No Tyrese Haliburton. No T.J. McConnell. Andrew Nembhard was injured. And Aaron Nesmith fouled out after 27 minutes.
Even so, the Indiana Pacers took the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder to double overtime in a 141-135 loss, and head coach Rick Carlisle deserves a lot of the credit.
This season was always going to be a confusing one for the Pacers. On one hand, they are going to be without Haliburton for the year, and they still need to find a definitive solution to their center problem following Myles Turner's departure. However, the team is also going to experiment with their roster, utilize a whole new set of players in different ways, and try to make some magic happen.