How Much Did Paul George's Injury Affect The Pacers' Title Chances?

Even as Paul George laid on the parquet of the Thomas & Mack Center, being treated for the stomach-turning break to his right leg, degenerates were just waiting until enough time had passed 1. to talk about it coldly without being Twitter-shamed and 2. for the lines to open up again. Once they did, you would have seen that the odds, as reflected by real-time betting patterns via Gambletron 2000 said the Pacers odds were halved—though they never had a very good chance to begin with.

The above chart is an hour-by-hour look at how the pacers fared in the Gambletron 20o0 model. The Pacers dropped from around 4.4 percent to a 2.5 percent chance to win the title. For comparison's sake, the Rockets spiked over 15 percent when LeBron announced he'd be going home to Cleveland (and therefore, that the Rockets would probably get Chris Bosh), and cratered back down to 6 percent when Bosh went back to Miami—and that was still better than the Pacers were sitting, even with George.

[ Gambletron 2000]