{"id":576624,"date":"2026-02-02T05:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T05:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/576624\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T05:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T05:20:17","slug":"rockets-visit-the-midwest-again-hoping-to-stop-the-pacers-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/576624\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets Visit the Midwest Again, Hoping to Stop the Pacers\u2019 Momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This Indy team might still be reeling after the shocking win in the 2025 Finals rematch last month. Pascal Siakam was even just honored with his fourth All-Star selection, despite their 13-36 record.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent of those wins came from their previous games against Chicago and Atlanta. The two Play-In Tournament teams came to Indiana and gave the Pacers their second back to back wins of the new year, potentially giving them confidence for their next matchup.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Hosting the Rockets for a rematch of the <a href=\"https:\/\/roundtable.io\/sports\/nba\/rockets\/game-day\/rockets-control-three-quarters-pacers-fourth-isn-t-enough\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:December 29th;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">December 29th<\/a> outing, this struggling Indiana squad has an opportunity to get three straight wins. Definitely not something anyone on Houston\u2019s side wants to see happen.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, close battles against lower level teams has seemed to be a problem for the Rockets. You don\u2019t have to go back very far, as their Saturday night matchup vs. Cooper Flagg and the Mavericks is a perfect example.<\/p>\n<p>A game that truly had no business going all the way down to the wire, but we still saw it tied with 47 seconds left in the game, as was covered on <a href=\"https:\/\/roundtable.io\/sports\/nba\/rockets\/game-day\/sengun-overcomes-dreadful-shooting-night-to-prove-why-he-s-an-all-star\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Roundtable;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Roundtable<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>After just recently getting their road record <a href=\"https:\/\/roundtable.io\/sports\/nba\/rockets\/opinion\/rockets-defensive-clinic-brings-team-back-to-500-on-the-road\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:back to .500;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">back to .500<\/a>, the Rockets should view this as a must win game. As ridiculous as that might seem, losing this game would be even more ridiculous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This Indy team might still be reeling after the shocking win in the 2025 Finals rematch last month.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[676,7,919,225,292,113,126,3866,6,114,279,1101,77981],"class_list":{"0":"post-576624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-cooper-flagg","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-indiana","14":"tag-indiana-pacers","15":"tag-indianapacers","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-pacers","18":"tag-pascal-siakam","19":"tag-the-rockets","20":"tag-tournament-teams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115999357514734295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}