By Scott Kacsmar
The NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament will play its championship game this Saturday night in Las Vegas. LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are a 4-point favorite against Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers.
It is really a perfect matchup for this new event with the game’s greatest player of this century taking on a rising star who is exceeding all expectations right now with a young team from Indiana.
How did they get here, who has the edge on Saturday night, and which team is going to walk away with $500,000 for each player on the winning team? We have a preview and our picks for this exciting conclusion to what has gone from a hokey event with odd-colored floors to a display of quality, playoff-style basketball in December.
Los Angeles Lakers: Path to the Championship Game
- Record: 14-9
- Offensive Rating: 111.8 (23rd)
- Defensive Rating: 110.7 (5th)
- Net Rating: +1.2 (16th)
- In-Season Tournament: 6-0 record, defeated Suns 106-103 in quarterfinals, defeated Pelicans 133-89 in semifinals
Even though he turns 39 this month, LeBron James is still frequently leaving the court after putting in the best performance of any player that night. He is tracking to average 25 points per game for a 20th season in a row and his FG% (.553) is currently the third-highest season of his career. He is also shooting 40.7% from 3-point territory, which would be a career high.
He’s also still pulling down 7.5 rebounds and 6.6 assists per game despite averaging 33.4 minutes (career low). He’s already had one triple-double this season and the Lakers are 6-1 when he scores at least 30 points.
The Lakers are only 8-9 in games outside of the tournament this year, but you almost get the sense that LeBron is picking his spots for those games and would love to go down as the winner of the inaugural event to add yet another accomplishment to his resume.
After trailing the Pelicans 30-29 after a quarter of the semifinals game, the Lakers were dominant the rest of the way in winning by 44 points. James scored 18 points in the second quarter alone on his way to 30 points. The Pelicans shot just 35.8% in the game with no one reaching 15 points.
The Lakers have yet to allow any team to score 120 points on them in a tournament game. But they are 1-6 in the other regular season games when they allow 120 points compared to 13-3 when they allow fewer than 120 points this season.
The Lakers have been playing great this week, but they will get a serious challenge from an Indiana team that doesn’t know how great it can be yet.
Indiana Pacers: Path to the Championship Game
- Record: 12-8
- Offensive Rating: 123.3 (1st)
- Defensive Rating: 119.9 (28th)
- Net Rating: +3.4 (9th)
- In-Season Tournament: 6-0 record, defeated Celtics 122-112 in quarterfinals, defeated Bucks 128-119 in semifinals
We said three weeks ago that the Indiana Pacers were one of the most improved, pleasant surprise teams of the season, but they have really outdone themselves this week in this tournament by knocking off the favored Celtics and Bucks.
Like how LeBron leads the Lakers, the Pacers are led by Tyrese Haliburton, who is becoming one of the best, most exciting players in the game in his fourth season. Haliburton’s MVP odds have improved to +1500 as he leads the NBA in assists per game (12.1) while also averaging 26.9 points per game.
Haliburton’s efficiency has been off the charts. He played in his first TNT game on Monday night against Boston in the quarterfinals, and he had the first triple-double of his career with 26 points, 10 rebounds, and 13 assists.
For an encore in the semifinals against Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard of the Bucks, Haliburton had 27 points, 15 assists, and 0 turnovers. There have only been 17 games in NBA history where a player had at least 25 points, 15 assists, and no turnovers. Haliburton has three such games in the last month now.
We are witnessing something special here with the way Haliburton is elevating this young team with Myles Turner, Obi Toppin, and Benedict Mathurin playing above their heads so far. They have been fun to watch the top offense and the fastest-paced offense thanks to the way Haliburton is dealing. He already has five games with at least 15 assists this year.
Who Has the Edge on Saturday Night?
These teams have not met this season. We can only be so lucky if Saturday night’s game turns out as good as their two matchups from last season where each team came back from double digits in the fourth quarter to win by 1 point.
