Indiana pace into NBA's in-season tournament quarters
The Indiana Pacers beat the Atlanta Hawks 157-152 in a rollicking NBA shootout on Tuesday to become the first team to reach the knockout stage of the league's new in-season tournament. Indiana's Tyrese Haliburton, who said this week the new tournament gave "more juice" to early-season games, scored 22 of his 37 points in the third quarter as the Pacers erased a 20-point first-half deficit. In the fourth quarter it was Buddy Hield who stepped up, scoring 13 of his 24 points as the Pacers came out on top of a furious back-and-forth finish. Hield's three-pointer put Indiana up 152-150 with 1.20 remaining in the game. After Saddiq Bey pulled Atlanta level with a layup, Hield drained another three-pointer for a 155-152 Pacers lead with less than a minute to go. Hield capped the outrageous scoring with an alley-oop dunk with five-tenths of a second remaining. Obi Toppin scored 21 points off the bench for Indiana and Bennedict Mathurin added 19. Trae Young scored 38 points to lead the Hawks, who led by 20 in the second quarter. The quarter-finals will be played December 4-5, with winners advancing to semi-final games on December 7 and a championship match on December 9 in Las Vegas. Elsewhere, it was a tight finish in Philadelphia, where Darius Garland scored 32 points to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 122-119 overtime victory over the 76ers that kept alive the Cavs' hopes of advancing in the tournament via a wild card berth. Reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid scored 32 points and grabbed 13 rebounds and Tyrese Maxey added 30 points for Philadelphia, but the 76ers were eliminated from tournament contention. (AFP)