After coming together in an overtime victory in San Antonio, Indiana returns to Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Tuesday with the second-easiest remaining strength of schedule in the Eastern Conference (.472), per Tankathon. Of course, it’s probably worth pondering what exactly the word “easy” means during a compacted schedule, as well as for this particular Pacers team, which is an abysmal 8-14 at home and somehow worse with two or more days of rest (2-7) than on back-to-backs (6-4).
To that point, just this past week, Indiana dropped a game to the Wizards, sans Bradley Beal, despite having two days off, before later securing a short-handed, road-win over the Spurs on the second night of a back-to-back.