The Indiana Pacers will take on the Washington Wizards on Friday at Verizon Center.
Friday’s matchup features two of the hottest teams in the NBA that both recently had win streaks busted at home by the Cleveland Cavaliers. First, the visiting Pacers won seven straight games and looked to be well on their way to eight straight before blowing an early lead to the Cavaliers on Wednesday, and they ended up losing the game by 15 points. That win streak, however, vaulted Indiana back into Eastern Conference relevancy, as while they current sit in the No. 6 spot in the standings, they are just 1.5 games behind the Hawks for No. 5, two games behind both the Raptors and Wizards who are tied for No. 3, and just 4.5 behind the second-place Celtics.
As for those Wizards (31-21), they have shot up the standings as well thanks to their own seven-game win streak, and they have now won 15 of their last 18 games. They followed up their thrilling overtime loss to the Cavaliers with a bit of a letdown, as they needed overtime to defeat the league-worst Nets by just four points. They are still, however, sitting comfortably in the top half of the Eastern Conference standings, just two games behind the Celtics for the two-seed and five games behind Cleveland for the No. 1 overall seed in the conference.
This is the third of four meetings between the two teams this season, as the teams split the first two outings with the home team winning each one.
