Holy shit, it happened! The Pacers are in the NBA Finals!
I gotta be honest, I was angry Friday morning. And worried. After the Pacers played like ass in New York Thursday it meant little to me that the series was coming back to Indy for game six. It seemed like the Knicks had figured out how to contain the Pacers offense with backcourt pressure, they were gaining confidence on offense, they were defying all the odds by staying healthy, and most infuriatingly the Knicks bench played better than the Pacers reserves on Thursday.
This did not bode well for Indiana closing out the series Saturday and avoiding what would be a monumentally stressful game seven in New York tonight.
All that stress and worry was silly. The Pacers took care of business and sent the Knicks home with a magnificent, cathartic win Saturday. The Pacers won every quarter, stretching their lead a little further each period. The Knicks made some runs but seemed to whither in the fourth quarter, which set up a glorious last seven minutes or so when the Pacers blew the game open.
Each Pacers win in this series was a specific player’s game. The unlikely, near miracle win in game one will forever be the Aaron Nesmith game. Pascal Siakam dropping 39 points in game two slapped his name on that one. Tyrese Haliburton’s ridiculous boxscore line claimed game four for him. And while the clinching game was a typically balanced effort by one of the most balanced teams in the league, that game will always be the Andrew Nembhard game for the way he made life a living hell for Jalen Brunson on defense and somehow managed to finally find his offensive game in the process.
Nembhard was simply brilliant. The refs let both teams play, so while he was using his entire body to guard Brunson, Brunson was also getting away with his forearm shivers, grabbing of arms, slamming his shoulder into Nembhard’s chest, and even flat-out headbutting Nembhard without getting whistled for a foul. Funny thing happened in that process: I think Brunson wore himself out as much as Nembhard wore him down. Brunson, the league’s reigning Clutch Player of the Year, looked thoroughly wiped and ineffective when the Knicks needed him most. Meanwhile Nembhard was keying the Pacers final surge to put the game away.
This might have been the biggest surprise in a series full of surprises. In last year’s playoffs, Nembhard could not guard Brunson at all. In brief moments on Brunson earlier in the series, he continued to struggle. When Nesmith wasn’t on the court the Pacers resorted to either Bennedict Mathurin or Jarace Walker to try to slow Brunson knowing Nembhard would not be effective. But when Nesmith got two early fouls Saturday, and appeared to be hobbled by the leg he injured in game three, Rick Carlisle had no choice. And Nembhard delivered. It was a season-saving performance.
Siakam was, again, great. Hali took some time to get going, but dished out over 10 assists and cracked the Knicks defense in the closing run. Thomas Bryant, who had been benched earlier, hit the first three 3’s he took.
Hey, big props to Carlisle. He made terrific adjustments during the series, both in scheme and personnel. More importantly, after the Pacers traded for Haliburton during the ’22-’23 season, he focused on building around Hali’s skills first, embracing the chaos that the point guard’s unorthodox style lends itself to. That produced an incredibly fun team on the offense, but one that also rarely put in any effort on the defensive end. Winning 140–138 is fun during the regular season but not a recipe for advancing deep into the playoffs. Only they did last year, benefiting from injuries to opponents in the first two rounds before Haliburton himself was injured and the Celtics swept the Pacers out of the conference finals.
I’m not sure how he did it, but somehow this year Carlisle turned them into a better-than-average defensive team. The offense wasn’t quite as efficient, but the improvement on the other end made them a better team, a tougher team to match up with, and better suited to win in the postseason.
Carlisle also deserves series credit for trusting his players to fill their roles. I hadn’t really noticed this until a national writer mentioned it, but Carlisle is fine with mistakes, as long as they are made with maximum effort and within the team concept. Sometimes it drives me crazy when TJ McConnell overdrives, like he did often this series as the Knicks refused to collapse on him with help, or when Bennedict Mathurin forgets he has teammates and goes one-on-one. Carlisle is fine with that because he knows giving players the opportunity to fail, again within the system, means they will play with confidence and be effective more often than not. McConnell might turn it over a couple times, but that is made up for when he finally gets the defense to overcommit and three teammates are open or he gets a wide-open layup when help does not come. Mathurin can be maddening when his ego makes him ignore/forget that he has four teammates on the court with him. But he’s the best “get the fuck out of my way I’m scoring no matter what” player on the team, and sometimes they need that in the moments the starters are resting.
