Brooklyn is waiting on its own result first. The Nets play at Cleveland on Saturday, October 24, then fly home for this 6:00 PM ET tip, so they will be on the back end of a back-to-back and the Pacers will not. Whatever happens against the Cavaliers will change Brooklyn's record, its minutes load and possibly its injury list before Indiana arrives, so treat everything here about the Nets as true as of Saturday morning.
As of Saturday, the Nets' only result is a 110-103 home loss to Charlotte, their 6th straight season-opening defeat. The scoring was fine. Randle went for 33 on 11-of-18 shooting with 8 rebounds and 7 assists, and Michael Porter Jr. added 26 with 3 steals. The rest of it was a mess: 22 turnovers against 22 assists and a 20-8 deficit in second-chance points, against a Hornets team that was missing players. Rookie lottery pick Mikel Brown Jr. also made his debut, and his minutes are worth watching as the backcourt sorts itself out.
The matchup comes down to whether Brooklyn can clean up its ball security against a team that just showed how fast it can fall behind. Dallas buried Indiana with a 1st-quarter run, and the Pacers' guard depth is now even thinner. If Brooklyn holds onto the ball, Randle and Porter have a real chance to get the Pacers chasing early again. If the Nets give it away 20-plus times, Haliburton is the kind of passer who turns those into points, tired legs or not.
Brooklyn's lone listed absence is Tyler Bilodeau, ruled out for Saturday in Cleveland with a shoulder injury. Whether he is available on Sunday is still unknown. Indiana's list is longer and more settled: 3 guards out, 2 of them with no timeline. Look at the Sunday injury report before reading too much into anything above. A team playing its 2nd game in 2 nights and a team rebuilding its rotation on the fly can both look very different by tip.