Pacers Without Haliburton Meet Mavericks Missing Three Frontcourt Players

Indiana comes to Dallas without Tyrese Haliburton, who is out with a hamstring injury. He is progressing well but has no timetable to return, so Indiana travels without him. That absence frames the matchup alongside a poor start: Indiana was 3-6 and 11th in the Eastern Conference heading into its game with Denver, which it then lost 114-102 in Mexico City. Dallas is 5-4 and 10th in the Western Conference, and it beat Utah 112-100 in an NBA Cup game on Friday. The Mavericks host at American Airlines Center with the more recent win.

Dallas has won all three completed meetings in the series. The latest was 121-105 at Indiana on 2026-10-23. Before that came a 134-130 win at Indiana on 2026-02-22 and a 107-105 win in Dallas on 2025-10-30. The October result was the widest of the three, but a three-game series is a small sample, and the two earlier games were tight. Head-to-head history is context here, not a strong indicator of how tonight will go.

Dallas is not at full strength. Center Dereck Lively II is out with a foot injury, and forwards Sergio de Larrea (knee) and Tarik Biberovic (heel) are also out. All three absences are up front, so Dallas's frontcourt rotation is the area to watch. Indiana has three guards out: Haliburton, Johnny Furphy and Ben Sheppard. Furphy (knee) is practicing with the G League's Noblesville Boom, while Sheppard is expected to miss months after surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. Sheppard's absence is long-term, so it is already built into Indiana's results.

The totals streaks pull in different directions. Dallas has gone over in four straight non-division, non-conference home games, yet it has gone under in its last three games overall. Indiana has gone under in four straight games. Streaks describe what has happened rather than what comes next, and the Dallas runs depend on which filter is applied, so none of them settles the scoring question.

Taken together, the evidence points modestly toward Dallas: it has the better record, the more recent win, three straight series victories, and an opponent missing Haliburton. Against that, Dallas has three frontcourt players out, early-season records are thin evidence, and the series sample is small. The decisive factors are most likely how Indiana's backcourt functions without Haliburton and whether Dallas's frontcourt depth holds up. Beyond those, the picture is fairly balanced and offers no strong separation between the teams.