The Pacers have the best offense and certainly a better one than the Lakers, so they will want to run and turn this into a shootout. We said the Lakers are only 1-6 when allowing 120 points this year, and 120 points is a mark the Pacers have reached in 16-of-20 games (80%) this year. The over is also 16-4 in Indiana games, including 8-2 when they are the underdog, the highest hit rates this season.
The Lakers have playoff experience and a veteran team, which should help, but this is just one game and not a best-of-7 series. The Lakers also have very few quality wins this year as their claim to fame is going 3-0 against a disappointing Phoenix team. The Pacers just knocked off the Celtics and Bucks this week, the top title contenders in the Eastern Conference and arguably the whole NBA. The Pacers also won an in-season tournament game 132-126 in Philadelphia against Joel Embiid. Their run to this game is no doubt more impressive than the Lakers.
With the Lakers, you still get your usual issues of Anthony Davis disappearing for full halves or sometimes full games. His defensive game has been more consistent this year as a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, but you can’t always count on him to show up as a scorer. D’Angelo Russell runs hot and cold, and the minutes where LeBron goes to the bench can be dicey. The Lakers have already lost 4 games this season where LeBron was at least a +6. That only happened 3 times all of last season (playoffs included).
Both teams played very well on Thursday night, though the Pacers only shot 7-of-33 (.212) from 3 while the Lakers were hot at 17-of-35 (.486), so regression could favor Indiana there as Indiana is the No. 6 team in 3P% (.381) while the Lakers are only 27th (.343).
While the Lakers need that vintage LeBron performance or Davis to dominate the offensive glass, the Pacers are really better off when Haliburton can play facilitator and set his teammates up for easy shots. The Pacers are only 2-4 when he scores 30 points this year, though that does include a pair of 1-point losses to the Raptors and Hornets.
The Pacers allow the most points in the paint, but they also score the most points in the paint this year. The Lakers are surprisingly dead last in second-chance points. But the Pacers also protect the ball better and shouldn’t feed the Lakers many turnovers for easy points.
Indiana is 7-3 ATS as an underdog this season. The Lakers are only 8-7 ATS as a favorite.
It makes plenty of narrative sense to see LeBron win the first in-season tournament, but I think you have to acknowledge that the Pacers are playing very good basketball against tough teams and excelling behind their own young star right now. It’s just one game and I think you can trust the offensive team in a 1-game setting. I’d back the Lakers in a best-of-7 between these teams, but Saturday night’s pick is the Pacers with the points.
NBA Pick: Pacers +4 (-110) at FanDuel
Bonus: Same Game Parlay
Finally, we wanted to include a 6-leg Same Game Parlay with +720 odds at FanDuel for this inaugural championship game:
- LeBron James Over 28.5 Points
- Tyrese Haliburton 25+ Points
- Tyrese Haliburton 4+ 3-Point Field Goals Made
- Tyrese Haliburton 12+ Assists
- Anthony Davis 12+ Rebounds
- Myles Turner 15+ Points
While we don’t trust Davis’ scoring, we do trust him to have a big rebounding edge as his over/under is 13.5 in this game. We’ll take a dozen while LeBron flirts with another 30-point game for the Lakers. You could also consider adding Austin Reaves scoring 15+ in this game when he is added to the props, because he has been very solid this week as a secondary scoring option, and the Pacers allow a high point total to shooting guards this year.
For Haliburton, we like a 25/12 game this time, and he has been very solid from 3-point territory and will look to put on a show here. He has made over 3.5 3-point field goals in 9-of-18 games this year, and he has scored at least 26 points in 7 straight games.
For our last pick, Haliburton cannot do it alone, and Myles Turner has scored at least 15 points in 13-of-20 games this year for a solid hit rate of 65%. He has scored at least 17 points in his last 3 games, including a great 26-point game against Giannis, Brook Lopez, and the Bucks on Thursday.
Hopefully the game will be great, and we get to see the starters going at it down to the last second.
