Domantas Sabonis continues his impressive start with the Indiana Pacers.

Within the first seven minutes of the game, Sabonis had nine rebounds to go with six points.

At the end of the first half with the Pacers up 55-30, Sabonis had yet another double double already with 10 points, 12 rebounds, and five assists. 

“He’s a very intelligent basketball player,” said Nate McMillan after the game. “He plays within himself. We really want to run our offense through him.”

In his second season, Sabonis, who finished with a career-high 16 rebounds, has unique poise and court awareness offensively for a young big man. How many bigs have the offense run through them at this early stage in their careers?

Sabonis missed his first shot in a Pacers victory this season, previously making all of his shot attempts in the Pacers first three games (23 for 23). Tonight, he shot only 83% (5 for 6).

Did I mention he’s doing all of this while playing with an upper respiratory infection the past two games?

It’s hard not to be impressed by the Pacers young big man.

This game was over after that first half as even though the Pacers made just 3 of their 18 shots in the third quarter, they still led by over 20 entering the fourth.

Victor Oladipo had the first game of his Pacers career where he didn’t lead the team in scoring. He scored 14 and sat the fourth quarter along with most of the Pacers starters.

Bojan Bogdanovic won the battle of very similar named Eastern Europeans against Bogdan Bogdanovic. Bojan scored 17 points to lead the Pacers in their 101-83 victory.

The Pacers are now 4-1 when they have at least one day of rest before the game. However, they face the struggling Cleveland Cavaliers (3-4) tomorrow night. Pacers are 0-2 on the second night of back-to-backs so far this season.