After a whirlwind of games on Tuesday night, the Indiana Pacers finally know who they will be hosting in the quarterfinals: the Boston Celtics.
The Celtics won their group with help of the Nets, who beat the Raptors, and by winning their game against the Bulls by more than 23 points, which put them ahead of the Orlando Magic by point differential.
The two teams will face each other either on Monday next week, December 4th at 7:30 PM. It will be broadcast on TNT and be the first time that Tyrese Haliburton has played on the network. The winner will advance to the semifinals which will take place in Las Vegas. The other two teams in the East are the Milwaukee Bucks, who clinched their group with a win over the Miami Heat, and the New York Knicks, who earned the wild card spot with a blowout win over the Hornets.
In the West, the four qualifying teams are the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings, New Orleans Pelicans, and Phoenix Suns.
Earlier this season of course, the Celtics completely destroyed the Pacers by blowing them out by 50 points. Haliburton did miss that initial matchup and Indiana will have some extra motivation to not be embarrassed again with it being on national television. In the words of recent Pacers fan Kevin Garnett, anything is possible. Especially in just a single game.
Before tonight, the Pacers could have played a number of teams including the Bucks, Celtics, Magic, Nets, Cavaliers, and Heat depending on various scenarios. With all the games ending near the same time, it was an entertaining November evening trying to keep track of it all.
The NBA surely has to feel like the tournament is already a success with how much intrigue has been added to these early regular season games. Now the real fun begins with the single-elimination Knockout Rounds.
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