UPDATE: Pascal Siakam is available to play Tuesday, per the Pacers.
With four games remaining in the NBA’s regular season, the Indiana Pacers still have a fighting chance at usurping the New York Knicks and landing the third seed in the Eastern Conference. Indiana has been one of the hottest teams since January 1 — posting the league’s fourth-best record across that span — and is just three games behind New York, with a somewhat easier remaining schedule than the Knicks, although New York holds the tiebreaker.
It’ll need to win out and hope the Knicks lose out in order to pass them in the standings, a quest that will start Tuesday with a 7 p.m. ET home clash against the woeful Washington Wizards. New York, meanwhile, will host the Boston Celtics.
Unfortunately for the Pacers, they might be without their leading scorer on Tuesday. Power forward Pascal Siakam missed last night’s win over the Denver Nuggets with bursitis in his elbow, which marked just the second game he’d missed all season, and he’s questionable with the condition for Tuesday’s contest. The 31-year-old Cameroonian is averaging 20.3 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game on by far the best three-point shooting efficiency of his career, and he was named to the All-Star team for the third time.
Fortunately, Siakam’s presence might not be needed against Washington either way, given that it has posted the league’s second-worst record and third-worst defensive rating and given Indiana’s depth. Obi Toppin started last night in Siakam’s place and was excellent, dropping 22 points and adding four rebounds on nine-for-18 shooting from the field and four-for-nine accuracy from deep. Toppin’s effective field goal percentage has actually been higher than Siakam’s this season, and the Pacers are 4-1 when he has played 30 minutes or more.
