Tag: basketball (Page 1 of 60)

Jayhawk Talk: Can’t Take The Heat?

I probably should have included this in my Weekend Notes post, but was also debating how deep to go on the latest health scare for KU coach Bill Self. Without knowing much about what actually happened, I didn’t want to turn it into 3000 words about the future of the program. That’s always a possibility when I start writing about KU hoops, though.

What we know for sure is that Self suffered “concerning symptoms” while playing golf last week, was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Lawrence, and received two stents. I’m no cardiologist but that seems super serious. Also, if you’re in your 60s and had a heart attack two years ago, I’m not sure it’s smart to play golf in the midst of a heat wave. But that’s just me.[1]

We also know Self was released quickly and feeling fine. And apparently had lunch with a recruit who was on campus Monday. Or at least that was the message KU put out.

This was crazy timing as the same afternoon of this latest cardiac event, I was watching his recent interview with Andy Katz. They began with some health talk and Self mentioned that he didn’t really feel right for a year after his 2023 heart attack.[2]

There have been strong rumors around the program for six months or so that Self has privately told people this will be his final year. While he has never addressed this publicly, there has been some pushback from others on this timeline.

My first thought after this latest episode was that if he gets cleared to coach this year, by both his doctors and his wife, this is definitely his last year. And the arrival of Jacque Vaughn both made more sense and seemed super timely. No offense to any of Self’s long time assistants, but if he is told that he can’t coach this year, I’ll take Vaughn over any of them, even if JV has never coached a single college game.

Now, inserting stents is a pretty normal procedure, with recovery measured in days rather than weeks. Had this episode been more serious, I doubt he would have been sent home so quickly.

So, yes, very concerning. But perhaps as life/career altering as it seemed at first. And hopefully this kept something bigger/more serious from happening to Self down the road.

This is just another massive warning light that the Self era is coming to an end soon(-ish). At this point I just hope he is able to go out on his terms rather than because his body, medical team, and/or family tell him he can’t coach another game.

The message board chatter about summer workouts was that Vaughn was taking a strong role in what the team was doing. All rumors here, but his main task was shifting the offense to a slightly more NBA style that allows Darryn Peterson and other athletic wings clear paths to the basket. I want to see this in games, because while the build up may be a little different, Self’s best offenses were always when motion on the perimeter got Jalen Wilson, Ochai Agbaji, Devon Dotson, Josh Jackson, Frank Mason, etc. clear paths to the rim. Based on that I think these changes will be less dramatic than some are suggesting, and perhaps more about personal differences between the current roster and those of the past two years than anything Vaughn has put in.

Another summer rumor is that the team has been working more on full court pressure, leveraging its athletic length to make up for some half court deficiencies. Suggesting that any team will press more in the upcoming season is an evergreen college hoops summer rumor. And then when the team gives up three straight layups in their first team the coaches scrap it. So we’ll see about that one.

To wrap up, it was a pretty dicey day or two for KU fans. Knock on wood Self is now healthy and can devote his full energies to this team, and then make a decision about his future next April with a clear head and relatively clean bill of health.


  1. Our heat index was 114° that day. Not sure if it was as high 500 miles west.  ↩

  2. Self also told Katz that in addition to Vaughn, he called Nick Collison about the open assistant coaching position. Fascinating. KU fans have this dream scenario where if Vaughn eventually becomes the head coach, he will surround himself by other former KU players. Aaron Miles, who was actually my top choice to fill the opening Vaughn filled, Keith Langford, and Wayne Simien have all been mentioned. Collison is currently an assistant VP/GM in Oklahoma City. I don’t know if he has coaching aspirations, but with all the changes in college sports, maybe someone with administrative, roster construction, salary cap knowledge like that is as needed as someone who has sat on a bench. And other than Danny Manning, there would be no better former KU player at teaching bigs how to operate in the low post.  ↩

Weekend Notes

Once again this weekend notes piece will involve more than what went on from Friday to Sunday. I’ll start with a focus on the actual weekend, though.


