Pacers vs Wizards Play-In Tournament Odds and Picks

• After both lost on Tuesday, the Wizards will face the Pacers to see who is the Eastern 8th seed on Thursday night
• Washington has opened as a 3.5-point favorite
• Odds, analysis and a breakdown of the game below

Not many people saw a 144-point outing from the Indiana Pacers coming last night, especially with Caris LeVert sidelined because of COVID health and safety protocols. Indiana took down Charlotte 144-117 at home to clinch a spot in the final Eastern Conference play-in game Thursday night.

Also Tuesday, the Boston Celtics took down the Washington Wizards with similar relative ease, defeating Russell Westbrook’s team 118-100 as he failed to reach a triple-double for the only the third time in the past 13 games.

These two teams will play in DC on Thursday night at 8:00pm EST to decide who will play the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1st round of the playoffs.

Pacers vs Wizards Odds

Odds as of May 19th

What Did We Learn About the Pacers on Tuesday?

We learned that Indiana is deeper than we may have initially believed. Oshae Brissett led all scorers with 23 points, Domantas Sabonis had 14 points, 19 rebounds and nine assists, barely missing his fourth triple-double in a month, and T. J. McConnell had 25 super-productive minutes off the bench with 17 points, five rebounds, four steals and three assists.

What Can We Expect on Thursday?

The biggest superstar is going to go at it hard, and one has a heck of a lot more playoff experience than everyone else. Westbrook has appeared in 106 traditional playoff games. We should expect Westbrook’s numbers to be high because Malcolm Brogdon still has a long way to go to be a top-notch NBA defender.

Westbrook will be defended by some combination of Brogdon, T. J. McConnell and Aaron Holiday, while the Wizards have plenty of strong defensive guards – Westbrook, Ish Smith and Garrison Matthews – to limit Indiana’s best backcourt players.

The last three Wizards-Pacers were all won by Indiana with high scores: 132-124; 154-141 and 133-132 in OT. The last three Wizards games have gone “under” on the total. Also, the Wizards are 19-16-0 ATS at home and the Pacers are 18-17-0 on the road.

The matchups have mismatches written all over them, so expect to see more big totals from the two biggest Wizards stars, and probably from Sabonis, too.

The availability of LeVert is a big question mark. Washington also has All-Star Bradley Beal, the league’s No. 2 scorer, who dropped 22 points, nine rebounds and six assists Tuesday.  Beal has been recovering from a hamstring injury, shooting 10-for-25 and 8-for-27 in his past two games. LaVert (health and safety protocols) was out Tuesday, and Sabonis played with a quad issue.