Pacers floor leader Tyrese Haliburton will have to be at his best to carry Indiana past Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.
There figures to be some bad blood to this series or, at least, an edge beyond what you normally get for a 4-5 matchup. Familiarity is part of the reason for any contempt – Indiana and Milwaukee will have faced each other at least 19 times in 18 months by the time one of them advances this spring.
The tone got set last season with some chippy encounters, from Tyrese Haliburton tapping his wrist Damian Lillard-style during the Pacers’ victory in Las Vegas in the NBA Cup semifinals to the heated squabble over the game ball a week later after Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a career-high 64 points.
The Pacers went 4-1 in the five meetings last season, followed by a 4-2 triumph in the first round. Things flipped this season, with the Bucks taking three of four (and the loss coming on Haliburton’s four-point play with three seconds left).
Series schedule
Here’s how to watch the Pacers vs. Bucks series:
All times Eastern Standard Time
- Game 1: Bucks vs. Pacers, TBA
- Game 2: Bucks vs. Pacers, TBA
- Game 3: Pacers vs. Bucks, TBA
- Game 4: Pacers vs. Bucks, TBA
- Game 5: Bucks vs. Pacers, TBA*
- Game 6: Pacers vs. Bucks, TBA*
- Game 7: Bucks vs. Pacers, TBA*
* = If necessary
Top storyline
Giannis re-plants his postseason flag. There’s been a little out-of-sight, out-of-mind for Antetokounmpo in recent playoffs. After appearing in 14 series and 76 games through his age-27 season, the Bucks star has participated in only three games since May 2022. He missed two in the five-game loss to Miami in 2023’s first round, and did not play at all in the ouster by Indiana last spring.
Dialing it back to the Game 2 blowout loss to Boston in the 2022 East semis, Antetokounmpo’s team has gone 2-7. He has averaged 31.4 points and 13.7 rebounds in that stretch, but his shooting is down – 48% and 7-for-29 on 3-pointers – with almost as many turnovers (45) as assists (54).
Coping with the Celtics’ and the Heat’s day-after-day scheming had to have been tough, but now he’s facing an Indiana defense that ranked 15th this season. And Antetokounmpo thrived against the Pacers (30 ppg, 12.3 rpg, 7.5 apg, 1.3 blocks, 64.9% shooting) this season.
Keep your eyes on
Pascal Siakam’s right elbow. The Pacers’ angular forward made his third All-Star appearance this season and led Indiana with 20.2 points per game. But he has been hampered by right elbow bursitis in recent weeks, and it has limited his minutes and messed with his play. Since March 10, Siakam’s scoring has slipped to 17.9 and he’s shooting 32.8% from the arc.
Indiana is at its best when the 6-foot-8 veteran is getting out in transition or, late in the clock, creating offense out of nothing. He was especially effective against the Bucks this season, averaging 24 points and 8.5 rebounds. Last spring, Siakam scored 36 and 37 in Games 1 and 2 against the Bucks
1 more thing to watch for each team
For Pacers: Haliburton, a native of Oshkosh, Wis., hardly fears the Deer. His splits against his home state’s NBA franchise are as good or better than against any of the other 28 teams: 21.5 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 10.4 apg, while shooting 50% overall and just under 40% on 3-pointers in 13 regular-season clashes.
It’s not surprising that as Haliburton goes, so go the Pacers. He is, after all, their point guard and floor leader. But the effect has been quite pronounced this season. When he averaged 17.5 points and 8.4 assists on 42% shooting through Indiana’s first 25 games, their record was 10-15. He upped that to 19.2, 9.6 and 50% the rest of the way and the Pacers won 39 of the next 56 games.
Oh, and when Haliburton has scored 20 points or more this season, his team has gone 25-3
For Bucks: The obvious cloud over Milwaukee’s postseason ambitions is Lillard’s availability. The 9-time All-Star went out in mid-March with deep vein thrombosis in his right calf and he missed Milwaukee’s final 14 regular season games (10-4 record).
As serious as that condition can be, the Bucks and Lillard have kept hope alive that he can return for playoff action. “Fingers crossed,” coach Doc Rivers said late last week, with Lillard doing some shooting and light running. Travel is a concern with blood clots, so the guard’s conditioning alone won’t determine the green light.
Lillard averaged just 18.3 points on 35.5% shooting against the Pacers this season, but Milwaukee needs his firepower to keep Indiana’s defenders honest against Antetokounmpo. The two Bucks stars combined for 55.3 points per game this season, most by any tandem in the league.
1 key number to know
398 — The Pacers averaged 398 passes per 24 minutes of possession, the highest rate for any team in the last seven seasons, according to Second Spectrum tracking. This was the fifth straight season in which they ranked in the top four in both ball and player movement.
The Pacers’ offense wasn’t nearly as good as it was last season, when it ranked second. Only the Pelicans and Sixers saw a bigger season-to-season drop in points scored per 100 possessions. But the Indiana offense can still be difficult to defend, because the ball doesn’t stop moving. And a year ago, the Pacers scored a remarkably efficient 121.7 per 100 through the first two rounds of last year’s playoffs, eliminating the Bucks in six games in the first round.
The ball moved more in four regular-season games against Milwaukee (403 passes per 24 minutes of possession) than it did otherwise, though the other end of the floor was more of an issue as the Pacers lost three of the four games.
— John Schuhmann
The pick
Pacers in seven. Both teams hit the postseason with momentum, the Bucks winning their final eight games while Indiana went 14-4 down the stretch and was 15-3 at home after the All-Star break. That last part matters, because this is the first time the Pacers have a home-court advantage in the playoffs since 2014. The Bucks have gotten an energy boost lately from Kevin Porter Jr. and, in his return from a 25-game league suspension, Bobby Portis. Indiana, however, has a deeper rotation, a fleet of bodies to throw at Antetokounmpo and a determination to get back to the East Finals, where it lost to the Celtics last May.
* * *
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Warner Bros. Discovery.
