Hornets at Pacers
Coming off the sting of a loss at the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Indiana Pacers needed a late rally to knock off lowly Orlando on Saturday. The Pacers will try to settle things a little earlier when they take on another sub-.500 Eastern Conference foe in the visiting Charlotte Hornets on Monday.
Indiana trailed by as much as 21 points and was down 10 in the fourth quarter before All-Star guard Victor Oladipo led the comeback in a 114-112 victory. "It's like clockwork with us, man," Oladipo told reporters. "We get down, come back better in the second half. It just shows the resilience of this team. We got it going. ... Everybody stayed positive. We knew we needed to play better. We came out in the second half and just set the tone on both ends and it worked out great for us." The Hornets went in the other direction in the second half at Miami on Saturday, building up a 15-point lead and going into the fourth up seven before falling 95-91 at Miami. "Everything is always related to injury and schedule," Charlotte coach Steve Clifford told reporters. "After playing last night, especially with Kemba (Walker) and Dwight (Howard), we struggled when we went to the bench and I made the decision at halftime to play those guys. I think late in the game we had a good chance, but those guys played so many minutes tonight I think it caught up to us a little bit."
TV: 7 p.m. ET, FS Southeast (Charlotte), FS Indiana
ABOUT THE HORNETS (20-28): Saturday's setback began a stretch of seven of eight games on the road for Charlotte, which is 6-14 away from home. Walker is setting aside trade rumors and scored 30 points at Miami, giving him five straight games with at least 20 points, but hoisted at least 20 shots in each of those five contests while shooting a combined 38.2 percent. Howard is doing his best to support Walker and grabbed at least 15 rebounds while blocking multiple shots in each of the last eight games.
ABOUT THE PACERS (27-23): Oladipo got plenty of help on Saturday from reserve swingman Lance Stephenson, who scored a season-high 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting in 31 minutes. Stephenson went through a shooting funk in which he went a combined 1-of-18 from the floor in back-to-back losses at Portland and Los Angeles on Jan. 18th and 19th but is 19-of-34 in four games since. Power forward Thaddeus Young is streaking as well and is 23-of-36 from the field over the last three contests.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Howard became the 19th player in NBA history with at least 2,000 blocks when he swatted four shots on Saturday.
2. Pacers C Myles Turner (elbow) returned from a nine-game absence on Saturday and scored four points in 11 minutes.
3. The home team took each of the four meetings last season, with Indiana winning its two home games by an average of 18.5 points.