The last time the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers faced each other was in 2019. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were already slowly getting acclimated to playing heavy minutes as the franchise's new duo. However, they weren't as developed nor was their supporting cast. The team from the basketball state also did not have Tyrese Haliburton or Pascal Siakam, and the rest of their core probably had not been drafted yet. Now, both squads get to prove who's worthy of the Eastern Conference spot to fight for the Larry O'Brien trophy. Draymond Green posits that there is a clear favorite.
At this point, some individuals have the Celtics advancing to the last stage of the NBA Playoffs as a foregone conclusion. Draymond Green is one of these people. He even went on to look back at a statement he made about the Tyrese Haliburton-led squad being a regular-season team, via The Volume Sports.
“Do you owe the Pacers an apology for calling them an 82-game team? The answer is no. You have got to take your hat off to the Indiana Pacers. I still personally think that they are an 82-game team but I didn't think the Knicks were real. So, somebody had to get there,” Draymond Green proclaimed.
So, in how many games does he think this series gets wrapped up? Well, it looks like his prediction is also in line with most analysts as he posits that this could end very quickly in favor of Jayson Tatum's Celtics.
“Now it gets real, now you get Boston. They played well defensively versus New York but this is a different animal. This is a totally different animal… I think this is going to be the end of the road for them, I got Boston. No Problem. It should be a gentleman's sweep. There are no apologies. They got to the conference finals. Somebody had to get there, it's the East. We get it, somebody got to go,” Draymond Green concluded.
Is there hope for the Pacers against the Celtics?
There are some glimmers of it when one looks at the statistics. Tyrese Haliburton is still helping his squad notch a historic offense that even outguns the Celtics. Throughout the regular season, the Pacers are averaging 123.3 points per contest on an insanely efficient 50.7% clip from all three levels of scoring. This dwarfs the Celtics because they are only knocking down shots with a 48.7% field goal percentage for 120.6 points per contest.
The other facet of this NBA Playoffs matchup that the Pacers have an edge on is finding the open man. Rick Carlisle and Haliburton along with McConnell and Nesmith are great at ripping apart any sort of defensive scheme thrown at them. This is why they get 30.8 assists per contest while the Celtics only drop 26.9 dimes. This strength of keeping scoring outbursts infectious is insane.
In other parts of the game, the Celtics are more dominant. The fact that they also got rest while waiting for Kristaps Porzingis' return is also a good sign.
