The Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers will meet in the first round of the 2019 NBA Playoffs in an Eastern Conference series. The Celtics have home court advantage and will open the series in Boston. The series schedule is as follows: · Game 1 – at Boston – Sunday 4/14 – 1:00 PM EST - TNT · Game 2 – at Boston – Wednesday 4/17 – 7:00 PM EST – TNT · Game 3 – at Indiana – Friday 4/19 – 8:30 PM EST – ABC · Game 4 – at Indiana – Sunday 4/21 – 1:00 PM EST – ABC · Game 5* – at Boston – Wednesday 4/24 – TBD *if necessary · Game 6* – at Indiana – Friday 4/26 – TBD *if necessary · Game 7* – at Boston – Sunday 4/28 – TBD *if necessary During the regular season the teams met four times, with Boston winning three of the four matchups: · Boston – 101 at Indiana – 102 · Indiana – 108 at Boston – 135 · Indiana – 112 at Boston – 114 · Boston – 117 at Indiana – 97 For the first of those two contests, the Pacers had Victor Oladipo available. Oladipo is out for the year, after suffering a knee injury mid-season. The Celtics will be without Marcus Smart, as he suffered an oblique injury late in the season and will miss at least the first round of the playoffs. Boston should feel confident, given the regular season results, as well as having the advantage in several match ups. We’ll break it down Brad Stevens-style. Starting Ballhandlers Kyrie Irving vs Darren Collison This one seems to tilt pretty drastically towards Boston. Irving is an All-NBA level of player, who is coming off a terrific regular season. Irving averaged 23.9 points per game on 48.7/40.1/87.3 shooting splits. He also tallied 6.9 assists and grabbed five rebounds per game. Against the Pacers, Irving’s numbers were down a bit. That seemed to be a matter of the blowout nature of two of the games, as Irving averaged nearly five minutes less per contest against Indiana than over the course of the regular season. Collison turned in one of his typical solid, if unspectacular, seasons. His shooting was down a bit, as he dropped 6.1 percentage points as a three-point shooter from his league-leading 46.8% mark in 2017-18 to 40.7% in 2018-19. Against Boston, Collison’s impact was fairly limited, as he scored just 9.3 points, to go along with only 4.3 assists per game. Irving is the far more talented player and plays a far bigger role for Boston than Collison does for Indiana. Irving will be the key to how the Celtics attack the Pacers’ defense. He’ll work in both pick and roll actions, as well as straight isolations. If Collison can’t hold him in check, Indiana’s only other real options are backup Cory Joseph or little-used rookie Aaron Holiday Look for the Pacers to attack Irving by trying to force mismatches against the Celtics switching defense. They’ll try to get Irving isolated against a big, or Bojan Bogdanovic as much as possible. If it gets out of control, Boston will likely move Irving onto Wesley Matthews, who is much more of a standstill player. If Indiana wants to try to post Matthews on Irving, the Celtics will live with it. Think of this as akin to when teams tried to post Isaiah Thomas with inexperienced post-up players. That’s a gamble that rarely works out the way the opponent hopes for. Advantage: Boston. This is Boston’s biggest advantage in the entire series. Irving has to win this matchup decidedly. And he should. If Indiana can play it anywhere close to even, that probably doesn’t bode well for the Celtics chances in the series. Starting Wings Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown vs Bojan Bogdanovic and Wesley Matthews This is a spot where Boston is in some flux with Smart out for the series. Smart was the Celtics primary defender on Bogdanovic. Last time the teams met, Smart held Bogdanovic to just four points on 1-of-8 shooting. Defending Bogdanovic probably falls to Brown now. Stevens could pull a fast one and start Gordon Hayward or Marcus Morris, or come really out of left field with someone like Semi Ojeleye, but the expected play is Brown. Bogdanovic struggles with athletic defenders who get up into his body. Bogdanovic isn’t a great ballhandler, so Smart would press up on him and make his life difficult with the ball. Brown can do the same thing, but he has to avoid foul trouble. Smart is very good at playing aggressive defense without fouling, while Brown tends to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar on occasion. Why is defending Bogdanovic so important? Since Oladipo went down, he’s been the Pacers best offensive player. He scored 18 points per game on nearly 50% shooting from the floor. He’s one of the only creators Indiana has in the half court. If Boston can slow him down, it will go a long way towards a series win. Matthews, on the other hand, has been the same guy he’s been for years: a rugged defender who is best on offense as a standstill shooter. He scored 10.9 points per game with Indiana after joining the team following a buyout from New York, but he shot under 39%. He’s someone the Celtics will likely take turns hiding defenders on, be it for match up reasons, foul trouble or just to get someone some rest. On the other end of the floor, the Celtics should have no issues attacking Indiana’s defense. Tatum scored 16.8 points per game on 51% shooting in the four games vs the Pacers. This is because his primary defender is Bogdanovic, whose best defense is his offense. Brown was also successful with 16.7 points per game on 52.8% shooting over three games against Indiana (Brown missed one due to injury). Unlike Tatum, who did most of his damage in the half court game, Brown got a lot of his points in