The Pacers were playing without six injured guards — Tyrese Haliburton (torn Achilles), T.J. McConnell (left hamstring strain), Kam Jones (lower back stress reaction), Quenton Jackson (right hamstring strain), Johnny Furphy (left foot soreness) and Andrew Nembhard (left shoulder strain) — during Saturday’s contest in Memphis (Twitter link).
Two more — rookie Taelon Peter (sore right groin) and Bennedict Mathurin (sore right foot) — were forced to exit the blowout loss after sustaining their own injuries, according to the team (Twitter links).
It’s an extremely unfortunate and seemingly unprecedented situation, as the reigning Eastern Conference champions now only have two healthy guards — Ben Sheppard and two-way player RayJ Dennis — on the roster just two games into the season. And even Sheppard chipped a tooth on Saturday, per Tony East of Circle City Spin (Twitter video link).
The Pacers may soon qualify for a hardship exception (perhaps more than one), depending on the severity of some of the team’s injuries.
We have more on the Pacers:
- Head coach Rick Carlisle said after Saturday’s game that Mathurin’s injury is specifically in the “forefoot” and he may undergo imaging tomorrow, assuming the Pacers can find somewhere to do it in Minneapolis on Sunday (Twitter link via Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star). Mathurin, who will be a restricted free agent next summer, was walking gingerly in the locker room, though he wasn’t in a walking boot or using crutches, Dopirak adds (via Twitter).
- It’s unclear how long Nembhard will be out after exiting Indiana’s season-opener against Oklahoma City. Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files (Substack link) provides more context on when the injury occurred, stating that Nembhard appeared to get tangled up with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the first half of Thursday’s game and immediately grabbed his left arm.
- Carlisle was incensed with the officials in the double-overtime thriller against the Thunder. As Dopirak writes (subscription required), two controversial plays involving timeouts went against Indiana during the nail-biting loss, one of which resulted in a technical foul on Carlisle. “I’m not talking about the refs,” Carlisle said after the game. “If I talk about the refs, I’m going to get fined an exorbitant amount of money.”