Two of the NBA’s lower-seeded conference semifinalists pulled even on Tuesday night, with the Indiana Pacers handling the Cleveland Cavaliers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse and the Oklahoma City Thunder grinding out a defensive Game 4 against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Paycom Center, setting up a pair of decisive Game 5s in the higher seeds’ buildings later this week and resetting a postseason bracket the league had not seen in three decades.

The Pacers, who entered the second round as a No. 4 seed after upsetting the defending champion Boston Celtics in five games, evened their series with the top-seeded Cavaliers 2-2 with a 116-104 win behind 34 points and 13 assists from Tyrese Haliburton, who appeared to move freely on a left wrist that had limited him through the first three games of the round. Pascal Siakam added 27 points and nine rebounds, and Indiana shot 17 of 38 from beyond the arc against a Cleveland defense that had held the Pacers to 11 made threes across Games 2 and 3.

“He looked like Tyrese tonight, and we have not had Tyrese for about ten days,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said in his postgame remarks. “Wrist, knee, none of it mattered for forty-eight minutes. That is the player we built this thing around.”

Donovan Mitchell scored 31 points for Cleveland but on 11-of-29 shooting, with six turnovers, and Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said his team had been “outworked on the glass and outthought in the half-court” for most of the second and third quarters. Jarrett Allen, who had returned from a hyperextended elbow in Game 3, was limited to 24 minutes after picking up four fouls in the first half. Game 5 is scheduled for Thursday night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, with a 7 p.m. Eastern tip-off on TNT.

In Oklahoma City, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 36 points, eight rebounds and seven assists in a 102-94 Thunder win that featured 14 lead changes through three quarters before a 9-0 Oklahoma City run early in the fourth swung it. Chet Holmgren added 18 points and five blocks, including a chase-down on Anthony Edwards with 1:48 remaining that effectively ended the Timberwolves’ last serious push. Edwards led Minnesota with 28 points but shot 10 of 25 and missed two free throws in the final minute.

The Thunder, the No. 4 seed in the West, are the youngest team remaining in the playoffs by average roster age. Their Game 5 in Minneapolis tips off Wednesday night at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on ESPN, kicking off a two-day stretch that the league office said in a Tuesday evening release was projected to draw the largest combined audience for a midweek semifinal slate since 2017.

“You have two No. 4 seeds genuinely threatening to put two No. 1 seeds out, in the same conference round, in the same week,” said Marcus Yi, a senior NBA analyst at StubHub. “That has not happened since the league went to a 16-team bracket in 1984. Whatever the league office paid the schedule-makers this year, double it.”

Elsewhere in the second round, the Denver Nuggets closed out the Los Angeles Clippers 4-1 on Monday night in Los Angeles behind Nikola Jokic’s third triple-double of the series, eliminating Kawhi Leonard and James Harden in the second round for the second consecutive postseason. Denver will await the winner of Thunder-Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, scheduled to open no later than Tuesday, May 12.

The Boston Celtics, who took a 3-1 lead Sunday afternoon over the Atlanta Hawks in the only other Eastern semifinal still alive, can close out their series in Atlanta on Wednesday night, with tip-off at 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. Trae Young, who scored 41 in the Hawks’ Game 3 home win, said Tuesday that a sore right ankle that limited him to 28 minutes in Game 4 was “going to be fine” for Game 5 and that the team had drilled “a lot of zone looks” in Monday’s session at State Farm Arena.

In other news around the league, the Los Angeles Lakers announced that exit interviews had concluded and that head coach JJ Redick would return for the 2026-27 season, putting to rest a week of speculation following the team’s Game 7 first-round loss in Phoenix. The team also confirmed that LeBron James, who has previously said this would be his final season, would address his future in a news conference next week, the date to be set. General manager Rob Pelinka, in a brief statement, said the franchise was “in a transition we have planned for, and we will be ready in June.”

Major League Baseball, meanwhile, was set for a heavy Wednesday slate headlined by the New York Yankees opening a three-game interleague series against the National League Central-leading Cincinnati Reds at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees, who entered the day at 11-22 after dropping two of three to the Tampa Bay Rays over the weekend, recalled right-hander Will Warren from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday and named him the Game 1 starter. Reds left-hander Andrew Abbott, 5-1 with a 2.41 earned-run average, will start for Cincinnati.

The Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles, still tied atop the American League East at 22-11 each, were both scheduled for off-days Wednesday before opening weekend home series Friday. The Los Angeles Dodgers extended their National League West lead to three games over the San Diego Padres after a 5-2 win in San Diego on Tuesday night, with Shohei Ohtani driving in three runs.

League officials said the NBA conference finals would open no earlier than next Tuesday and that game-by-game scheduling for the round would be finalized once Thursday’s Cavaliers-Pacers result is known. The Western Conference Finals will tip first regardless of seeding, ESPN said in a Tuesday evening release.