We are three days into the second round of the 2025 National Basketball Association and there is a growing trend. The visiting teams have a perfect record of five wins and zero losses. After the road teams won three games over two days, there were two more wins for the visitors on Tuesday, as the Indiana Pacers and Golden State Warriors were in the win column.
The Pacers, the fourth seed in the East, now lead the first seed Cleveland Cavaliers two games to none with both wins coming at the Rocket Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cavaliers had a masterful 48 point performance from Donovan Mitchell, that simply was not enough.
Indiana had a fantastic fourth quarter as they outscored Cleveland 36-21 en route to a 120-119 win. Small forward Aaron Nesmith of Charleston, South Carolina and center Myles Turner of Bedford, Texas led the way with 23 points each. Meanwhile, Canadian guard Andrew Nembhard of Aurora, Ontario had the double-double (13 points and 13 assists), while guard Tyrese Haliburton of Oshkosh, Wisconsin had the game-winning shot with a 25 foot three-pointer with a second left in regulation.
This was a game the Cavaliers should have won but simply blew it. They had an 81-61 lead with six minutes and 51 seconds left in the third quarter before being outscored by Indiana 59-38 the rest of the way. Indiana followed in the footsteps of the New York Knicks on Monday. New York was once down 72-52 to the Boston Celtics around the same time Indiana was trailing before winning 108-105 in overtime.
Also on Tuesday, we found out that the Golden State Warriors have talent outside their star point guard, Stephen Curry. The future Hall of Fame point guard went down with a hamstring injury in game one in Minnesota and is expected to miss a week. The Warriors who stepped up offensively were shooting guard Buddy Hield of Freeport, Bahamas (24 points), and small forward Jimmy Butler of Houston, Texas (20 points and 11 rebounds for the double-double). The Warriors defense also deserve high praise as they limited Minnesota to 11 second quarter points en route to a 99-88 victory.