WNBA All Star Game

The best players in the league were all in Indy over the weekend for Saturday’s All Star Game. While that was exciting, it was tempered a bit by Caitlin Clark getting injured again Tuesday and not participating in either the 3-point contest Friday or playing in the All Star Game Saturday. She did “coach” her team, though.

The biggest point of this section is that L got to go to the game. And not only was she in Gainbridge, but she had amazing seats. The dad of one of her best friends runs the business that puts the gigantic decals on all the buildings around downtown for whatever the latest event is.

Because of that he has tickets to pretty much every game. L has been their guest at Gainbridge before, for the Big 10 tournament last March, and assumed she would be sitting in the suite again. Apparently the suite was reserved for VIPs so the girls had to slum it in the sixth row.

Pretty cool.

She had a good time. She and her friends were close enough that the mascots all kept coming over and harassing them. They were sitting near all kinds of famous people. They got to meet and take a pic with WNBA player Nika Mühl. She dropped $112 on a Paige Bueckers jersey. I told her I really hope CHS has multiple jersey days this year so she can actually wear it.

The game itself was ok. They introduced a fun wrinkle by having four-point spots behind the 3-point arc. Which, in theory, was cool. But it turned out both teams just kept chucking from that point. Team Collier was hitting them while Team Clark was not, and that was the difference.

I think a good tweak for next year is to make those only count for four points in the last two minutes of each quarter or something. Not that the ASG will ever be real ball – Clark told her team not to even bother with defense and just chuck all night – but watching 25 foot shot after 25 foot shot got a bit tedious.

It being the WNBA, naturally there was a manufactured controversy. The players came out before the game wearing shirts that said “Pay Us What You Owe Us,” referring to their current CBA negotiations with the league. The usual crowd who never watched a WNBA game before Clark was drafted piped up and criticized the move. God forbid workers stand up for their rights and to be paid their fair share of the massive amount of money the league is now bringing in. Especially when the workers are all women, mostly Black, and many of them queer.

Never a dull moment.


Tour de France

I had been enjoying the Tour de France each morning until this weekend. Defending champ Tadej Pogacar came in as the heavy favorite, but there was hope that two-time champ Jonas Vingegaard could put pressure on him. The two were sitting in second and third places, separated by a minute, when the race finally entered the mountains on Thursday. And Pogacar promptly destroyed everyone. Vingegaard himself finished well ahead of everyone else, but at the end of the stage was over four minutes behind Pogacar in the general classification. The only hope for an exciting final week is that Pogacar has some kind of major illness or accident. I’m not a huge fan, but I’m not rooting for that at all.

I’ll still watch this week, but it will likely be with far less attention that I gave the race the first 10 days.


British Open

Speaking of dominating performances, Scottie Scheffler solidified his position as best golfer in the game with a relatively easy win at Royal Portrush. He makes it look so easy that the comparisons to Tiger Woods in his prime have started. I’m not sure those are fair or accurate. Scheffler doesn’t blow away the course the way young Tiger did. But he does have a clinical, unperturbed style that is reminiscent of Tiger’s second peak.

He also is far less single-minded and weird about winning that Tiger was. Scheffler has always said how he doesn’t get too worked up about failing on the golf course because he is a very religious man and believes there are bigger things to worry about. Last Tuesday he admitted he doesn’t burn to be the best, nor is his goal to be a role model for others as a golfer.

I usually bristle when athletes bring religion into the conversation when explaining their success, mostly because is it often framed as God being on their side somehow. Which the heathen me has always taken to the next logical step that God must have not been on the opponent’s side, then, right? And I refuse to believe whatever higher power there might be has any interest in who wins a stupid game.

But Scheffler has never been an evangelist when he talks about his faith. He talks about his personal experience, and suggests that faith frees his mind rather than gives him some kind of boost over his opponents. Which I totally respect. And I admire that Scheffler seems a lot more normal than most high level athletes who are so wired to win or motivated by slights that they turn into psychopaths.

