We may be getting ahead of ourselves, but another edition of “Pacers and racers” is possible on Sunday, May 25.
The NBA updated its playoff schedule Tuesday, revealing that Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals would be at 8 p.m. ET on Indianapolis 500 race day.
If the Indiana Pacers beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference semifinals, the Pacers would host that game. Indiana is seeded No. 4, and either the Boston Celtics (No. 2) or New York Knicks (No. 3) would host the first two games of the conference finals.
The Pacers also hosted home games on race days in 2004 (Buddy Rice wins, and the Pacers lose to the Detroit Pistons) and 2013 (Tony Kanaan wins, and the Pacers lose to the Miami Heat).
Last season, the Pacers hosted the Celtics on Saturday, May 25, and Monday, May 27, in the conference finals. Indiana lost both games and the series.
The race and Pacers playoffs also overlapped in 2020, but in a weird way. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, both were in August. Takuma Sato won the race for the second time, while the Pacers were being swept by the Heat in a first-round series in a Florida “bubble.”