The Pacers look to snap a five-game skid Monday against the Houston Rockets, and they’ll have to do so without a key contributor. Key reserve Rodney Stuckey, who exited Saturday’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets in the first half due to a left calf strain, will not play.
Stuckey is day-to-day, and coach Frank Vogel is hopeful that the injury, which Stuckey first suffered Mar. 14 against Boston, won’t cause him to miss anymore time.
“Hopefully this is the last game he misses,” he said during his pregame availability.
Monday’s game will be his nine absence of the season. A left foot injury caused him to miss seven games in November, and a groin strain kept him out one game (Jan. 7).
With Stuckey out, Vogel said he’ll most likely give more minutes to guy already in the rotation.
“We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll try to stretch out the guys that have been in the rotation. If we need (Chris Copeland) to get in there, if we need Donald Sloan to get in there, those guys have to be ready.”
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Defense will be especially critical Monday with the Houston Rockets in town. The Rockets (46-23) are third in the highly competitive Western Conference and average more than 103 points per game. During the Pacers’ current five-game losing streak, they’ve given up at least 93 points in each game.
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In Saturday’s loss to the Nets, they gave up 123 points on better than 61 percent shooting.
“Get better at everything,” Vogel said of tonight’s defensive emphasis. “The other night was not us. You have to credit the Brooklyn Nets. They made you pay every time we made a mistake but there’s a lot of things we can do better.”
The tallest task will be keeping All-Star and MVP candidate James Harden in check. He’s averaging almost 27 points per game, second to only Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook (27.5ppg), and almost 10 free throw attempts.
The Pacers want to take away the 3-ball and contest everything. Keeping him off the foul line, according to Vogel, is “near impossible.”