I kept waiting for an injury or two to destroy the Knicks. Other than Karl-Anthony Towns acting like his knee had just blown apart every time he fell down, they somehow got through the series unscathed. Thank goodness the series didn’t go to a seventh game, because the Pacers were the team that seemed injury-struck. Nesmith was never 100% after his injury. I don’t know how effective he would have been in game seven. Walker might have done something very bad to his ankle Saturday. Tony Bradley, who went from unknown bench player to logging serious minutes early in the series, suffered an injury in game five that opened the door for Bryant to play again. Even with those injuries, the Pacers still played 11 guys before they cleared the bench late. Again, that’s all from the trust Carlisle has in his guys and the depth that Kevin Pritchard and Chad Buchanan built.
And now the Pacers are on to the NBA Finals for the second time in franchise history and the first time in 25 years. As with last year’s run to the conference finals, there will be some critics who claim the Pacers had an easy road to the Finals. Dame Lillard crashed out of the Bucks series. Cleveland was battling several injuries in the second round. And the Knicks knocked out defending champs Boston before the Pacers had to play them.
That talk was valid last year, but is nonsense this year. The Bucks were a mess before Dame got hurt. Yes, Cleveland had injuries, but the Pacers took the #1 seed to the woodshed in the games the Cavs were 100%. And the Knicks were up on the Celtics 2–1 and leading by 9 points in game four when Jason Tatum blew out his achilles. They were winning that series whether he stayed healthy or not. The Pacers got a few breaks along the way, as every team that wins three series does. There’s no doubting, though, that they were the best team in the Eastern Conference over the last six weeks. Which is all that matters.
Now it’s on to the Finals, where we have two fun-to-watch, built via drafts and smart trades teams from the Heartland. Prepare for grousing by the coastal elites and casual fans about how Indy vs OKC is boring. Those people who focus on geography will miss that these are two of the most entertaining teams in the league, and if the exact same rosters were located in Boston and LA, folks would be salivating over this matchup.
I’ve been cautiously optimistic through every round so far, but it is tough to stretch that confidence to the next series. Oklahoma City is the best and deepest team in the league. They have this year’s MVP. They are the best defensive team in the league and a matchup nightmare for the Pacers. To me the only hope for Indiana is if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were to get injured, something you can never rule out when playing Indiana in the playoffs, or if the Thunder crack under the pressure. As good as they are, this is the first year they had advanced to even the conference finals with this roster, so this is as new to them as the Pacers.
My heart tells me OKC in six, but my mind says the Thunder will take care of the Pacers fairly easily in five. Like I said two weeks ago, if the Pacers can steal one of the first two games, they have a chance…
I stayed up late to watch all the postgame coverage on TNT. It sure was refreshing for a network to hang around for well over an hour after the final buzzer, showing all the on-court activities, interviewing players on the court and then on the TNT set, and letting the Pacers fans who hung around all that time to celebrate on camera.
It was, of course, a strange and surreal postgame show, being the final edition ever of Inside the NBA on TNT, a nearly 30-year-old institution..
If you don’t follow sports and/or sports media, this was strange because Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Shaq, and Charles Barkley, along with most of their support crew, are taking their show to ESPN next year. They’ll even be in the same studio. Why are people noting the switch if the only thing that will be different is what channel you select to watch them? The fear by people who love the show, and clearly the cast as well, is that ESPN will find a way to destroy the best show in sports TV. I loved Shaq throwing down the gauntlet warning ESPN that they were not coming to fuck around. I wish I had any confidence that ESPN won’t mess up a perfect show pretty quickly.
And can someone please hire Kevin Harlan? I’m sure it will get done; it would be insane not to. Perhaps there is already something in place but he and/or ESPN or Amazon wanted to wait until his Turner obligations were complete before announcing it.
