by Jordan Morey
In the most consequential game of their 2023-24 season, the Indiana Pacers matched the most points scored for a game in franchise history to guarantee their spot in the 2024 NBA Playoffs.
By posting a 157-115 blowout win over the Atlanta Hawks (36-46) on Sunday — the largest margin of victory for the Pacers in a game this season — the Pacers (47-35) earned the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference rankings. Indiana will now face the No. 3 Milwaukee Bucks (49-33) in the first round of the Playoffs, a team they went 4-1 against during the regular season.
This year’s playoff appearance will be the first for the Pacers since the 2019-2020 season.
“We’re happy to be in, but our work has just begun,” Pacers head coach Rick Carilsle said. “That’s the way we’re going to look at this. Just getting to the playoffs is not the goal. The goal is a championship. Getting to the playoffs is certainly one step toward the goal, but we’ve got to think big. We’ve got to have big aspirations and have high standards. That’s what we’re going to take into this.”
Going into Sunday’s slate of games, the Pacers were in danger of dropping into a Play-In Tournament position with a loss. Atlanta stayed in 10th in the East, with a Play-In matchup against the ninth-seeded Chicago Bulls (39-43) up next.
Against Atlanta, the Pacers put on an offensive clinic in front of an electrifying, sell-out home crowd. Overall, the Pacers shot 65 percent from the field while dishing out 41 assists.
Indiana scored a season-high 49 first-quarter points to take an 86-72 halftime advantage. The Blue and Gold never gave up the lead in the third quarter, going up by as many as 34 points, before emptying the bench in the final frame.
Seven players scored in double digits for the Pacers, with the Blue and Gold’s most-tenured player, center Myles Turner, recording 31 points and 12 rebounds in 22 minutes. After Turner, Pascal Siakam had 28 points, T.J. McConnell chipped in 17, Doug McDermott had 15, and Tyrese Haliburton logged 12 points and 13 assists.
Dejounte Murray scored 20 points in the second quarter en route to 32 for Atlanta, Mouhamed Gueye chipped in 19 points off the bench, and Bogdan Bogdanovic added 18.
In the first half, Indiana shot 63.6 percent as a team to lead 86-72. The 86 points matched the Pacers’ season-high for points in a half.
Before tip, as part of Fan Appreciation Day presented by Kroger, Turner addressed the crowd, thanking them for their support this season. He also fired up fans in the arena by emphasizing the importance of making Indiana a tough place to play in the postseason.
That energy carried into game action.
FIRST QUARTER
In the first quarter, the Pacers shot 74.1 percent (20-for-27, 6-for-11 from 3-point range) to lead 49-34.
Indiana made 13 of its first 15 baskets to build a 31-15 lead midway through the first.
Turner came out on fire, making his first four shots for nine points to help Indiana to a 15-4 advantage. Siakam then scored four points, and Haliburton added a layup to extend the Blue and Gold lead to 21-6 with 7:23 left in the first frame.
A 10-2 Pacers run later in the period, highlighted by a 3-pointer by Andrew Nembhard, steal and score by Haliburton, and Siakam finger-roll, pushed the lead to 31-15 and forced Hawks timeout.
Down the final stretch of the first quarter, the Pacers’ bench continued to apply pressure, as Ben Sheppard and McConnell each dropped seven points before Jalen Smith tipped in a basket at the buzzer to give the Blue and Gold a 15-point lead.
SECOND QUARTER
In the second quarter, the Hawks used a 21-8 run to tie the game midway through the frame before the Pacers closed the half with a 22-8 scoring spree in the final 4:19 to go back up double digits. Murray made eight of nine shot attempts for 20 points in the period to narrow the score briefly.
Atlanta opened the second quarter on a 9-3 run before a 10-1 scoring spree, where Murray scored five and Young made a trio of free throws, narrowed the score to 60-55 with 6:13 left in the half.
A bucket by Nembhard stopped the bleeding, but the Hawks continued streaking from there as Gueye and Murray each made treys before Murray split free throws to tie the game at 62.
With the starters back on the floor, the Pacers got back on track in the final 4:19. Another Nembhard 3-pointer sparked a 15-2 run, during which Turner scored five more points to push the lead to 81-66.
With eight seconds remaining, Siakam completed an and-one to punctuate the scoring burst.
THIRD QUARTER
The Pacers outscored the Hawks 39-21 in the third quarter by shooting 68 percent as a team. Atlanta made just 30.4 percent of its shots in the period.
Siakam drilled a 3-pointer to start the second half, spurring a 10-2 run to boost the Pacers lead to 96-74.
Indiana then caught fire in the second half of the third quarter, using a 20-5 run – which included an 11-0 burst – to give the Pacers a 122-91 lead.
With 29 seconds on the clock before McConnell drained a three with 13 ticks left to extend the lead to 34.
FOURTH QUARTER
In the fourth quarter, Indiana’s league-leading scoring bench never gave the Hawks a glimpse of the lead.
Indiana outscored Atlanta 80-46 in the paint and 68-35 in bench points.
Inside the Numbers
Indiana made 19 3-pointers to Atlanta’s 12.
Tyrese Haliburton recorded his 44th double-double of the season and Myles Turner logged his 17th.
12 different players recorded a basket for the Pacers.
