The Indiana Pacers are having to make a minor change to their preseason schedule. Because the Indiana Fever beat the New York Liberty Tuesday night to advance to their third WNBA Finals in six years, Game 3 of the Finals is scheduled to be played at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Friday, Oct. 9 at 8:00 p.m. ET (ESPN2).
Therefore, the Pacers, who already had their third exhibition game scheduled for that night, moved the game to the night before — to Thursday, Oct. 8, 7:00 p.m.
[Click here to see their seven-game preseason schedule]
It’s not too much of a difference. The team will have one day between games — they’re in Detroit on Tuesday — instead of two, but then they’ll have four days until their next one. For Pacers fans, plus those that want to see IU grad Victor Oladipo in action, it’s no longer a weekend tilt anymore. And, maybe that’s better for some with Indiana high school football going on through the end of November.
“Not really,” Vogel said if the date change makes much of a difference to the team. “We’re going to have a bigger window of practices (after that). We might add some double sessions in there because of that.”
What would have been fun: Since they’re facing IU grad Victor Oladipo and the Magic, how about moving the game to Bloomington? Remember when they played the San Antonio Spurs in Assembly Hall back in 2009? That was cool.
While it’s a nice idea, 1) the organization needs many of those same staffers at the WNBA Finals game, and 2) then they would only have two home preseason games after already scheduling their preseason finale to be played up in Fort Wayne.
Make note of the new game date. We’ll now play @OrlandoMagic on Thu., 10/8 at @TheFieldhouse: http://t.co/rOtVOL5zYK pic.twitter.com/lvl9iKgD8W
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) September 30, 2015