One thing that really drove me nuts about NBC were the incessant ads for their upcoming NBA coverage, featuring a variety of NBC personalities singing or humming along to John Tesh’s famous “Roundball Rock” theme. I get that networks always celebrate when they re-gain rights to sports they used to have. But Fox Sports bought “Roundball Rock” a few years back and used it for their college basketball coverage. It’s not like it was buried and you could only hear it on grainy rips of old VHS tapes on YouTube.

I might have been ok with the ads if they didn’t run them during EVERY commercial break. And they’ve also been running them during Peacock’s Tour de France coverage. So I’ve seen them a million times this month.


House Stuff

As mentioned last week, I had two visits from contractors. One planned, one unplanned.

Tuesday morning I went to the basement to grab some chlorine tabs for the pool and noticed wet concrete under our water heater. Uh oh. We’ve been in the house seven years, which means it was probably installed 7.5 years ago, which is right in line with when traditional heaters can begin to fail.

I noticed the water was all coming from the top of the tank, not the bottom, so I was hopeful maybe it was just a leak.

I had a service come out and they confirmed that tanks can rust out from the top as easily as the bottom. So we needed a new one. Terrific. Water heaters ain’t cheap, friends.

I called early enough that we were able to get a new one installed before the day was over. We still had hot water until the crew showed up so everyone was able to get a shower in before they removed the old one, and then I could wash dishes normally after dinner.

You think stuff is going to last forever, especially when you buy a new house. It is a little shocking that we’ve been here long enough that some of the original parts are beginning to fail.

The planned visit was on Thursday. Without writing a million words about it, I’ve been wanting to jump from Xfinity for cable and internet for a while, for a variety of reasons. But they are the only service in our neighborhood. I even looked into various satellite options but those are all much, much slower than what Xfinity provides.

Last December, though, Metronet ran fiber through our neighborhood, including right through our yard. Some dudes were out digging holes and running the lines on the coldest week of that month.

I discounted Metronet because their line is on the north side of our house. Our Xfinity line comes in from the south side and feeds into our basement where our network box is. To get from the north side to south side of our house, you would have to run several hundred feet of line and either go under our driveway or find a way to go around our pool without hitting anything. I didn’t want to mess with that so figured it wasn’t an option.

It only took me seven months to realize I’m an idiot and they could absolutely run a line to the north side of our house. Like, literally, I am such a dumbass.

I scheduled them to come out on Thursday. The guy showed up and said it would take probably two hours to get everything installed.

Sweet.

Again without going too deep into it, a two hour job turned into five. We are apparently the first people to sign up for service since they ran the line, so the poor guy had to drag his ladder all over our neighborhood and climb utility poles to connect the overhead lines to the underground ones. The heat index was 95° while he was doing this. We only had small bottles of water so I gave him a cooler that was filled with 10 of them, and he finished every one.

Once our new network was running and stable, I signed up for YouTube TV, which I’ve wanted for some time. The first two months, while we have a series of discounts, we will pay close to $200 less per month for the same internet speed and basically the same TV offerings. Even when the discounts go away, it will be over $100 difference. And we were about to have some Xfinity discounts expire so that was going to go up anyway.

Through the first weekend I’m pleased with Metronet. They use Eero boxes for internet, and with just two we seem to have better internet throughout the house than the three Xfinity boxes gave us. YouTube TV took a minute to get used to, but I like it so far. I’m looking forward to fall sports season when I can use the multiview to watch four games at once. I will have to pay to get Pacers games, and the app they used last year had all the usual issues those services are known for.

Other than fighting with a couple of our TVs for a few hours to get everything set up, it’s been a pretty easy process[1]. But I wasn’t the one climbing utility poles in the heat.

The installer said someone would be out in the next two weeks to bury our line. I put up a bunch of flags and stakes and ran out to warn our lawn guys about it when it showed up. Hopefully whoever shows up to take care of the line doesn’t take four months like Xfinity did when they installed our line in 2018.


