Pacers look to close out homestand with win over Raptors

After facing Western Conference contenders in the first three dates of their four-game homestand, the Indiana Pacers close out the set on Wednesday with their struggling Eastern Conference counterparts, the Toronto Raptors.Indiana began its challenging home stretch with wins over Memphis (127-113) on Thursday and a 129-111 rout of the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday. However, three-time NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic’s 18-point, 19-assist effort contributed to red-hot Denver snapping a three-game Pacers winning streak on Monday in a 125-116 decision.Indiana aims to bounce back against a Toronto team languishing in 13th place in the East. Despite the Raptors’ struggles, including dropping Tuesday’s leg of a back-to-back vs. Boston, 111-101, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle pointed to Indiana’s difficulties with Toronto in early-season matchups.”Toronto’s a big, physical team that we’ve had a lot of problems with,” Carlisle said.The Raptors won the two previous meetings: the first in November (130-119) and the second in December (122-111). Both were played in Toronto. RJ Barrett scored 39 and 29 points in the two previous encounters, while Scottie Barnes went for 35 points in the December meeting.Barrett comes into Indiana with a five-game streak of scoring at least 20 points. He is averaging 21.9 points per game after Tuesday’s 22-point effort, but at 1-for-5 against Boston, had his worst 3-point shooting performance in the month of February.”Sometimes you make shots, sometimes you don’t,” Barrett told reporters following the game. “They just didn’t drop today. I think even with that, we still played hard, and we still played well.”Toronto has dropped seven of its last nine games with Tuesday’s loss, which followed a 127-109 rout of Phoenix on Sunday. The Raptors took Miami to overtime in a 120-111 loss on Friday.Toronto currently is playing without Jakob Poeltl, a linchpin to the size that Carlisle said gave Indiana trouble. Poeltl’s status for Wednesday is uncertain due to a hip injury that has kept him out since last playing on Feb. 4. Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic told reporters before Tuesday’s game that the center is “very close” to a return.