Pacers open four-game trip at injury-ravaged Golden State
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Two teams that will have a hard time recognizing one another renew acquaintances Tuesday night when the Indiana Pacers take on the Golden State Warriors.
The Pacers and Warriors are the only NBA teams that haven't met this season. It has been 477 days since Golden State thumped visiting Indiana 142-106 on Dec. 5, 2016, completing a two-game sweep early last season.
Since then, the Warriors have won a second NBA championship and the Pacers have parted with longtime standout Paul George in a deal that has helped them move up the Eastern Conference standings this season.
The Pacers have won two in a row, the most recent a 113-107 overtime victory Sunday over the Miami Heat that allowed Indiana to clinch its seventh postseason appearance in the last eight years.
Indiana (43-31) enters the final eight games of the regular season in a six-team logjam for the final six playoff spots in the East. The Pacers won't face any of their five rivals down the stretch thanks to an unusual schedule that finds them closing with five of eight against Western Conference clubs, including a home-and-home series with Golden State.
That latter late-season rarity isn't as bad as it sounds. The Warriors are limping toward the playoffs, having played at home Sunday night against the Utah Jazz in a 110-91 blowout loss without their four All-Stars -- Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green.
The Warriors expect to get Green back for Tuesday's game. Then again, they thought they'd have him Sunday, only to have him call in sick with flu-like symptoms.
Golden State (54-19) is one win -- or one Portland loss -- from clinching no worse than the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr is less concerned about playoff seeding than he is the health of Curry, who suffered a Grade 2 MCL sprain in his left knee Friday against Atlanta.
"There's no way he's playing in the first round. There's no way," Kerr predicted Sunday. "We have to be ready to play without him."
Kerr said Curry is scheduled to be re-evaluated three weeks from the injury -- April 13 -- which is one day before the start of the playoffs.
The club has stumbled upon a more-than-adequate replacement for Curry in Quinn Cook, a two-way player who is not yet eligible to be on the postseason roster.
The Duke product has made seven starts in Curry's place this month and scored in double figures five times, including a career-best 25 points against Sacramento that he bettered by three the next night at Phoenix.
The Pacers, meanwhile, had plenty to celebrate on their flight after Sunday's playoff-clinching win. Not much was expected after George was dealt to Oklahoma City in July.
"Congratulations to this group, I'm proud of what they've done," Pacers coach Nate McMillan gushed after Sunday's win. "I love the fact that we earned the right to be there. We didn't have to depend or have help from another team in getting there. Tonight, they just showed they wanted it."
Indiana also will face Sacramento, the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver on its eight-day trip before returning home for the rematch with Golden State next Thursday.
The Warriors hope to have Thompson (fractured left thumb) and Kevin Durant (fractured rib cartilage) back by then.