  1. We are using an Apple TV as the interface on our main TV, an Amazon FireStick 4K on another, and on our outdoor TV just using the built-in apps. This will cause some confusion with some people in our house.  ↩

Weekend Notes

We had a great weekend highlighted by some visitors, both local and from KC, and lots of basketball. But first we need to jump back and review C’s trip to Bloomington for orientation.


Orientation

We got up bright and early to make check-in at 9:00 AM last Monday. Thank goodness the I–69 extension is finally complete after a decade of work. Once you get out of the Indy construction it is a breeze to get to B-town. No more stoplights every two miles!

For the first 90 minutes we were together, but then separated for the rest of the day. I went to several parent sessions, most of which were informative. We were supposed to link back up for dinner before the parents were dismissed and the kids shuffled on to evening activities, but C decided to have dinner with her future roommate, who lives in Bloomington. I might have been a little annoyed she didn’t share this with me earlier in the day so I could have left before I had to return home in rush hour traffic. Alas…

I was back for an 11:00 session on Tuesday, which was also when she had her enrollment appointment. We finished about the same time then took a tour of the dorm she will live in. She’s in the biggest dorm on campus, it’s actually a complex that has three satellite buildings and one central one. She’s excited because there’s a Starbucks in the basement of the main building. There were a bunch of high school campers there so the cafeteria was bustling. For some reason they didn’t walk us through it but the food sure smelled good.

It seems like she had a good time. One of her best friends was in her group both days, so that helped. They stayed in single dorm rooms and her AC unit wasn’t working, so she had to battle a sweltering room to try to sleep. She had fun at dinner with her future roomie. She seems happy with her schedule, although she has an 8:00 AM class two days. We’ll see how that goes. We will move her in on August 20, so it’s coming up quick. Our bonus room is starting to fill up with our many Amazon and Target purchases for her.


Travel Hoops

This was a big AAU weekend, both open for recruiting and for teams that play on a “circuit,” it was the last weekend to lock in places for next week’s nationals.[1] Her team had games Thursday through today. We went to watch them play their Friday games. She didn’t tell me that her coach’s daughter asked if she could play. I would probably have let her if she had told me and her coach thought it wouldn’t get him in trouble. I guess it’s probably best, as I’m not sure her body is ready for the full-contact style that is travel ball.

Her team played great in their first game, coming from seven down to beat a solid team by one. Then they got absolutely run out of the gym by a team from Nebraska. This team was all skinny, scrappy white girls. But they could shoot the shit out of the ball and ran great offense. L was glad she wasn’t on the court for that one.

I missed most of that one because I walked down to the feature court to watch a U17 game that featured a team that had two girls over 6’3”. There were coaches from Texas, Duke, NC State, Auburn, Rutgers, IU, and plenty of smaller D1 schools sitting along the baseline, so I figured they must be big prospects. Turned out they weren’t. They were both kind of messes. But this girl on the other team was crazy good. She was only 5’10” or so but had a crazy handle, made great passes, and moved well without the ball. Oh, and she also hit four straight 3’s without touching the rim before the other team decided to stick one defender on her and never let her get open. I always get mad there aren’t rosters at these events so I can look up kids and see where they are ranked and track where they end up going.

I know L missed playing travel, but her team was kind of weird this year, and I think it would have really frustrated her had she played. There were several girls who seemed to have no interest in playing team ball. I’m guessing one girl was told by her high school coach to work on her shot, because she took at least 800 shots a game. And she’s not that good. Other girls just would not pass ever, and either take their own awful shots or pound the ball until they turned it over.

It was nice for L’s coach to tell me several times this season how much he missed her. Not because she would have been the best player or anything, that definitely was not true. But as I’ve said many times, she has a steadying presence and is a vocal leader who isn’t afraid to call out teammates. His team needed that, as his daughter is probably the best player but very quiet and always tries not to step on people’s toes since her dad is the coach. Another girl who has played for him for six years, and is L’s best friend on the team, is fiery and physical, but also isn’t good at bringing teammates together. Had L played that would have given them four girls who had been together four seasons, plus a true voice on the court, and perhaps that could have brought the entire roster together.

