We’re only a few games into the NBA season, and the 1-1 Indiana Pacers host the 0-2 Philadelphia 76ers. This game will mark the Pacers’ home opener. They just suffered a 123-98 road loss to the New York Knicks.

Meanwhile, the 76ers lost 124-109 to the Milwaukee Bucks and 115-107 to the Toronto Raptors. At the time of writing, the odds for this game across the best PA sportsbooks were not available.

Nonetheless, I’ll walk us through some of the early scenarios and make my prediction below.

The 76ers continue to deal with injuries

Heading into this game, 76ers fans would love to see their monstrous trio of Tyrese Maxey, Paul George and Joel Embiid on the court, but that unfortunately won’t happen. Philadelphia currently has +260 underdogs on the moneyline DraftKings sports betting.

George and Embiid are out with knee injuries. George might be back after this road trip, but for now, he’s away.

So, Maxey will be the leader on offense with a starting five that also includes Kyle Lowry, Kelly Oubre Jr., Caleb Martin and Andre Drummond.

Maxey scored 25 on opening night and followed that up with a 24-point performance against Toronto.

In the first game of the season, Oubre Jr. added 21, but no other player could score 13 points.

In the second game of the season, Maxey and Oubre Jr. each scored at least 24.

The 76ers defense allows teams to shoot 50%. No matter who is out there, allowing this level of shooting is not going to end well. That’s tied for third-worst in the NBA.

Kelly Oubre Jr. is +420 to make +4 at three points FanDuel sports betting.

They are shooting 40.2% from the field, 26th in the NBA as a unit.

Coming into this one, I’m guessing the 76ers are slight underdogs and that’s understandable. The Pacers are slightly better than them in some key categories and significantly better in others (more on that below).

Can the Pacers’ three-point shooting catch up?

As mentioned, the 76ers allow teams to shoot 50% from the floor.

The Pacers, through two games, are shooting 50% from the floor, ranking fourth in the NBA.

The Pacers have been excellent from the field, but their main flaw through two games has been shooting three-pointers.

They’re shooting just 19.7 percent from the floor, which is third-worst in the NBA, behind Washington and Denver.

The Pacers are allowing teams to shoot 47.7% from the floor, but the 76ers may not be able to take advantage of that as they are shooting closer to 40%.

All that being said, the Pacers looked terrible against the Knicks. Tyrese Haliburton was scoreless in 26 minutes.

The 76ers are shooting 28.3% from three-point range, which is seventh-worst in the league, but still nearly 10% better.

We’ll see what happens in the three-point shooter, though. The Pacers are allowing their opponents to shoot at a rate of 35%, while the 76ers are at 36.7%.

We know the Pacers can shoot well from the floor overall, but can they improve from three-point range?

They will; it’s their home opener against a pretty weak defense.

76ers vs. Pacers Prediction

Although the odds are not yet known, I estimate that the Pacers will be favorites between 4 and 4.5 points at home.

The 76ers and Pacers have a similar scoring average, although Indiana fell below 100 against the Knicks.

Yet this came amid a historically poor performance from players like Maxey.

The Pacers are the better three-point shooting team, but the 76ers defense will allow them to run the three-point shooting game.

The 76ers aren’t shooting very well right now and they’re dealing with injuries to big stars.

Here I go with the Pacers. I think positive regression occurs after a very bad start behind the arch.

The Pacers are 12 of 61.

Two players didn’t hit one at all and three only hit one:

• Haliburton: 1 of 16
• Pascal Siakam: 1 out of 7
• Aaron Nesmith: 1 of 3

It stops against the 76ers and the Pacers will win this game.

While those of us willing to do so Sports betting in Pennsylvania I don’t know the odds for this game yet, I’m ready to take on the Pacers at 4.5 points or less.