The NBA’s 2021 play-in tournament tips off Tuesday evening from Indianapolis as the Eastern Conference ninth-seeded Pacers host the 10th-seeded Charlotte Hornets. Which way to lean at BMR’s top-rated sportsbooks?
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 – 06:30 PM EDT at Bankers Life Fieldhouse
The first of two NBA Eastern Conference play-in games Tuesday features the 10th-seeded Charlotte Hornets at the No. 9 Indiana Pacers. Let’s try and simplify this as much as we can. The loser Tuesday is done for the season. The winner, meanwhile, would travel to the loser of Tuesday’s other matchup between No. 8 Washington and No. 7 Boston. Then, the winner of that game would be the East’s No. 8 seed and face the top-seeded Philadelphia 76ers in Round 1. Neither Charlotte nor Indiana would have a prayer and probably would get swept by the Sixers if it got that far. To “make” the playoffs on the Bovada futures odds, Indiana is +300 and Charlotte +400.
Charlotte won the regular-season series and was 1-0 in Indianapolis. The last meeting between the teams was there on April 2 and the Hornets rolled 114-97 behind 23 points off the bench from Miles Bridges. He was one of seven double-figure scorers. That was also the game where the Hornets lost their best player, Gordon Hayward (more on him below), to a foot injury. The Indianapolis native had 13 points, eight rebounds and six assists before the injury. The Hornets were without an injured LaMelo Ball. Meanwhile, no Pacers player had more than 16 points. Starting guard Malcolm Brogdon was out injured and All-Star forward Domantas Sabonis missed the final quarter with a left ankle sprain. The Hornets are 1-4 ATS on the NBA picks in their past five at Indiana.
After beating Orlando 122-112 on May 7, the Hornets were 33-34 and in pretty good position to avoid the 9 vs. 10 play-in game and get into the 7 vs. 8, where a team has to lose two games to miss the playoffs. Alas, Charlotte closed the season on a five-game losing streak to fall to ninth. One good piece of news came Saturday when Miles Bridges returned from a six-game absence due to COVID protocols. Bridges was breaking out in a big way before the absence and had largely taken over the role of the injured Gordon Hayward. In 19 starts this season, Bridges averaged 18.6 points and 6.7 rebounds on .508% shooting from the floor while knocking down .418% of his three-point field goal tries and .857% of his free throw attempts.
As noted above, Hayward suffered a foot injury on April 2 at the Pacers and hasn’t played since. He’s not expected to on Tuesday. Hayward was having a fine season, averaging 19.6 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.1 assists. Charlotte does have one sure-fire award winner this season in point guard LaMelo Ball. He’s the heavy favorite at the top-rated sportsbooks to win NBA Rookie of the Year and will do so. If the 2020 NBA Draft is re-held, Ball probably goes first to Minnesota instead of third. Ball was named Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month three times and finished averaging 15.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 6.1 assists and 1.59 steals per game, becoming just the 12th rookie to average at least 15.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.5 steals. The Hornets were 15-21 straight up away from home this season. They are 1-6 ATS on the NBA odds in their past seven as road dogs.
Indiana has way too much talent to be a 34-38 team, and in fact it may cost first-year coach Nate Bjorkgren his job – it almost surely will if the Pacers lose this game. There has been some grumbling among players about Bjorkgren. ESPN recently reported he has significant work to do with his relationships among players throughout the team and with some members of the organization to save his job. Bjorkgren has one more guaranteed year on his contract. Injuries certainly didn’t help Indiana this year. Myles Turner was having a Defensive Player of the Year-type season before going down April 18, and he will not play here. Malcolm Brogdon, Aaron Holiday, Jeremy Lamb and Edmond Sumner all missed Sunday’s win over the Raptors and Caris LeVert left with a migraine. I think most if not all of those guys should go Tuesday.
Domantas Sabonis played Sunday at less than 100 percent. That guy had a great season, averaging 20.3 points, 12.0 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game. He became the first player in franchise history and the fifth player in NBA history to record averages of 20 or more points, 12 or more rebounds and six or more assists per game. He is the first player since Kevin Garnett in 2002-03 to do it. The Pacers finished the regular season ranked sixth in the NBA in scoring and set a new NBA franchise record for the highest scoring average over a season at 115.3 points per game. Indiana also set a franchise record for three-pointers made in a season at 12.4 per game. For some reason (maybe no fans), Indiana was terrible at home this year with a 13-23 mark, finishing with a losing record at home for the first time since the 1989-90 season. Their 31-season streak with a winning record at home was tied for the third-longest in NBA history. However, the team covered the NBA betting spread in its final five home games and we are giving the points if all those injured guys do play as expected.
NBA Pick: Pacers at -3 (-110) with Bovada