Hawks at Pacers
The Indiana Pacers limped through the last six weeks of the regular season but still managed to outlast the Miami Heat and earn the top seed in the postseason. The Hawks went through their own swoon in March but picked up the pace down the stretch and earned the No. 8 seed, giving them a date at the Pacers on Saturday for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Indiana has been looking ahead to the postseason since a tough exit last spring.
The Pacers went 10-13 over the last six weeks of the season, briefly dropping out of the top spot in the East before winning three of four to close things out and top the Heat by two games. Atlanta was 10 games under .500 on April 3 before closing with six wins in the last eight games, including a 107-88 drubbing of the Pacers in Indiana on April 6. The Hawks bowed out in six games in the first round to the Pacers last season, dropping the final two games after evening the series with a pair of home victories. Atlanta doesn’t have Al Horford this time around but does have All-Star Paul Millsap.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, ESPN, SportSouth (Atlanta)
ABOUT THE HAWKS (38-44): Atlanta can spread the floor with its frontcourt rotation of Millsap, Pero Antic, DeMarre Carroll and Mike Scott, and all five in the starting lineup are capable of stepping out and hitting 3-pointers. Antic, who starts at center, went 3-of-4 from beyond the arc in the win at Indiana on April 6 and the Hawks went 12-of-27 from 3-point range as a team in that contest. “I think we feel good,” Kyle Korver, who led the NBA with a 3-point percentage of 47.2, told reporters. “It’s been a hard year with injuries for us. We’ve just been so streaky with playing really well and playing really poorly. I think for the most part the last couple of weeks we’ve been playing pretty well and been pretty healthy.”
ABOUT THE PACERS (56-26): Indiana’s slump came after trading away veteran Danny Granger and signing mercurial center Andrew Bynum, and downturns in production from Roy Hibbert and Paul George didn’t help. Hibbert averaged 17 points and 9.9 rebounds in the playoffs last spring and the Pacers are counting on him to carry a heavy load again. “He’s going to be huge for us,” George told reporters of Hibbert. “He’s got to be huge for us on the offensive end, which I know he (will be). Last year he took that step in the postseason and really was dominant. So we all feel like we’re going to get that same Roy this time around.” Hibbert looked nothing like that in March and April, when he averaged 8.6 points on 37.6 percent shooting and 4.3 rebounds.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Hibbert averaged five points on 28.1 percent shooting and 3.8 rebounds in the four games against the Hawks.
2. Atlanta G Jeff Teague averaged 18.8 points and shot 42.9 percent from 3-point range in April.
3. Bynum (knee) has been ruled out of the entire first round.