Final: Celtics 112, Pacers 111

GAME: No. 33 of 82
WHO: Celtics (25-7) vs. Pacers (17-13)
WHEN:  7:00 EST
WHERE:  Bankers Life FieldHouse
RADIO: 100.7 WZLX
TV: NBC Sports Boston
BOX SCORE: ESPN.COM

Projected Starting Lineups:

Celtics
PG: Kyrie Irving
SG: Jaylen Brown
SF: Jayson Tatum 
PF: Al Horford
C: Aron Baynes

Pacers:

PG: Darren Collison
SG: Victor Oladipo
SF: Bojan Bogdanovic
PF: Thaddeus Young
C: Myles Turner

Second quarter notes

• Brad Stevens went back to the bench lineup of Larkin/Rozier/Tatum/Horford/Theis to at the start of the second quarter (the same one that took over the Grizzlies game) but pulled the plug on it fairly quickly as the Pacers went smaller and created some speed mismatches. Semi Ojeleye came in relatively quickly for Theis.


• The offense stalled overall with that group, outside of a impressive jam by Jayson Tatum midway through the frame in traffic. Instead, it was Marcus Smart (4-of-4 from 3-point range) that did the heavy lifting for the bench unit over the rest of the frame. He scored 12 of the team's 17 bench points early.


• The Celtics remained red-hot from 3-point range overall in the second quarter, going 9-of-16 from deep in the first half.


• Daniel Theis had a tough night overall in the middle rebounding and handling the ball on offense. He was a minus eight in seven minutes.


• After having a 19-point lead cut to eight, the starters (plus Smart) restored some order in the final two minutes of the frame by putting together a 7-1 run to push the game back out to 15. Starting lineup combined to shot 63 percent in the first half overall.

• Can't ask for a better start for this game from the Celtics offense. Team got makes from all five members of the starting unit in route to a 10-of-10 start from the field.


• The torrid start was orchestrated largely through playing with Al Horford in the post against Thaddeus Young. He made the first shot of the game in single coverage and then found open shooters repeatedly when the Pacers brought help.


• Jayson Tatum also had a big mismatch against Bojan Bogdanovic, who he beat a couple time in isolation situations.


• Horford and Tatum got an early rest as Brad Stevens started rolling with a new look bench rotation that featured longer early minutes for Baynes and Horford/Tatum anchoring the second unit with Theis and Rozier, a group that saw great success in Memphis on Saturday night.

• The Celtics will be without Marcus Morris for the sixth straight game in Indianapolis, but the forward is inching closer to a return. He received a PRP injection in his left knee on Saturday and could be back in the lineup in a matter of days, not weeks. "He feels better," Stevens said before the game, "And I guess that’s a pretty typical procedure, and will ramp up basketball in the next couple of days with the hope of playing sooner rather than later on an on-and-off schedule, is the best way to put it. He probably won’t play every game or obviously back-to-back games. A game, three days off, a game, try it that way, and then progressing back to every other day. He won’t play back-to-backs for awhile and all that stuff. He is feeling better. He was feeling better prior to (suffering the contusion)."


• Daniel Theis will be active on Monday night but he'll miss Wednesday's game against the Heat to have his broken nose reset. "He'll get up early [Tuesday] and go to the doctor and have his nose worked on," Stevens said. "He'll be out Wednesday. Supposedly, it's a 1-2 day away thing, and then he should be back and available on Thursday, depending on how he feels. It's pretty remarkable when you think about it."


• Myles Turner is a game-time decision for the Pacers after suffering an unspecified injury at the end of the Pacers-Nets game on Sunday night in Brooklyn.


• Gordon Hayward is in the midst of doing some film work for his younger teammates as one of the projects Brad Stevens has assigned the All-Star forward is showing off his flaws from early in his career. "He's doing a couple of small film projects for us. One of them, we had one of our assistants clip up him from his first couple years of playing, which was pretty entertaining. Just looking at some of the mistakes, the floppy hair and watching it with some of our younger players to talk about his growing pains and some of the things he had to go through. We'll do ad hoc stuff like that as the year goes on. He's progressed out of the boot and is in a brace. He can continue to progress. He's not on the court by any means...he's a ways away."