The Pacers led the Hawks in fast-break points (26-11) and second-chance points (20-12).
Indiana had 14 turnovers and the Hawks finished with 14 giveaways.
There were two total ties in the game.
You Can Quote Me on That
“We’re very, very pleased to be back in. This is a new beginning. … We’ve worked hard. We’ve played extremely hard to get ourselves in this position and look forward to the next step.” – Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle on the playoffs
“Our offense is always going to be better when we’re getting stops. When we’re giving up 43 points in a half, our production is going to be even more efficient than when we’re giving up 73.” – Carlisle on the offensive production
“I loved Myles’ approach from a physical standpoint, and the fact that he had 12 rebounds.That’s the most important thing.” – Carlisle on Turner’s performance
“This team, this organization, has been to the conference finals eight times, the NBA Finals one time, and won three championships in the ABA. This is not an organization that is just happy to be in the playoffs.” – Carlisle on the postseason
“I’m proud of this group. This goes way back to Nashville at the beginning of the season … what we talked about, where we wanted to be at this time of the year. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty, but we got where we needed to go. All we asked for was an opportunity, and now it’s our turn to make some noise.” –Turner on making the playoffs
“This is when it matters. This is when it counts the most.This is when legends are made and so on and so forth. I’m just excited for this group.” – Turner on the playoffs
“Possessions. I think the biggest thing is that it’s a possession game. Every single possession matters.” – Turner on the advice to his teammates about the postseason
“We have an offense that’s built for this time of year. In the playoffs, we all know each other’s plays. What makes us dangerous is that we don’t really run a lot of plays.” – Turner on the postseason
“It will be fun. It’s a really good team. I’m excited to play against them, and that’s home for me. I’m excited to be playing there. It’s kind of a storybook for me to be playing at the crib. It’s my first playoff series so I’m excited for that.” – Haliburton to be playing Milwaukee in the first round
“Every time we play them he has big games just because of the way they guard the pick and roll. … We knew that the pick and roll was something we really wanted to attack coming into today. He just made the right reads and was attacking the rim aggrievedly from the jump, and making shots from outside as well.” – Haliburton on Turner’s performance against Atlanta
“I think in a moment like today, where there’s so much on the line and we’re really playing for something, it’s easy to get caught up or rattled in that moment. .. I think we did a good job of calming each other down and just understanding that we built that lead for a reason by playing the right way. We just went back to really playing the right way.” – Haliburton breaking the 64-64 tie in the second quarter
“Just being here, it was a point of emphasis with me coming in. I’ve seen the team, the guys, they’re hungry for it. Everyone wanted to be a part of it. And just a good response for us to do what we needed today and get an opportunity to make the postseason.” -Siakam on what it means to make the playoffs
“We have a lot of young pieces, we’ve got a lot of people that for them it’s probably really the first time they’ve been in the playoffs. It’s exciting. And I think at the end of the day, especially when it’s your first time, it’s almost like what do you have to lose? Go out there, give it everything you have, and have an opportunity to get that experience under your belt.” -Siakam on entering the postseason with a young roster
“Just being level-headed, at the end of the day, that’s what the playoffs are about. You’ve got to forget about the regular season…It’s going to be a different game. Everything is under the microscope and it feels like you can’t do anything that the other team hasn’t seen…It’s not like you’re going to come in and surprise people. It’s just about coming out having energy, being together, and just continuing to get better.” -Siakam on the mentality needed for playoff success
“I think we’ve grown. I think we’ve gotten better. The guys are just learning every single day and we continue to improve…We don’t get ourselves down. At the end of the day, there’s games where we feel like, ‘Oh we could have won this’ or ‘We could have done that.’ It hasn’t stopped us. We just come in, put the work in, and the guys are just focused on that…For me coming in, that’s something that I wanted to bring, that confidence into what we do and knowing that we can’t panic when things aren’t going the way we want them to go.” -Siakam on how the team has grown over his three months in Indiana
“We both knew how important this game was. Our game plan was just to get to the paint. He’s someone that can do that, I can do that, so we just tried to do that as much as we can. It didn’t feel like he was missing anything. He just made everything, had some big plays for us, momentum plays that were very important. He was blocking shots. That’s what we’re going to need from him every single night.” -Siakam on combining with Turner for 59 points
Stat of the Night
The Pacers matched a franchise record 157 points in their win against the Hawks. The Pacers scored at least 150 points in four games this season, tied with the 1971-72 Lakers and 1978-79 Spurs for the most 150-point games in a single season.
Noteworthy
- The 2023-2024 Pacers are the first team in NBA history to record at least 10,000 points and 2,500 assists.
- Tyrese Haliburton finished as the NBA leader in assists with 10.9 per game.
- The Pacers scored at least 150 points against the Hawks three times this season en route to sweeping Atlanta 4-0. Indiana scored at least 150 four times this season total, which ties the 1972 Los Angeles Lakers and 1979 San Antonio Spurs for most all-time.
- Indiana finished its regular season with its best record since the 2019-20 season (45-28).
- Suiting up on Sunday, Obi Toppin played in his 82nd game of the season for the Blue and Gold. He is the only player on the Pacers this season to reach the mark and the first since Cory Joseph during the 2018-19 season. Justin Holiday played all 72 games in the 2020-21 season that was shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originally posted on pacers.com