After scraping together a gutsy, undermanned win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on the second night of a back-to-back behind a yeoman’s effort at nominal five from Thaddeus Young and big scoring outings from Bojan Bogdanovic (35 points) and TJ Leaf (18 points), the Pacers have lived to fight another day as the third-seed in the Eastern Conference.
But, the question is for how long.
If the Pacers had managed to survive separate 3-point barrages from the Pistons and Mavericks earlier this week, they’d have increased their cushion on the fourth-place Sixers to 1.