East Notes: Pacers, Tyrese Haliburton, Bucks, Pistons

Pacers

The Pacers have been inconsistent since playing for the In-Season Tournament title, but managed to win a biggie on the road over the Bucks on Monday. Their bench outscored Milwaukee’s by a whopping 70-16 count.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who can contribute,” point guard Tyrese Haliburton told reporters. “That’s the best part about our team. Some nights, the starting lineup’s got it going. Nights like tonight, where we come out slow, our bench has to come in and kind of wake the game up.”

• Haliburton finished with 26 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds as Indiana snapped the Bucks’ 15-game home winning streak.
• He stopped short of calling the Bucks a rival. “That’s a team that’s competed for a championship for multiple years,” Haliburton said. “We’re on the up-and-up, but we haven’t been there yet. A lot of respect for them as a group. I don’t think I can really call it a rivalry yet. But we’re going to compete no matter who it’s against, and we play these guys a lot during the year. We’re ready when we see them.”

Bucks 

Star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo finished Monday’s home loss to the Pacers with 30 points, 18 rebounds and 11 assists — for the 38th triple-double of his career.

In fact, he’s averaging 46.3 points and 13.5 rebounds vs. Indiana this season. But Milwaukee is just 1-3 in those games.

The teams meet again Wednesday at Indiana.

“We’ve got to figure it out,” Antetokounmpo told reporters. “You just never know. You might see them in the playoffs. We’re definitely going to see them again in two days. At the end of the day, this makes us better. It makes us better. We’ve got to go watch the tapes, figure out what they do well against us and try to stop it. And if we cannot stop it, we’ll probably lose again.”

Pistons

The Pistons fell to the Rockets one game after snapping their 28-game skid, and guard/forward Bojan Bogdanovic said it was the type of defeat that should never happen.

“We are one of the youngest teams in the league, so no one should outwork us ever, and that’s what happened tonight,” Bogdanovic told reporters. “They kind of outrun us, outworked us, and that’s got to stop.”

• Coach Monty Williams added he was curious how his team would respond after finally getting a win. “I thought about it the last day,” Williams said. “When you’re fighting for a win like we were for so long and you get one, I’m sure there’s emotional stuff that I can’t explain, but when you’re in our situation, you got to recover quickly.”
• Leading scorer Cade Cunningham was just 3-of-16 from the field and had just six points. He did pass for 10 assists, though.