“Tonight was fantastic, man!”: Chris Duarte reveals his magnanimous emotions on playing his first ever home game for the Indiana Pacers

Arun Sharma | 24/10/2021
"Tonight was fantastic, man!": Chris Duarte reveals his magnanimous emotions on playing his first ever home game for the Indiana Pacers

Indiana Pacers played the Heat in their renovated arena- They came up with a great win 

 

The Pacers delivered a heat check to Miami, beating them 102-91. A huge night for rookie Chris Duarte, where he put up 19 points and 5 rebounds on his home debut, along with Domantas Sabonis and Malcolm Brogdon registering a double-double each. The Pacers may not be everyone’s favorite, but Sabonis and co. will make the league and fans sit up and look at them.

The Miami Heat had a great season opener, where they blew out last year’s champions Milwaukee Bucks, but that momentum all came crashing down with this stop at the Pacers’ newly renovated stadium, the Gainbridge Fieldhouse Arena. The Indiana Pacers lost their first two games, but they had a good game tonight against the heat.

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Here are some of the stats that other players put up:

Chris Duarte: 19p/5r

Malcolm Brogdon : 18p/14r/4a/2b

Oshae Brisset: 18p/9r

Jeremy Lamb: 12p/2r

Domantas Sabonis is an underrated player, all teams included

Sabonis had a career year in all aspects of the game, averaging 20.3 points, 6.7 assists, and 12 rebounds. This earned him his first all-star call-up and he started this year at the same level as last. The Pacers have a very underrated team, with Sabonis, Myles Turner, Malcolm Brogdon, and Jeremy Lamb. They finished 9th in their conference last season and played in the first-ever in-season fight for the 8th place playoff spot. They didn’t qualify past that, but they were good.

With TJ Warren set to come back sometime this season, there is a good chance that this team only gets better. We should hope that this isn’t a one-off, and they fall off so much that they don’t make the playoffs.

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The east is probably at its most competitive season yet, and the league is all up for healthy competition. This also means good teams don’t make it to the playoffs, but that is a tradeoff required to make the league more competitive.

Post Edited By: Tonoy Sengupta
Chris Duarte domantas sabonis Malcom Brogdon

About the author

Arun Sharma

Arun Sharma is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. A double degree holder and a digital marketer by trade, Arun has always been a sports buff. He fell in love with the sport of basketball at a young age and has been a Lakers fan since 2006. What started as a Kobe Bryant obsession slowly turned into a lifelong connection with the purple and gold. Arun has been an ardent subscriber to the Mamba mentality and has shed tears for a celebrity death only once in his life. He believes January 26, 2020, was the turning point in the passage of time because Kobe was the glue holding things together. From just a Lakers bandwagoner to a basketball fanatic, Arun has spent 16 long years growing up along with the league. He thinks Stephen Curry has ruined basketball forever, and the mid-range game is a sight to behold. Sharma also has many opinions about football (not the American kind), F1, MotoGP, tennis, and cricket.

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