Nuggets at Pacers
The Indiana Pacers clinched a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and are trying to sew up homecourt advantage in the first round, which may turn out to be very important to the team. The Pacers will try to earn their fourth consecutive victory at home when they return from a disastrous road trip and host the Denver Nuggets on Sunday.
Indiana, which began the four-game trip with a 102-100 loss at Denver, fell to four consecutive playoff teams from the Western Conference and extended their overall road slide to eight straight with a 112-89 loss at the Golden State Warriors on Thursday. "Go home, try to regroup," Pacers power forward Thaddeus Young told reporters after losing to the Warriors. "Get ourselves together because the games are going to keep coming no matter what." Denver could have used some help from Indiana on Thursday as it attempts to overtake Golden State for the top spot in the West but is doing a fine job of preparing for whatever postseason spot it earns with wins in six straight. The Nuggets took out Boston, Washington and New York on the first three stops of the four-game trip, capped by a 111-93 triumph over the Knicks that brought them even with the Warriors entering play on Saturday.
TV: 5 p.m. ET, Altitude (Denver), FS Indiana
ABOUT THE NUGGETS (49-22): Denver held the Knicks to 37.8 percent from the field and jumped out to a 37-18 advantage after the first quarter. "We just wanted to come out and take care of business," point guard Jamal Murray told reporters. "We wanted to focus on us and getting better. We did a great job the whole game with maintaining the lead. The ball was moving and guys were flying on defense. It was a complete team effort." That team effort was again led by All-Star center Nikola Jokic, who collected 21 points and 17 rebounds against New York to record his fourth double-double in the last five games.
ABOUT THE PACERS (44-29): Indiana fell by single digits in the first three games of the road trip but shot 38.5 percent from the floor (6-of-23 from 3-point range) and committed 16 turnovers against the Warriors. "When you play elite teams like this you can't really make many mistakes on either end of the floor and they exploit those mistakes," Pacers center Myles Turner told reporters. "I think we did a pretty good job of containing them in that first half and then kind of blew it open end of the second quarter and we never recovered." Young (18 points on 7-of-13 shooting) was the only starter to score in double figures on Thursday while the other four combined to go 7-of-36 from the field.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Pacers PG Darren Collison (quad) sat out the last two games and is day-to-day.
2. Nuggets SG Gary Harris is 9-of-16 from 3-point range over the last three contests.
3. Denver suffered an overtime loss in its trip to Indiana last season.