Tyrese Haliburton hasn’t been lighting it up since his return from injury, but the Indiana Pacers are certainly glad to have him back on the floor.
Haliburton had 26 points and 12 assists in their loss to the Lakers on Thursday, then the next night, he finished with just 10 points, but led his team to the win over Sacramento. Indiana is finally out of their awful stretch of play, but they’re still home underdogs against the Cleveland Cavaliers today.
Cleveland beat Memphis on Thursday and is 32-22. Indiana is 25-29. Let’s take a look at the odds for the Cavs and Pacers in Indiana.
Cavaliers vs. Pacers odds, spread and total
Cavaliers vs. Pacers prediction and pick
Even with Haliburton back on the floor, the Pacers are 30th in offensive rating in their last two games. Their rating of 103.8 is far worse than their rating for the season, 112.8, but it is a very small sample size. In their win over Sacramento, they shot over 40% from three and got lucky with De’Aaron Fox not playing.
The last time that these teams met was in Indiana back in December and the Pacers took a 135-126 win. In that one, Indiana shot 61% from three, 57% from the field and 95% from the free-throw line. That level of shooting certainly won’t translate to this one, but Indiana believes that they can beat Cleveland and feels much better having their all-star back on the floor. Though the offensive rating hasn’t been great in the last two games, the defense has been the third best in the NBA with a 103.3 defensive rating.
The Pacers were losing and weren’t covering many spreads with their star point guard out, so I’m going to ride the momentum of 2-0 ATS with him on the floor.
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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change