Was the Indiana Pacers’ breakthrough in the 2024 NBA playoffs, where they made the Eastern Conference Finals, a fluke? Looking at their second half of the 2024-25 regular season, it’s hard to say it was.
This afternoon, Indiana will begin its 2025 postseason run against the same opponent it finished off in six games in the first round last April — the Milwaukee Bucks. Given last season’s result, Pacers fans should feel extremely confident in their team’s chances to send the Bucks packing again, even with Giannis Antetokounmpo healthy.
Indiana (50-32) is a -165 favorite to beat Milwaukee (48-34) at DraftKings Sportsbook, and the series has -175 odds to stretch longer than 5.5 games. In this preview, I’ll take a deep dive into both teams and give a series prediction at the end.
Pacers vs. Bucks preview, prediction
The Pacers looked to be in trouble early on. Through December 31, Indiana was just 16-18 and had the league’s 12th-worst net rating. Whenever the Eastern Conference playoffs were brought up, all discussion was of the Cleveland Cavaliers — who were an incredible 29-4 at that point — the Boston Celtics (24-9), and the New York Knicks (23-10). There appeared to be three teams at the top of the conference that were clearly better than anybody else. Tyrese Haliburton was extremely inconsistent as a shooter, posting just 43-35-85 shooting splits and averaging only 17.6 points per game.
On New Year’s Day, Indiana flipped a switch and never looked back. The Pacers went 34-14 after the turn of the calendar, posting the league’s sixth-best net rating (seventh on offense and ninth on defense), with Haliburton averaged 19.5 points and 9.7 assists per game on 51-43-85 splits. This Indiana team is unequivocally better than last season’s Eastern Conference Finals unit, which had the league’s second-best offense but also its seventh-worst defense. Over the last 25 seasons, the average champion has had an average offensive rating rank of 6.12 and an average defensive rating rank of 5.72, with all but eight of those teams finishing in the top 10 on both sides of the ball, making the post-New Year’s Pacers, the Cavaliers, and the Celtics the only truly championship-caliber teams in the conference.
Milwaukee has to feel confident about its form going into the playoffs, as well. After a disastrous 2-8 start to the season, it, too, has ranked in the league’s top 10 on both sides of the ball and posted a 46-26 record. Antetokounmpo found a new gear, especially as a playmaker, towards the end of the season, and the Bucks enter the postseason on an eight-game winning streak. Across that span, Milwaukee had the league’s best offense by 1.2 points per 100 possessions, and Antetokounmpo averaged an eye-popping 31.8 points, 12.0 rebounds, and 11.8 assists per game in the six contests he played in. The news that the Bucks got this afternoon — that point guard Damian Lillard had been cleared from his blood clot and seems likely to return at some point in the series — complicates matters but likely raises Milwaukee’s ceiling in the aggregate.
Pacers vs. Bucks pick, best bet
Given Antetokounmpo’s status as the best player in the series — and, probably, the second-best player in the world — this series was already at best a 65-35 Indiana edge. Now that Lillard looks set to play once he’s fully conditioned, I’d consider it a coin-flip. The biggest reason why the Pacers are likely to win a coin-flip series is the fact that they went 29-11 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse this season and a hypothetical Game 7 will be played in Indianapolis. The biggest reason why the Bucks are likely to win a coin-flip series…well, he wears number 34 and stands six-foot-11 with a seven-foot-three wingspan.
In the end, I’m going to give the edge to Indiana. Integrating Lillard back into the lineup will certainly diversify the options that Doc Rivers will have at his disposal on offense — given his ball-handling and shooting superiority vis-a-vis Ryan Rollins, Milwaukee’s current starter — but I don’t trust Rivers to press all the right buttons. It’s still unclear how much more time Lillard will miss — he’s out for at least Game 1 — and his return will require taking the ball out of Antetokounmpo’s hands, and as any member of the Phoenix Suns organization can clearly delineate, there’s little that’s scarier than Antetokounmpo on a drive.
The key for the Pacers will be protecting the paint. Indiana has struggled some with big-man depth this season after losing its second- and third-string centers — James Wiseman and Isaiah Jackson — to season-ending Achilles tears. Myles Turner held it down well for Indiana, as opponents shot 8.3 percentage points worse within six feet of the basket with him as the primary defender, and Thomas Bryant, acquired to alleviate Turner’s burden, did a solid job as well. Still, the Pacers allowed the third-most points in the paint per game after January 1; Antetokounmpo led the league in that category for the fifth time in eight seasons.
Indiana won’t stop Antetokounmpo. It targeted him predominantly with Siakam this season, but in the teams’ four regular-season matchups, Antetokounmpo scored 47 points on 22-for-33 shooting in 27 minutes with the Pacers’ power forward guarding him, and offensively, Siakam did well against Antetokounmpo during the regular season and against Bobby Portis in the playoffs last season. But the Greek Freak can’t win alone. Aaron Nesmith held Kyle Kuzma to one-for-six shooting during the regular season, and Andrew Nembhard limited Lillard to just four-for-16 from deep in the 2024 playoffs. Taurean Prince was very effective against both Haliburton and Bennedict Mathurin, but the low-usage three-and-D wing isn’t going to swing the series. Brook Lopez got the better of Turner during the regular season, but he, too, isn’t a difference maker.
Ultimately, I like Indiana’s depth just a little bit more. T.J. McConnell and Mathurin is a better bench duo than Kevin Porter Jr. and Portis. Kuzma was the second-worst player in the league this season by box plus-minus and his presence on the court hurts the Bucks. The Pacers operate quickly and Milwaukee has one of the oldest rosters in the league. I like Indiana to close it out on its home court in Game 7.
