Cleveland – Tyrese Haliburton scored 31 points, Pascal Siakam added 21 and the Indiana Pacers qualified for their second consecutive final of the Eastern Conference with a victory of 114-105 against Cleveland on Tuesday evening, eliminating the most leading riders in five games.
Donovan Mitchell, who missed the second half of the match on Sunday due to an ankle sprain, led Cleveland with 35 points. Evan Mobley added 24 points and 11 rebounds.
The fourth seeded pacers will now wait for the winner of the match between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks. New York has a 3-1 advantage in the series with match 5 Thursday evening in Boston.
Indiana has been the first team since the start of sowing in 1984 to reach the conference final during the consecutive years as four series or worse two times. They reached it last year in six series and were swept away by the possible Celtic champion.
The Pacers joined a 19-point deficit in first half and took control after half-time when he won the three games in Cleveland’s Rocket Arena.
This is the first time in a first round series in 2005 against Boston that the Pacers won three games on the road in an eliminatory series.
The Cavs abandoned three home games in an post-season series for the first time.
Cleveland stormed an advance of 44-25 with 8:10 to play in the second quarter before the Indiana rallied.
The Pacers arrived at less than 56-52 at halftime, then pulled 14 out of 22 on the field in the third quarter-including four 3 points-to increase by 85-76 in the last 12 minutes.
Indiana seized the control with a 17-2 race over a five-minute period in the third when Siakam collected eight points and Haliburton Five. It was part of a thrust of 29-8 which saw the pacers take a 12-point lead at the end of the third.
Cleveland had only 7 out of 26 on the trimester field.
The 3-point pointer from Mitchell obtained the Cavs in the 106-103 with 1:27 to play, but Indiana closed it by scoring eight of the last 10 points.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
