NBA Playoffs 2012: Indiana Pacers vs. Miami Heat in Game 6 - Indianapolis Star

Pregame update

We’re set for a golden Game 6 here at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

Draping the seats here at the Pacers’ home arena are more than 18,000 ‘Gold Swagger’ T-shirts, the same ones that fans wore during the team’s surprising Game 3 win last Thursday.

But since then, Indiana’s dropped two straight, allowing their Miami counterparts to snatch back control of these Eastern Conference semifinals.

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A win tonight by the Heat means the Pacers are on summer vacation. A victory from the home team, however, and the two squads will square off in a Game 7 Saturday night at 8 p.m. at American Airlines Arena in Miami.

Pacers forward Danny Granger is expected to start tonight. The team’s leading scorer injured his left ankle during the second quarter of Tuesday’s blowout loss. He returned in the second half, but reinjured it and didn’t return.

“I have to play with it being an elimination game,” Granger said earlier today. “Our backs are against the wall. I have to play.”

The series has drawn increasingly heated comments from both the players and the coaches. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called out the Pacers earlier Thursday, claiming “the league does not have a problem with hard fouls on our two main guys.”

He was referring to two of the Heat’s Big Three, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

“In nine games now there’s been over a dozen hard fouls to the face, some of the tomahawk variety, some have drawn blood. They don’t have a problem with it, so we don’t have a problem with it.”

In elimination games in franchise history, the Pacers are 12-18 heading into tonight’s Game 6. They are 0-6 all-time in series they have trailed 3-2 in.

Watch IndyStar.com for updates on this story.