transition. The Pacers don’t have any athletes who can match Brown in the open floor, and Boston made a concerted effort to get him the ball on the run. Advantage: Boston. The Celtics starting wings are relative babies compared to the Pacers, but that’s an advantage. If Tatum and Brown play with the confidence and focus they showed in last year’s postseason, Boston should win this match up. Starting Bigs Al Horford and Aron Baynes vs Myles Turner and Thaddeus Young Stevens went back to Baynes and Horford starting together about three weeks ago. The two big men together have seemed to settle everyone else into the roles they are most comfortable in. The pair also lift Boston’s defense considerably, as the Celtics numbers when the two start are right at the top of the NBA. Offensively, it frees Horford up to attack in different ways. He can either pull opposing centers out to the arc, or he can go down inside and beat up on smaller power forwards. Either way, it’s an advantage for Boston. Being able to pull Turner, one of the league’s better shot-blockers away from the paint is huge to open things up inside for the Celtics. If they switch Young onto Horford, that’s a win because Horford will either score on the block himself, or he’ll find shooters and cutters. As for Baynes, he’s in the lineup mostly for his defense. He’ll do the dirty work as far as banging bodies inside, rebounding, and taking charges. On offense, Baynes doesn’t do anything he’s not capable of. He sets solid screens, he scores inside on easy ones and when he’s left open at the arc, he’s proven adept at knocking down three-pointers. Baynes will likely defend Young, who likes to hang around the paint, while Horford will defend the more perimeter-based Turner. This has the added benefit of creating a cross-match, because the Pacers flip-flop this when they are on defense. Indiana likes to get their defense set to be at their best.<doc-sep>An up and down game for the Indiana Pacers ended in a predictable manner, dropping them to 0-3 against the Boston Celtics. The Pacers were forced to weather a dominating first quarter from the Celtics, who had 41 points, hitting eight threes. The Pacers fought back in the game thanks to a big quarter from Tyreke Evans, giving them a two point halftime lead. Unfortunately, the Pacers once again fell flat in the third quarter, scoring just 12 points on 5-23 shooting. Boston took a seven point lead into the fourth, managing to hold off the Pacers, who fought back to within two before letting it slip away due to turnovers and missed shots. Kyrie Irving was able to lift the Celtics on his back down the stretch, something the Pacers simply don’t have. Indiana will have one final opportunity to extend the series when they host the Celtics for Game 4 on an early Sunday tip. Evans led the way for the Pacers with 19 points.<doc-sep>BOSTON (AP) -- The Celtics have been at their best this season when they are forcing turnovers, spacing the floor and knocking down outside shots. They found out in their Game 1 win over the Pacers that they are equipped to win an ugly, physical game as well. Irving and Marcus Morris each scored 20 points, and the Boston rallied in the second half to the beat Indiana Pacers 84-74 on Sunday in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series. Jayson Tatum finished with 15 points. Al Horford added 10 points and 11 rebounds, and Gordon Hayward had 10 points. It was the first playoff game since 2017 for Irving and Hayward after each missed last year's postseason with injuries. ''I just try to be aggressive on the ball, be in the right spots,'' Irving said. ''I just really want to be aggressive and really be the head of the snake.'' Game 2 is Wednesday night in Boston. The Pacers led by 11 points in the first half but had just eight points in the third quarter. The Celtics capitalized and led by as many as 22 in the fourth. The 29 points that Indiana scored in the second half were its worst of the season. Cory Joseph had 14 points for the Pacers. Bojan Bogdanovic was the lone Pacers starter in double figures with 12 points. Both teams shot under 40 percent for the game. Boston hit just 36% (28 of 77) and had 20 turnovers. Indiana connected on 33% of its shots (28 of 84) and turned it over 13 times. The Celtics' 84 points were their fewest of the season and marked the first time they scored fewer than 100 points and won. ''We held them to 84 points. We just didn't score enough,'' Indiana's Wesley Matthews said. Celtics coach Brad Stevens and Pacers coach Nate McMillan both said before the series that the more physical team would have the edge. After a shaky start, it turned out to be Boston. Boston opened the third quarter with a 22-3 run to take a 60-48 lead. The Pacers didn't get their first field goal of the second half until Joseph dropped in a layup with 3:38 left in the third. They finished the quarter 2 for 19 from the field. Story continues ''I thought we kind of lost our way,'' McMillan said. ''They got the momentum and really never let that go.'' Likewise, Stevens said his team found something in that quarter. ''They missed some shots, but we were really connected,'' he said. ''We were really playing hard. We were really flying around.'' TIP-INS Pacers: Went 12 of 21 from the free throw line (57%). Celtics: Outrebounded the Pacers 55-42. TURNING POINT Boston's run included a brief appearance by Celtics Hall of Famer and former Pacers front office executive Larry Bird, who was shown on the big screen during a timeout. The period ended with Terry Rozier connecting on an acrobatic 3-pointer with 0.1 seconds remaining