INDIANAPOLIS — Pacers rookie guard Kam Jones will miss most of the preseason with a back injury and third-year wing Ben Sheppard will miss Indiana’s preseason opener against the Timberwolves at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Minnesota with an undisclosed injury, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said after practice Monday.

“Kam’s out for a few weeks,” Carlisle said. “He has a thing with his back. It’s gonna take some time. He’ll be out at least two to three weeks.”

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Jones hasn’t been a full participant in preseason camp yet this season. The left-handed combo guard averaged 19.2 points and 5.9 assists per game at Marquette last season, earning second-team All-America and first-team All-Big East honors. The Pacers traded back into the draft to get the 38th overall pick in the second round of the June draft and selected him hoping he could provide depth at point guard with All-Star Tyrese Haliburton out for the season with an Achilles tendon tear. That’s still obviously the hope, but at 2-3 weeks, the Pacers won’t be able to get him action until the regular season starts.

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Carlisle said the Pacers are hopeful Sheppard will participate in practice on Thursday and ramp up activity to play in Saturday’s home preseason game against the Thunder. Sheppard averaged 5.3 points per game off the bench last year and has been reliable on both sides of the floor.

Carlisle said RayJ Dennis, a two-way contract point guard who has missed time with injury during the preseason, will be available. He would not say whether any veteran players would be held out of participation for rest purposes.

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The absence of Jones and Sheppard should open up minutes for a number of players. Second-year wing Johnny Furphy will likely see action with the Pacers’ second unit with Jarace Walker as the other wing. Veteran guard Delon Wright and two-way contract guards Quenton Jackson and Taelon Peter could get the minutes that would otherwise have gone to Jones.

Carlisle said he is pleased to get started with preseason games to push the team against outside competition. Their first two games come against the teams that reached the Western Conference finals last year. The Thunder beat the Timberwolves before beating the Pacers in the NBA Finals in seven games. They then have a home-and-home series against the Spurs after playing San Antonio in Paris last season. The Spurs missed the playoffs, but part of the reason was the absence of young superstar Victor Wembanyama, who missed the last two months of the season with deep vein thrombosis.

“Hard, efficient play,” Carlisle said when asked what he wanted to see on Tuesday. “I like that we’re playing all good teams. Minnesota was in the conference finals, Oklahoma City won the championship. San Antonio is a very good team. They lost Victor in the second half of the year otherwise they would have been a lot better. It’s a great opportunity.”

Carlisle said he wasn’t thrilled with the play from his team in the intrasquad scrimmage at Fan Jam on Sunday. The game was entertaining for the fans in the crowd as the Blue team defeated the White team 54-47 in a 20-minute scrimmage, but Carlisle thought it fell short of what he wanted to see.

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“Nothing,” Carlisle said when asked what he liked about it. “I know there was a lot of points and a lot of whoop-de-do and stuff like that, but there are some things that are important habits for us to be successful that we weren’t very good with. We had a lot of work today on that. Maintaining a high-level standard of what you’re doing and attention to detail and all that, it’s a daily task. I will say, the fans were great. It’s as good an environment as we’ve ever had FanJam.”

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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers injury update: On Kam Jones, Ben Sheppard for preseason opener