The Nets had one of the best wins of the young NBA season on Saturday, beating the Pacers 136-133 despite being without eight players. That list included Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons, all of whom missed the game while managing injuries and workload.
While Brooklyn came away from the game ecstatic, the Pacers had to face the reality that they lost at home to a team missing all five starters and three reserves. Indiana forward Jalen Smith said the Pacers didn’t take the Nets seriously enough.
“We disrespected them,” Smith said, via the Indianapolis Star’s Dustin Doparik. “That’s on us. We just have to continue to treat it like if KD and Kyrie were out there and we had to make sure we were locking into what the coaches were telling us before the game. We knew it was going to be a dogfight. We said it coming into the game. It’s a whole bunch of guys trying to fight for minutes so they were going to go hard no matter what. We got punched in the mouth.”
The game was an opportunity for the Pacers to gain a spot in the standings early in the season, as both Brooklyn and Indiana currently sit in the top six of the Eastern Conference standings. Instead, the Pacers (14-13) fell further behind the Nets (16-12).
Indiana started the season 10-6 but has now dropped five of its past seven games. The Pacers are just a half game ahead of the next three teams in the standings: Atlanta, New York and Toronto.
