With the Celtics' loss to the Nets, the Pacers could've made up lost ground but had no answers for Aaron Gordon or Terrence Ross.
INDIANAPOLIS – An off day can't come soon enough. Five games are left in the Indiana Pacers' regular season, and they can't continue to kick the can down the road.
More performances such as Saturday's 121-116 loss to the Orlando Magic -- their third defeat in a row -- and that's where the Pacers will be opening the playoffs.
With the Boston Celtics losing to the Brooklyn Nets, the Pacers had a chance to reclaim the No. 4 seed that they'd lost 24 hours earlier for home-court advantage in the first round the playoffs.
"We need to mentally and physically get some rest and regroup," said Pacers coach Nate McMillan, whose team lost 114-112 in Boston on Friday night. "We need to get ourselves ready for Monday."
The Pacers (45-32) have consecutive games ahead vs. the Detroit Pistons at Bankers Life Fieldhouse and on the road against them on Wednesday.
Similar to the Magic (38-39), the Pistons have to win to remain in the playoff picture. The Magic won the season series with the Pacers 3-1. The Pacers trail the Celtics in head-to-head (2-1 with a game here Friday) and conference record (31-16 vs. 30-17), the first two tiebreakers.
It wasn't scoring but the Pacers' inability to get stops that cost them.
Darren Collison (24 points, nine assists) came alive to lead seven players in double figures. Bojan Bogdanovic (22 points), their leading scorer since the loss of Victor Oladipo to a knee injury, missed 4 of 5 shots in the fourth.
Orlando (38-39) shot 47-for-92, 51 percent, with 37 assists. Aaron Gordon (23 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists) led six players in double figures. Terrence Ross (16 points) was lethal off the bench.
"It's unacceptable," Collison said. "We can't lose a game like that, especially at home, when everything is going our way most of the game. The coaching staff did everything they could to put us in position to succeed. As players, we have to take this one on the chin. This is a game we can't drop."
The Pacers appeared to take control with a 9-2 run late in the third quarter for a 78-71 lead. Then it was 82-73.
Then Ross happened. And Michael Carter-Williams, a castaway picked up late in the season by Orlando, too.
In about a three-minute span, Ross (16 points) scored nine and Carter-Williams (10 points) tallied eight.
Instead of putting away the Magic, one of the league's elite defensive teams allowed Khem Birch (10 points) uncontested dunks because of blown assignments late in the fourth as the visitors went ahead by nine.
"This was a big loss and a pretty disappointing game for us," said Bogdanovic, who only scored two points after the third quarter. "We showed two completely different faces last night and tonight. Playing at home and letting them score 120 points makes it impossible to win the game. ... We didn't have our defense like we did last night."
Myles Turner (16 points, 12 rebounds) battled Nic Vucevic (19 points) for post position, forcing him to take difficult shots to help Indiana extend a 57-56 halftime lead.
Ross then got hot, much like he did in scoring 30 and 23 in previous wins vs. Indiana, with four 3s though he only made 5 of 14 shots overall.
Tyreke Evans (seven points) was the opposite off the bench for the Pacers. He routinely took the ball into traffic and missed Doug McDermott (10 points) spotting up wide open in transition during a pivotal stretch of the fourth with his team in desperate need of a bucket.
Thaddeus Young (10 points) and Wesley Matthews (13 points) were called for fouls on what appeared to be a clean steal and block late in the fourth to compound the Pacers' woes.
The hole they'd put themselves in, however, meant it probably wouldn't have mattered.
Allowing this many points in regulation isn't how they've gotten this far.
"In the second half, teams are able to get to another level and raise their energy and intensity," McMillan said. "We are not able to do that."
It's a good time to decompress.