The Indiana Pacers closed out the pre-All-Star weekend portion of their schedule with a win over the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night. It was a quality victory for the blue and gold, who finished their road trip with a 2-1 record. Toronto should be a team that Indiana can take down, but this wasn’t the usual Pacers. They were missing Myles Turner, Bennedict Mathurin, Jalen Smith, and Jarace Walker before playing a minute, and Aaron Nesmith got hurt in the third quarter and didn’t return. It was an uphill battle for the Pacers They were able to hold on with a skeleton crew, which included effective play from several reserves who have had up-and-down seasons. Indiana started a lineup that had not played together this campaign before, but they were able to hold on for a win.
Just proud of the guys for staying with it,” Pacers forward Pascal Siakam, who was playing in Toronto for the first time since being traded to Indiana, said postgame during an interview on the Bally Sports Indiana broadcast. Indiana was wobbly at times during the game, but they finally figured out their defense late and made several timely buckets in the second half. They didn’t play particularly well, but they were good enough to survive on a night in which they needed a victory — they suffered an ugly loss on Monday. Because the Pacers got the result they wanted in a game that ended a road trip and their first portion of the season, their takeaways are largely positive.
