The Pacers leave Tuesday morning for one of the strangest road trips in the franchise's NBA history. It wouldn't be fair to compare it to ABA road trips, because some of those schedules look like they were concocted by drawing dates out of a hat. The NBA schedules, however, are supposed to be carefully formulated by computer, and made as fair as 82 games can possibly fit into the season's time frame.
There must be some conflicts with arena dates on this five-game Western Conference journey, because the Pacers have a rare three-day break between games, and then are greeted upon their return home with an even more rare back-to-back set.