Or maybe L would have been pissed after every game because this player never passes and that player doesn’t know the sets etc.

Some of her friends were down in Louisville for the weekend. You may have heard on the news that the tournament was suspended Sunday because there were reports of shots being fired at the Expo Center. It turned out there was no shooter, but I’m sure that was awful to experience. We’ve been there the last three years and that place is jam packed. I can’t imagine what it would have been like had someone actually been firing bullets in a building filled with girls playing basketball.

One of her friends who was there texted, “Well, I guess someone went 0–4 and was DONE.” Sometimes you have to laugh not to cry?


Wimbledon

I did not watch much of the tournament over the past two weeks. The match I paid most attention to was Thursday’s women’s semifinal between Amanda Anisimova and Aryna Sabalenka. What a fun match! Anisimova rebounded from taking an extended break from tennis a little over a year ago to upset the #1 seed and make her first Slam final.

What struck me was Sabalenka. I’ve never been a huge fan, for a variety of reasons. But over the past year I’ve found myself admiring her more because she is such a compelling, yet tragic, figure. When she’s on, she seems like by far the best player in the game. But she has these hiccups in the biggest moments, and then often very honest, human reactions to them. You can see her losing faith in some aspect of her game, and the rest of it slowly unraveling. Maybe the reason I didn’t initially like her is because she came across as an old-school, Eastern European robot designed to destroy anything in her path. These meltdowns make her much more relatable. The fact that she seems to have grown as a person, and usually apologizes for her mistakes and mis-speaks makes me like her more.

But I was still rooting against her. Shame Anisimova had nothing left for Saturday’s final.

I didn’t watch the men’s final because I was busy. As you’ll read about in a moment.


Visitors

My old high school pal Stacey and her kids were in town over the weekend. They came by Saturday evening, along with our local friends the H’s, for dinner, drinks, games, and conversation. Some big storms passed right before dinner, but they cooled it off just enough that late in the evening the kids were able to get in the pool for a swim in the dark. I think the water was still around 95° so it wasn’t exactly refreshing…


Fever Game

Sunday L and I went to our first ever Indiana Fever game with our visitors. It was a big game, as Dallas was in town with Paige Bueckers. L is not shy about saying she’s really not a Caitlin Clark fan anymore,[2] and that she much prefers Bueckers. This was the first time the two phenoms were facing each other as pros – CC was out injured for the first Dallas-Indiana game of the year – so it became one of the most anticipated games of the season.

It was a great game…for about 15 minutes. The Fever were up 33–31 when they absolutely blew the game open with a 31–8 run. Soooo many breakout layups. I’m not sure Dallas has ever practiced transition defense. It reminded me of how KU ran all over Miami in the second half of their 2022 Elite Eight game.

The arena was packed, so that run was great. I don’t think it was quite as loud as it was last month in game six of the NBA Finals, but the place was rocking. Interestingly, there were also a lot of young ladies there who love Paige, too. When Dallas did something right, which wasn’t often, there was a smattering of applause. But when Paige did something, there were big roars. Not as big as when anyone on the Fever did something, but it was also very noticeable.

CC is obviously the big draw, but as this is Indiana the top six or seven in rotation have really been embraced by the crowd. Everyone loves the quiet determination and brilliant scoring of Kelsey Mitchell. Aliyah Boston is admired as much for being the public face of the team off the court as for her low post game. How can you not love Lexie Hull? But newcomer Sophie Cunningham is the clear #2 choice behind CC. I think the girls love her because she’s a badass, she’s Insta glamorous, and she plays with flair. And, of course, the dudes like her for all those reasons and a few more. We sat pretty high up but I heard several people yell “We love you Sophie!” A little kid got on the big screen with his sign that said “Marry Me Sophie C!” There was lots of laughter when they showed him, and comments about how he wasn’t the only one with that dream. Props to him; you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

The Fever won in a blowout. Clark hit a long 3 to start the game, had some amazing passes, but otherwise continued to look like she’s not 100%. Cunningham had a big game. And Bueckers had the best statistical line of anyone. Just about everyone went home happy. Well, other than the Dallas players, I guess.


