Pacers team president Kevin Pritchard talks Tyrese Haliburton injury
Pacers team president Kevin Pritchard discusses Tyrese Haliburton’s injury and future on Monday, July 7, 2025, in the Ascension St. Vincent Center in Indianapolis.
INDIANAPOLIS — The Pacers will have one of their NBA Cup group play games nationally televised on Amazon Prime in the first year the streaming service will broadcast NBA games.
The NBA has been releasing its 2025-26 schedule in parts this week, and on Wednesday they announced the full NBA Cup schedule. The Pacers will play the Cavaliers in Cleveland on Friday, Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. on Amazon Prime in a rematch of the teams’ Eastern Conference semifinals series. The Cavs finished 64-18 last season to earn the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs and post the second-best record in their history, but the Pacers stunned them in five games in the semifinals en route to their first NBA Finals appearance since 2000 and just their second in franchise history.
The Cavs are considered early-line Eastern Conference favorites for next season. The Pacers likely would be had All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton torn his right Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. He will miss all of next season.
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In their other NBA Cup games, the Pacers will host the Hawks at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 31 and the Wizards on Friday Nov. 28 at 7:30 p.m. They will play the Raptors in Toronto at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 26.
The Hawks finished 40-42 last season in eighth place in the Eastern Conference. They lost to the No. 7 seed Magic and then the No. 10 seed Heat in the play-in round and failed to make the playoffs. However, they added center Kristaps Porzingis, ace defensive wing Nickeil Alexander-Walker and sharpshooter Luke Kennard in a busy offseason. They also bring back forward Jalen Johnson, who was averaging 18.9 points, 10.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.6 steals per game in his first 36 games of 2024-25 before a season-ending shoulder injury.
The Raptors finished 11th in the East at 30-52, but they’ll add now-healthy forward Brandon Ingram and rookie Collin Murray-Boyles to their wing heavy lineup. The Wizards finished last in the East at 18-64. They traded away leading scorer Jordan Poole but acquired veteran guard C.J. McCollum and wings Malakhi Branham and Cam Whitmore through trades. They also drafted guard Tre Johnson with the No. 6 pick out of Texas.
The Pacers reached the finals of what was then called the In-Season Tournament in 2023, losing to the Lakers. Their surprise run in that event helped accelerate their trajectory toward the Eastern Conference Finals in the 2023-24 season after they failed to make the playoffs in 2022-23. In 2024, the Pacers were winless in NBA Cup games and started the season 10-15, but went 40-17 the rest of the season to earn the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference en route to a conference championship and the Finals.
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