Pelle Larsson is emerging as a key contributor for the Miami Heat, who face the visiting Indiana Pacers on Saturday.
Indiana owns the league’s worst record at 6-25 after losing 140-122 to the Boston Celtics on Friday in Indianapolis. The defeat was Indiana’s seventh straight.
The Pacers face another challenging matchup against Miami, which snapped a three-game losing streak with a 126-111 road win over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday.
Larsson returned after missing five games with a sprained left ankle and scored a career-high 21 points in Miami’s victory.
The second-year forward helped Miami move one game over .500 at 16-15. Larsson shot 9 of 13 from the floor, sank 3 of 4 from 3-point range and added six rebounds and five assists.
The Heat had dropped eight of their previous nine games entering the Friday contest, so Miami coach Erik Spoelstra was quick to praise Larsson’s impact after the game.
“You see the glue and intangibles he provides,” Spoelstra said. “He just does so many intangibles on both sides of the court. He cuts, he moves for you offensively, and it helps all your better players. We were missing a ton of that.”
Six players scored in double figures for Miami, which was without Tyler Herro (toe) and Bam Adebayo (back).
Forward Nikola Jovic returned after missing four games with an elbow injury and had 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists in 21 minutes.
Herro is expected to miss his seventh straight game on Saturday, while Adebayo sat out the Friday game due to back discomfort.
Adebayo is listed as day-to-day and will be evaluated prior to the Saturday game.
“I know how much he wants to be out there,” Spoelstra said. “But since it is back soreness and he wasn’t moving well two days ago, it didn’t really get better (Thursday). (Friday) was just full treatment and some light activities. So we’ll see where he is (Saturday).”
Miami and Indiana face off for the first time since splitting four games last season.
The Pacers outscored Boston 39-28 in the first quarter on Friday, but the Celtics stormed back with 47 points in the second period.
“We’ve just got to play better,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “When you get a start like that, it’s always going to be a challenge to sustain it, but we made some critical mistakes on plays that were controllable situations.”
Andrew Nembhard led Indiana with 18 points and eight assists, while Bennedict Mathurin and T.J. McConnell had 13 points apiece.
McConnell scored in double figures for the third straight game. He also provided a spark late in the third quarter on Friday by getting in a tussle with Boston’s Jordan Walsh. Both players were assessed a technical foul.
“That’s what we need consistently is that level of collective fight. … That was great to see,” Carlisle said. “It can’t just be one guy generating it (late in the game). We’ve gotta have this at the start of games.”
The Pacers haven’t won a game since Dec. 8, leaving Carlisle one win shy of 1,000 career NBA victories. Indiana is next-to-last among NBA teams in scoring (109.6 points per game) and is last in field-goal percentage (43.1%) and 3-point percentage (32.5%).
