Pacers at Nuggets
The Indiana Pacers are struggling to bring their “A” game every night and looked bad in back-to-back losses. The Pacers will try to pick things up when they kick off a four-game road trip by visiting the Denver Nuggets on Sunday.
Indiana has lost nine of its last 15 games and was rolled over in the fourth quarter in a loss at Boston on Wednesday before falling 118-104 at home to the Washington Wizards on Friday. "We gotta bring a better effort,” Pacers forward Paul George told reporters. “We have to do a better job of coming out, do a better job of preparing. We gotta do a better job, head to toe, on this whole team." The Nuggets are 2-1 on their current homestand and can count a win over the NBA-best Golden State Warriors among those three games. The Warriors are the only one of the last five opponents to reach 100 points against Denver, which dropped a 98-95 decision to the Miami Heat on Friday.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, FSN Indiana, Altitude (Denver)
ABOUT THE PACERS (22-18): George sat out practice on Saturday after hurting his calf against the Wizards but expects to play on Sunday. The star forward went 13-of-39 from the field in the last two games and was honest in his assessment of the team’s performance on Friday, in which Washington shot 52 percent from the field. "They took the fight to us," George told reporters. "It was like they (were) comfortable from the get go. You can't do that; you can't let a team get comfortable."
ABOUT THE NUGGETS (15-25): Denver was well on its way to earning a third straight win on Friday with 62 points at the half but fell well off the pace after the break. Forward Danilo Gallinari was part of the second-half struggles, going 1-of-6 after the break, and finished with 11 points in his worst game this month. The 27-year-old Italian averaged 26.2 points in the first six games of the month and scored at least 20 in each of those contests.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Nuggets F Darrell Arthur is 16-of-23 from the field in the last two games.
2. Pacers G George Hill (personal) may not travel with the team to Denver.
3. Denver took both meetings last season and seven of the last eight.