SteemSports Presenter:
SteemSports Editor:
The Los Angeles Lakers hit the road to face the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis on Monday night. Los Angeles will be missing Brandon Ingram who has been out with a groin injury, while the Pacers may be missing two key big men against the team that leads the NBA in points in the paint. Domantas Sabonis is listed as out due to a sprained ankle while Myles Turner is classified as questionable from an ankle sprain too. Both squads are on a two game losing streak.
The Lakers pulled out an exciting home win over the Pacers back in January 99-86. The Lakeshow was led by Jordan Clarkson who stepped up big in the absence of Lonzo Ball who was dealing with an MCL sprain. Jordan is now hooping with LeBron and the Cavaliers so this time Indiana will try to contain LA's lead guards Lonzo Ball and Isaiah Thomas.
Lonzo Ball has been looking pretty solid lately for LA, who have picked up their overall level of play after stumbling to start the year. Even though he isn't scoring at a star level yet, the 20 year old No. 2 overall draft pick has shown real promise in other areas of his game such as facilitation, rebounding, grabbing steals and playing some strong individual and team defense. He's still got that funky shot form but he's been nailing more three pointers compared to the beginning of the year.
It's at the point where defenders should show him a little more respect on pick and rolls and not go under screens, but oftentimes they continue to do so. He's draining about 31% of his attempts from three this year but still has some shooting percentages that will straight up burn your eyes out (35.8 FG% and 45.9 FT%). The man definitely knows where he has to improve, and he's still got plenty of time. But he might want to consider finishing the year strong so it'll catch the eye of a big free agent this summer.
The Pacers are sitting at fifth place in the Eastern Conference and coming off of two relatively close losses to playoff contenders. One of those was to the Raptors at home and the other to the Wizards on the road. Lance Stephenson, Al Jefferson, Darren Collison, and of course Victor Oladipo have played some nice basketball over this two game stretch, so look for Indiana to go through them for buckets. Al Jefferson will have his hands full to the brim trying to contain the Lakers' Julius Randle, who has kicked it into another gear to end this season on a high note on the cusp of his impending restricted free agency. If Myles Turner doesn't suit up for the Pacers then Randle has a good chance of bullying Jefferson down low and going off for LA.
The Pacers should be motivated to close out the Lakers in front of their home crowd after suffering a road loss to LA who were just discovering their rhythm a couple months back. Indiana will have to slow down the tempo like the Miami Heat did against Los Angeles on Friday, which got them the victory. DeMar DeRozan and the Raptors just defeated the Pacers by speeding the game up too. Pace will clearly be a deciding factor in this contest, but I think Indiana can pull out a victory off the backs of their home crowd support. They'll defeat a struggling Lakeshow who are missing Brandon Ingram 111-103.
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