Pacers Fall 108-104 to Hawks After Playing Only Six Players

Six Indiana Pacers played all 240 minutes Monday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, and the Atlanta Hawks did not close out a 108-104 win until Onyeka Okongwu's 12-foot driving hook with 10.2 seconds left.

Indiana was on the second night of a back-to-back, a day after a 98-90 home loss to the Brooklyn Nets. Pascal Siakam sat out for rest. Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, and Ivica Zubac did not dress, and Tyrese Haliburton, T.J. McConnell, Larry Nance Jr., Ben Sheppard, and Johnny Furphy were inactive.

Nembhard scored 23 points against Brooklyn on Sunday. On Monday, the Pacers listed him with cervical injury management and Nesmith with left hamstring injury management. Zubac has a left ankle sprain. Haliburton has a left hamstring strain.

The official box score lists Kelly Oubre Jr. and Obi Toppin as coach's decisions. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said Oubre was unable to go at the last second because of what he believed was a bruised knee, which took Indiana from seven players down to six.

"The math of that does not look very good when you're talking about minutes played situation, but the guys left everything out there, and our fans got their money's worth, even though we weren't able to win the game," Carlisle said.

Toppin's back went out before shootaround Friday in Miami, and Indiana scratched him that afternoon.

Jarace Walker played 44:41. Braden Smith logged 42:13, Jalen Slawson 40:39, Jay Huff 40:06, Kobe Brown 37:51, and Quenton Jackson 34:30.

Atlanta went 7-of-10 from 3-point range in the first quarter and led 37-29 after it. Nickeil Alexander-Walker had 10 of those points.

Corey Kispert came off the bench and hit three 3-pointers in the first 2:16 of the second quarter. The last one made it 46-32. Alexander-Walker had 19 points at halftime, Atlanta had 15 3-pointers, and the Hawks led 68-56.

The lead reached 15 at 73-58 on a Dyson Daniels turnaround with 9:48 left in the third quarter. Indiana was within 87-79 entering the fourth.

Alexander-Walker finished with 34 points on 12-of-25 shooting and went 9-of-15 from beyond the arc. Kispert and Luguentz Dort scored 14 points apiece. CJ McCollum had 13 points, 9 rebounds, and 12 assists while shooting 4-of-17, and Okongwu added 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Atlanta went 23-of-51 from 3-point range. The Hawks played without Jalen Johnson, who has a left ankle sprain.

Jackson's three-point play with 7:36 left cut Atlanta's lead to 93-90. The Hawks scored the next eight points, the last six on consecutive 3-pointers by Dort and Alexander-Walker, and led 101-90 with six minutes to go.

Indiana scored 14 of the next 19 points. Huff hit a 7-foot floater and one of two free throws, and Brown made two at the line. Smith's 25-foot 3-pointer with 3:26 left cut it to 104-98. Jackson made two free throws at 2:53, and Huff made two more at 2:24 after a take foul by Okongwu.

McCollum went 2-of-2 at the line with 2:10 left after a foul on Brown. Indiana challenged the call, and it stood.

Jackson then stole an Alexander-Walker pass and dunked in transition with 1:23 remaining to make it 106-104. On Atlanta's next trip, he blocked an Alexander-Walker 3-point attempt from 26 feet.

Slawson replaced Smith with 58.7 seconds left. Jackson missed a 26-foot 3-pointer at the 43-second mark, and McCollum missed one from 25 feet on the other end before Daniels grabbed the offensive rebound.

Huff blocked Alexander-Walker's drive with 12.9 seconds left, but Atlanta kept the ball and called timeout. Okongwu scored off a McCollum pass out of that timeout. Huff's 26-foot 3-pointer with 3.8 seconds left missed.

Huff finished with 22 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 assists on 8-of-14 shooting, plus 2 blocks. He had 17 of those points in the first half on 7-of-10. A night earlier against Brooklyn, he went 0-of-2 and fouled out.

Huff had a big impact for Carlisle, who named him right after Smith when he went through all six players afterward.

"Jay played very well," Carlisle explained. "Braden set him up for a lot of his baskets at the rim with timely passes and creating difficult situations for the defense. There were a lot of very heartening things from this game that we've got to carry over."

Jackson finished with 20 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks. Smith had 19 points and 10 assists in his first career start. Brown scored 16, Walker had 15 points and 7 rebounds, and Slawson added 12 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 blocks.

Indiana outscored Atlanta 54-26 in the paint and went 8-of-34 from 3-point range. The Hawks grabbed 17 offensive rebounds to the Pacers' 5, won second-chance points 22-5, and took 103 shots to Indiana's 80.

The Pacers made 20 of 23 free throws. Atlanta went 5-of-8, and no Indiana player finished with more than three fouls.

Playing smart mattered as much as playing hard for Jackson, with six players and nobody to spare.

"Six guys, you know? I think the big thing was don't foul out," Jackson said. "So you try to play without your hands as much as possible. You got to be a little bit smarter. Don't have a lot of guys. So I think that goes back to just playing hard but playing smart at the same time, knowing our reality and just kind of handling it as it came to us."

The loss was Indiana's fifth straight. The Pacers fell to 2-6, and Atlanta moved to 4-4.

Indiana plays at the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. The Pacers and Hawks meet again Dec. 3 in Atlanta.