to put the Celtics ahead 64-53. The lead grew to 84-62 on a 3-pointer by Tatum with 3:34 remaining. Stevens went with Jaylen Brown in the starting lineup in place of Marcus Smart, who is out with a torn left oblique. But after Boston committed four turnovers in the first four minutes of the game, Stevens quickly adjusted, inserting Morris and Hayward. The change paid off with Morris going 3 of 4 in the period, including two 3-pointers, and scoring 12 points. No other Celtics player had more than two points. While his team was able to recover from a dismal start, Stevens said the Pacers' defense deserved credit for making things difficult on them throughout the game. ''Those guys guarded their butts off,'' Stevens said. ''That game looked like a 1980s playoff game in a lot of ways with the score. But it's tough. Those guys are physical. ...We have a lot to get better at.'' BIG DAY In his first playoff game as a Celtic, Irving became just third player in franchise history to have 20-plus points, five-plus assists and five-plus rebounds in his postseason debut with the team. He joined Isaiah Thomas in 2015 and JoJo White in 1972. PATRIOTS' KRAFT COURTSIDE Patriots team owner Robert Kraft sat courtside beside Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck. Kraft was charged with two counts of solicitation in January after police said he twice paid to have sex with employees at a Florida spa. UP NEXT Boston hosts Game 2 on Wednesday. --- More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports<doc-sep>
Matchup Nothing is impossible, but the odds are certainly stacked up against the Pacers as they enter Sunday's Game 4 in a 3-0 hole to the Boston Celtics. But with pride on the line, the Pacers will look to begin the climb against the Celtics in a series that has been closer than the 3-0 deficit shows. The Pacers have had the lead during the second half in each of the three games, but in all three, a familiar foe has tormented Indiana: offensive droughts. PLAYOFF CENTRAL: Follow the Pacers' Postseason Run » During Game 1, an eight-point third quarter quickly wiped away a halftime lead. In Game 2, the Pacers were outscored 31-12 in the fourth frame, erasing what was a double-digit advantage. And in Game 3 on Friday, the third quarter again proved problematic, with the Pacers posting just 12 points as Boston gained control of the game. "We just go on droughts where we are not making shots," said Thaddeus Young. "Shots are rattling in and out and we're not getting good looks that are within our offense." Offensively, the Pacers got an impressive performance from Tyreke Evans, who nearly lifted the team to victory with a 19-point performance off of the bench, drilling 4-of-6 3-pointers. Evans led the team in scoring in what was a balanced effort for the Pacers, who had seven players — including all five starters — reach double figures. But the balance was not enough to overcome yet another incredible performance by Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving, who followed up his 37-point Game 2 with a 19-point, 10-assist showing in Game 3. History says the Pacers' chances of overcoming the 3-0 deficit aren't good. In NBA history, no team has ever managed to come back and win a series after trailing 3-0 (0-132). But those numbers don't matter to the Pacers, who are approaching Game 4 as if it were Game 1. "There definitely won't be any quit in us," said Darren Collison. "We feel like it is still a series. I know it sounds foolish from outside looking in, being down 3-0, but from a mental standpoint in this locker room there won't be any quit." Projected Starters Darren Collison Wesley Matthews Bojan Bogdanovic Thaddeus Young Myles Turner Kyrie Irving Jaylen Brown Jayson Tatum Aron Baynes Al Horford Pacers: PG - Darren Collison, SG - Wesley Matthews, SF - Bojan Bogdanovic, PF - Thaddeus Young, C - Myles Turner Celtics: PG - Kyrie Irving, SG - Jaylen Brown, SF - Jayson Tatum, PF - Aron Baynes, C - Al Horford Injury Report Pacers: Victor Oladipo - out (right knee surgery) Celtics: Marcus Smart - out (left oblique tear) Last Meeting April 19, 2019: Indiana once again showed it could hang with Boston, but endured another second-half shooting slump and came up short in a 104-96 loss at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. With the win, the Celtics took a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. No NBA team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series. "It's our end-of-game execution, that's all it comes down to," Pacers center Myles Turner said. "We're playing good enough defense to win, but we've got to score." Tyreke Evans led Indiana with 19 points off the bench in the loss — 15 of them coming in the first half — while Bojan Bogdanovic finished with 15 points, five rebounds, and four assists in the loss. Celtics forward Jaylen Brown led all scorers with 23 points, going 8-for-9 from the field and 4-for-5 from 3-point range. All-Star guard Kyrie Irving added 19 points, 10 assists, and five rebounds for Boston. Noteworthy The Pacers are looking to avoid a four-game sweep, something that's only happened to Indiana once in their NBA history (in the first round in 2017 vs. Cleveland). Since beating Boston in their first meeting, the Celtics have had Indiana's number this season, winning six straight against the Pacers. The Pacers have been outrebounded in all three games of the series. Tickets The Pacers aim to keep the series alive as they fight off elimination from Kyrie Irving and the Celtics in Game 4 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Sunday, April 21 at 1:00 PM ET.