Celtics To Face Unlikely Opponent In Eastern Conference Finals

These probably weren’t the teams the Boston Celtics thought they would have to go through to get to the NBA Finals.

But after beating the Miami Heat in the first round and taking care of business against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Celtics now get the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals, which is set to start Tuesday at TD Garden.

The sixth-seeded Pacers, who defeated a Milwaukee Bucks team that didn’t have Giannis Antetokounmpo in the first round, prevented the Boston-New York rivalry from taking center stage as Indiana upended the Knicks, 130-109, in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday evening.

The matchup between the Celtics and Pacers pits the top two scoring offenses from the regular season. Indiana tallied a league-best 123.3 points per game with Boston right behind averaing120.6 points.

The Pacers had some success against the Celtics in the regular season. The Pacers were one of four teams to beat Boston twice — the Bucks, Atlanta Hawks and Denver Nuggets were the other teams to do that. The Celtics still won the regular-seasons series, 3-2, but lost a key in-season tournament game to the Pacers.

Boston will be without Kristaps Porzingis for at least the start of the series and will be off for nearly a week before the conference finals start up.

“Really excited to get back out there and play,” Celtics guard Jrue Holiday told reporters, per MassLive’s Brian Robb. “Seems like we’ve been off for a while so excited to get out there Game 1, kind of get it started.”

The Celtics host the Pacers for Game 1 on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET. You can find the full schedule for the series here.