You've all probably seen it by now but below is a clip of the moment the entire Pacers fanbase looked to the sky and asked "what have we done to deserve this?"

After seeing promising futures dashed by injuries to Paul George and Victor Oladipo, you can't blame anyone for expecting the worst. Luckily, the MRI Haliburton underwent this morning showed that the injury is only a Grade 1 strain.

According to a @GameInjuryDoc on X, Grade 1 is the mildest diagnosis and generally requires about two weeks of healing, which is consistent with when the team plans to reevaluate Tyrese. The timeline also makes sense from a scheduling perspective, as it will coincide with the Pacers' return from a week long, five-game Western Conference road trip.

The team's stated goal from (even before) the beginning of training camp has been to make the playoffs. The Pacers have made that intention clear not only through their comments, but also through their veteran-laden playing rotation. Without Tyrese for an extended period of time, it's fair to wonder what will happen to the team's fight for a spot in the post-season. Especially when you look at the parity in the East and how poorly the Pacers performed last season when Tyrese went down in January.

The good news is that the Pacers have a 5.5 game cushion on the 10th ranked Nets as of today. Even if we do go on a skid while Tyrese is out, we should remain in the play-in conversation regardless. In regard to the other concern – how much better the supporting cast is compared to last year – there's confidence inside the locker room that they've grown significantly.

Outside of wins and losses, Tyrese has an additional incentive to return to the court quickly – about $40-50 million additional incentives, actually. He needs to make an All-NBA team in order to meet the criteria for the Super-Max extension he signed this summer. If he misses 15 more games this season, he won't be eligible for selection.

At the time he signed the extension, my math told me that a regular max contract would pay roughly $207 million over five years compared to the $260 million of the Super-Max. However, online I've seen people posting that the difference is actually about $40 million. In the interest of time, I'll wait until Bobby Marks or Larry Coon weighs in but, suffice to say, it would represent a big pay cut.

As much as I want Tyrese to get paid the most he can – screw roster building concerns, he deserves it – I do hope they don't rush him back before he's fully healthy. Nothing is more important to this franchise than the long term availability of Tyrese.

Last Two Minute Kerfuffle

Last night's game was decided by foul calls, both upheld and rescinded. At the time, I felt that both contests were clean (though I came around to the idea Porzingis fouled Mathurin after watching it in slow-mo five times).

The NBA has released its verdict and it concurs with my initial assessment: neither instance was a foul. However there was an illegal screen on the final Pacers' possession that absolutely nobody in the world noticed.

The plays in question are below.

You can see the Myles illegal screen a bit better below. Foul or not, in my opinion that was good refereeing to ignore Myles' screen considering how far away from the play he was at that point.

Do you agree with the decisions?

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