Indiana Pacers vs. Boston Celtics prediction: Who will win Game 2 in NBA playoffs?

BOSTON -- The Pacers left TD Garden after their Game 1 loss to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals feeling stung but confident.

They knew they'd let a golden opportunity get away with a late fourth quarter collapse, squandering a three-point lead in the last 10 seconds when they had the ball and a chance to put the game away if they could've just successfully inbounded the ball. They hung with the No. 1 seed Celtics even though Boston took a 12-0 lead to start the game and a 13-point lead in the third quarter. It took a remarkable shot by All-Star forward Jaylen Brown with 5.7 to go to start the game and then a remarkable overtime performance by Jayson Tatum to put it away.

"We know we can play with these guys," Haliburton said. "There's a lot of people saying we don't belong here. We don't really care. We know we belong."

But they also know how good the Celtics are, as not many teams would have been able to respond to what the Pacers did as well as Boston, a team that won 64 games this season, seven more than anyone else in the NBA and 14 more than any team in the Eastern Conference.

But the Celtics now have a sense of what they're dealing with with the Pacers and that they are capable of putting together a performance good enough to beat them. And they head into Game 2 knowing what to expect.

So now that everyone is familiar enough with each other that no one is sneaking up on anybody, here's our pick for Game 2.

Dustin Dopirak, Pacers beat writer: The Pacers squandered an opportunity to steal a game on the road in Game 1, but they performed better in this Game 1 than they did in Game 1 of either of their previous series. And they still have another chance in Game 2, which just happens to be the game when the Celtics had problems in both of their first two series of the playoffs, losing to the Heat and Cavaliers in Game 2 of those series.

We're going to guess that will happen again. The Pacers are motivated and stung after their Game 1 loss. They believe no one is giving them a chance to win this series, so they have a lot to prove and more reason to believe they can prove. It says here they'll put a good enough performance to claim Game 2 in this series and that the Celtics will have what has become a ritual rough game for them and the Pacers will flip home-court advantage at least for the night. Pacers 128, Celtics 122.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers vs. Celtics game prediction for Game 2 of NBA playoff series