Indiana Pacers vs. Boston Celtics prediction: Who will win Game 3 in NBA playoffs?

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Pacers have never seemed to be in a more dire situation in these playoffs than they did after Thursday night's Game 2 loss when coach Rick Carlisle acknowledged that the injury that kept All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton out of the fourth quarter was left hamstring soreness. That of course called to mind the left hamstring strain that cost Haliburton 10 games in January and put him on a minutes restriction after that.

That gave the Pacers reason to be concerned that they might not have Haliburton, recently named third-team All-NBA, for the rest of this series. He was listed as questionable instead of out on Friday's injury report for Saturday's Game 3, but a league source confirmed ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski's report that Haliburton is out for Game 3 and that he'll be re-evaluated for Game 4 and there are serious questions about whether he'll be available for that game.

The Pacers are down 2-0 to the No 1 seed Celtics as the series comes to Indianapolis for Saturday's 8:30 p.m. home game, and with Haliburton out, taking Game 3 even at home is a much more challenging task.

Here's our prediction for Game 3.

Dustin Dopirak, Pacers beat writer: The Pacers have won without Tyrese Haliburton before. They even beat the Celtics on Jan. 8 in the game in which he was injured. However, Jayson Tatum also didn't play in that game and the Paces also got strong performances from Bennedict Mathurin, who is out for the year with a labrum tear, and Buddy Hield, who was traded to the 76ers in February. Pascal Siakam is better than both of them and if the Pacers are without Haliburton, they'll be able to place more on Siakam than they could ever put on Mathurin's or Hield's shoulders. But against a Boston team getting production from Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White on a nightly basis, one top scorer isn't going to be enough. If the Pacers don't have Haliburton, they need Siakam to be All-NBA caliber, they need Myles Turner at his best and they're going to need one or more breakout performances from the likes of Aaron Nesmith, Andrew Nembhard, T.J. McConnell and Obi Toppin.

Even with Haliburton out, the Pacers could beat the Celtics if everyone else mentioned is as good as they were in Game 7 against the Knicks. Nembhard and Nesmith scored 39 combined points on 16 of 18 shooting in that game. Turner had 17 points on 7 of 11 shooting and McConnell had 12 going 6 of 8. Nembhard and McConnell can make things happen off the dribble to keep the Celtics on their toes there. Nembhard, Nesmith and Ben Sheppard can hit open shots. Turner can score from all over the floor and Toppin can do his thing in transition. This group can still score. That said, everybody's got to be on and Siakam has to be special for them to out score the most efficient offense in the NBA and the team that scored the most points besides themselves. We're guessing that won't happen tonight. Celtics 125, Pacers 110.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers vs. Celtics game prediction for Game 3 of NBA playoff series