regular season but come playoff time they will encounter problems down the stretch.
The meeting between the two teams on Monday saw a combined 15 threes scored, which is very low considering the style of play of both teams. We’ll definitely see more points scored tonight, I think the Bucks will step it up here and close out the regular season series with a victory. A team filled with so much talent and the 2nd best record in the East cannot afford to lose 4 times to a team that’s 6 games below them in the standings. Bucks to cover.
