Matchup
After a week out West, the Pacers (13-10) return to the friendly confines of Bankers Life Fieldhouse to host the Chicago Bulls (5-19) on Tuesday evening.
Indiana returns home a little disappointed after back-to-back losses to the Lakers and Kings, but there is no shame in posting a 2-2 record on the trip, especially considering that all of those games came without All-Star guard Victor Oladipo, who remains out indefinitely with a sore right knee.
The good news for the Pacers is the schedule lightens up this month. The Pacers will play nine of their remaining 14 games in the month of December at home and just four of those 14 contests come against teams currently with a winning record. Even if Oladipo misses another couple of weeks, the Blue & Gold have a good chance of improving their record over that span.
To fully capitalize on this easier stretch of the schedule, however, the Pacers must take better control of the ball than they did in their last two games. Indiana had 17 turnovers in Thursday's loss in Los Angeles and a season-high 25 giveaways in Saturday's defeat in Sacramento.
The Bulls are in full-on rebuilding most this season and have lost six straight and 10 of their last 11 contests. They fired head coach Fred Hoiberg on Monday and named assistant Jim Boylen interim head coach. Boylen was an assistant for the Pacers under Frank Vogel from 2011-13 and will make his debut as Bulls head coach against his former team.
Chicago did get a boost on Saturday, as second-year forward Lauri Markkanen made his season debut against the Rockets after missing the first 23 games of the season with a sprained elbow.
The 7-foot Markkanen averaged 15.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game as a rookie. The Bulls can now pair him with 2018 first-round pick Wendell Carter Jr. and hope they develop into a formidable frontcourt tandem.