NBA Starting Lineups and Match Prediction - Oklahoma City Thunder vs Indiana Pacers

Indiana Pacers (43-25) vs Oklahoma City Thunder (42-26), Bankers Field Lifehouse

The Indiana Pacers will be hosting the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday evening at the Bankers Field Lifehouse stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Thunder will be playing a back-to-back match after a stellar win against the Nets, who have been a tough competitor this season, while the Pacers will be well rested and are also coming off a win against an easier New York Knicks. Let's look at the strategies the teams will be hoping to deploy.

Indiana Pacers

The Pacers have been written off after the season-ending injury of their leader Victor Oladipo. However, what the NBA pundits don't take into account is that this team is built of the biggest underrated players like Sabonis (Sixth Man probable), Tyreke Evans (underappreciated) and the same goes for Bojan, Young, Turner, and Collinson. The primary aim of the Pacers would be to match up against the Sixers as they are the team which has the possibility of their mistakes being exploited.

Probable Starting Lineup - Collinson, Mathews, Bogdanovic, Turner, Young

Oklahoma City Thunder

The Thunder have been in a tough match-up the last couple of weeks in a bid to secure the third seed in the Western Conference. The Western Playoffs will be the toughest for the 3, 4, 5, 6 seeded teams as all of them have multiple All-Star caliber players. With Paul George trying to secure his status of the MVP this season and hoping to finally get the chance to win the Championship, the Westbrook-George duo will be on an all-out war to win the game.

Probable Starting Lineup - Westbrook, Grant, George, Adams, Ferguson

The Thunder are the favorites to win the game, however, if the Pacers can give them a tough fight they will show the NBA world that they are not first-round pushovers.