Indiana's problem is simpler and harder to fix. Haliburton strained his left hamstring after the October 26 loss to Milwaukee, and Rick Carlisle says he's making progress but still has no timetable to return. He spends time in a hyperbaric chamber every day and stayed home while the team played Denver in Mexico City. Andrew Nembhard has run the offense well in his place, and Braden Smith and Quenton Jackson have picked up backcourt minutes. Now T.J. McConnell is questionable with a strained right hamstring, which would take the backup point guard out of a rotation that was already short. Ben Sheppard is out for months after meniscus surgery and Johnny Furphy is still working back from his knee injury in the G League, so the Pacers don't have much wing depth either.
Dallas was the most frustrating game of Indiana's slide. The Pacers led 66-56 at halftime, which was their best start in weeks. Then the Mavericks won the 3rd quarter by 7 and the 4th by 6 and took it 125-122, even though Dallas was on the second night of a back-to-back and short on bigs. That's a pattern with this group: close games they can't finish. The home losses to Brooklyn and Atlanta came by 8 and 4, and the only win in the last 5 was a 4-point game in Memphis. Indiana is 3-8 and staying in games, but without Haliburton nobody has shown they can close one out.
So the matchup mostly comes down to Davis against Indiana's frontcourt. If Davis's ankle holds up after 1 day of rest, Washington has the best player on the floor and a center pairing with Sarr that Indiana will have trouble matching. With Coulibaly back, Young and George don't have to carry all the perimeter minutes against a Pacers team that pushes the ball, and if McConnell sits, Nembhard has even less help running it. Tipoff is 7:00 PM ET.
Both teams played Monday and get Tuesday off, so neither has a rest edge. The Pacers are home after a road stretch that went through Mexico City and Dallas, and they'll have the crowd. The Wizards have Davis, and now Coulibaly too. For two teams under .500 in mid-November, that's about as close as it gets.
