Pacers vs Lakers Odds, Picks, and Predictions Tonight: NBA In-Season Tournament Final

Imagine if back in July, when the NBA In-Season Tournament odds were first released, I had told you that the best bet on the board was the Indiana Pacers. You would have thought I was absolutely crazy, but here we are — the Pacers versus the Los Angeles Lakers for the first-ever NBA Cup.

Shoutout to Tyrese Haliburton for taking things into his own hands. The NBA scheduled the Indiana Pacers for only one nationally broadcast game the entire season, so Haliburton decided to go nuclear in the tournament just so the world could see how fun this Pacers squad really is.

The problem for Haliburton & Co. is that they have one big obstacle in their way: LeBron James and the Lakers. Maybe you didn’t think they would be interested in winning the NBA Cup at the beginning of the season (guilty), but James only has a couple of chances left to add this championship to his resume, and you just know he wants to win the first one ever.

With the NBA odds available for the championship game between the Pacers and Lakers, let's dive into our free NBA picks for Pacers vs. Lakers on Saturday, December 9.

Make sure to also check out our favorite In-Season Tournament Final props and LeBron James spotlight picks ahead of tip-off!

Pacers vs Lakers odds

Pacers vs Lakers predictions

The Indiana Pacers are one of the most exciting teams to watch in the NBA. It's all about pace and offense; they’re just eager to inbound the ball once you score. While this is how they play most of their regular-season games, we've seen a slightly different version of the Pacers in these knockout-round games of the NBA In-Season Tournament.

This isn’t just another regular-season game in December anymore; the defensive intensity is high for both teams, and you can see it in their metrics. I mean, we have a championship on the line here — a $500,000 cash prize to each winning player and the opportunity to party in Las Vegas right after you win.

The Pacers' defensive rating on the season is 119.8, but in the two elimination games against the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks, it's 110.5. It's a small sample size, of course, but it’s not like these two teams lack any firepower, and the Pacers' defense has stepped up when it has mattered.

We're seeing a similar thing with the Lakers' defense as well. The Lakers have a defensive rating of 110.3 on the season, but it's 95.5 in the two knockout-round games. I think you can see where I'm going with this — the attention to detail in the scouting report and defensive intensity is much higher because of the higher stakes.

Not only are both teams playing better defense in these games, but the Lakers also possess a big-time counter to one of the Pacers' strengths. The Pacers lead the NBA with 59.7 points per game in the paint. This means that Anthony Davis has the opportunity to be extremely disruptive to the Pacers' offense.

I love the Pacers' offense; they’re one of my top NBA League Pass teams. But for this specific game, I think you need to look at the Under on the game total. I think this total should be closer to 238, which means we can price the Under 241 at -135, and we’re also stealing a point here by betting it at bet365. Most of the other sportsbooks in the market are trading this total at 240.

My best bet: Under 241 (-110 at bet365)

Pacers vs Lakers same-game parlay

Under 240.5

Anthony Davis Over 2.5 blocks

Tyrese Haliburton Under 2.5 turnovers

+650 at bet365

You may notice a slightly different number in the game total between our SGP and the number we've chosen as our best bet. This difference stems from the fact that the odds for the spread, moneyline, and total for the championship game were released much earlier than all the odds we can incorporate into an SGP. Consequently, these bets were written at different times. In the breakdown above, I talked about how I prefer this total at 238. So, even though it's trading at 240.5 instead of 241 now, we still have a nice edge here that we can exploit.

With the second leg of the SGP, I’m targeting the Over on Davis’ blocked shots. This is more of an opportunity thing for Davis, as the Pacers lead the NBA in points in the paint. If the Pacers take a high number of field goal attempts around the rim, Davis will have plenty of chances for a couple of rejections.

Lastly, I'm just not going to overthink this leg based on what we are seeing from Tyrese Haliburton. In the knockout round, Haliburton had 28 assists and 0 turnovers against the Bucks and Celtics. Yes, you read that correctly, and it is an absolutely insane statistic. Haliburton going Under his turnover total also helps us with our game total going Under as well because live ball turnovers mean runouts and quick, easy baskets, and we don’t want any part of that.

28 assists and 0 turnovers — what a statistic. I just had to highlight it again because Haliburton is playing unbelievable basketball at the moment.

Learn how to bet a same-game parlay with these helpful tips and strategies.

Pacers vs Lakers spread and Over/Under analysis

The spread for Saturday’s Championship game opened at Lakers -4, and that’s still the consensus number in the market. Only BetMGM has a different line at the moment, as they’re hanging the Lakers at -3.5, but we are seeing increased juice (-115) on the Lakers side of the spread.

The total for this matchup between the Lakers and Pacers opened at 240.5, and most sportsbooks are still sitting around this number. We’re seeing some 240 and 241 out there in the market as well, but the number hasn’t seen too much movement either way since the opening line was released.

Pacers vs Lakers betting trend to know

The Los Angeles Lakers have hit the 4Q Under in 31 of their last 42 games (+18.90 Units / 40% ROI). Find more NBA betting trends for Pacers vs. Lakers.

Pacers vs Lakers game info

Pacers vs Lakers latest injuries

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