Hawks at Pacers
The Indiana Pacers showed Friday night they can win without a significant contribution from All-Star guard Victor Oladipo. They may need a bit more from Oladipo on the second night of a back-to-back when they host the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday.
Oladipo was held to a season-low eight points in a 99-91 win over the Miami Heat in the opener of a three-game homestand after scoring at least 20 in his previous 13 contests. Tyreke Evans hit five 3-pointers en route to 23 points to lead a group of four reserves that had 53 points on 19-of-34 shooting as Indiana evened its mark at 3-3 at home. The Hawks are 0-3 thus far on their four-game road trip and have dropped six in a row overall, including Thursday's ugly 138-93 setback at Denver. It wasn't the altitude, it was the lack of effort," coach Lloyd Pierce told reporters after his team shot 34.8 percent and turned it over 19 times. "This one stung. Everyone has a game like tonight. It's frustrating when you have to speak to effort and this wasn't any fun. Tonight we didn't have it for some reason. We'll regroup and stay together."
TV: 7 p.m. ET, FS Southeast (Atlanta), FS Indiana
ABOUT THE HAWKS (3-12): Guard Trae Young has plunged into a shooting slump on the trip, going 4-for-23 from the floor while missing all nine of his 3-point tries over the last two games. Fellow rookie Omari Spellman is 0-for-12 from long range on the trip and wants his team to show up early in games so that it doesn't feel the need to jack up loads of rushed 3-pointers later on in an effort to come back. "We've got to stop putting ourselves in that situation," he told the media after the Nuggets raced to a 13-0 lead Thursday. "It's not acceptable that we keep coming out like that. We can't wait till we get punched in the mouth to compete."
ABOUT THE PACERS (9-6): Evans averaged seven points while missing all seven of his 3-point tries over a three-game stretch prior to Friday's outburst. Fellow reserve Domantas Sabonis contributed 15 points and 12 rebounds for his third double-double in the last four games as the bench helped ease the burden on Oladipo, who entered the night ranked second in the NBA with 20 shot attempts per game. "That just shows how deep we are, honestly, as a team," Oladipo told reporters of the bench. "Even though the stars didn't play so great. The bench picked us up and played well. That's what it's about."
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Indiana entered Friday ranked third in the NBA in scoring defense (103 points per game) while Atlanta was last (119.1).
2. Pacers SF Bojan Bogdanovic is 11-for-19 from 3-point range over a four-game span.
3. Indiana won three of four meetings last season.