  1. L’s team plays in the U–16 Rise level on the Under Armour circuit. The top 32 teams play in the platinum division next weekend. Coming into this weekend they were ranked 28th, and their coach thought they had a good schedule so could at worst defend that spot.  ↩
  2. It’s mostly because of the whining and complaining and taking plays off on defense.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

C and I are off to Bloomington early Monday morning for her IU orientation, thus the Sunday evening post. Our holiday weekend was a little less chaotic than in recent years, so I’ll throw in some other stuff that happened over the past week as well.


Holiday Weekend

Our Fourth was fairly laid back, at least compared to recent years. We only had 15 relatives over, and just two of the young nephews were here so the pool was all theirs. I have a new Blackstone griddle and used it to cook burgers, brats, and hot dogs. I thought they all turned out pretty good, and it was much easier than past years when I tried to do the same meal on a combination of a pellet smoker and charcoal grill.

It was funny looking back at pictures of July 4’s past, and seeing how we had rather casual gatherings at other people’s houses, mostly S’s dad and stepmom’s, until 2012 when we bought our lake house. For the next six years holidays were always down there.[1] After a year’s break when we moved and had an unfinished backyard, starting in 2019 our pool became holiday central. Our girls don’t really remember the gatherings that didn’t involve water.

The girls were all out with friends in the evening and made it home safely.

Saturday evening S and I went to dinner with some friends.

Sunday the whole family got together with S’s group of best medical school friends for the first time in ages. We had a long ride on the hosts’ boat after dinner, which was cut a little short when we noticed storms were headed our way. We made it home before some nice, long, loud thunderstorms boomed for a couple hours. We needed the rain and it looks like the storms will knock the heat down for at least a couple days.


Pacers/Myles Turner

Wednesday I was sitting down to eat my lunch when I saw the shocking news that Myles Turner had signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. It was a shock because all indications were that he was close to re-signing with the Pacers, who were willing to pay the luxury tax to keep him. I was certainly surprised, even if I suggested a week earlier that keeping him wasn’t the sure thing it seemed to be before Tyrese Haliburton’s injury.

Also shocking was how the move was panned for both teams by most NBA analysts. Usually at least one side is the winner, but it didn’t seem so in this case.

In order to sign Turner, the Bucks waived and “stretched” Dame Lillard’s contact. Meaning they took the two years of money they still owed him and spread it across five years. So they will be paying Turner an average of $26 million over the next four years, and have a cap hit of $22.5 million over five years for Lillard’s contract. Which means they are effectively paying Myles $48.5 million over the life of his contract. Myles is a nice player, but he ain’t worth $48M. The deal also almost completely hamstrings the Bucks from making further moves, which is important because they don’t have a true point guard on the roster at the moment.

Very strange.

Then the Pacers took heat for seemingly letting Turner walk simply to avoid paying the luxury tax. It’s hard enough to get free agents to come to Indianapolis in the first place, a task made harder as the team has a reputation for being frugal. Letting Turner go seemed to reinforce that view. One analyst suggested letting Myles walk would cause a mutiny amongst the rest of the team, which I thought was a little extreme.

Our idiot local sports columnist, who doesn’t know much about how NBA contracts work, suggested that Turner and his agent were the bad guys here, and that they lied about the Pacers not being willing to pay the tax. He also claimed the Pacers had offered a lot more than Turner was saying.

Which misses the point that the Bucks still offered more than whatever the Pacers’ final offer was. For some reason us Midwesterners always think our best players should take hometown discounts to stay with our teams[2] Yes, Myles Turner has made a ridiculous amount of money in his life. But why should he, or any other player, not take the biggest contract offered them?

Anyway, whatever the Pacers’ motivations, I totally get the move. Myles is on the back end of his career, turning 30 this year, and has shown some minor decline. This past season he was a nearly 40% 3-point shooter when Haliburton was on the court. In contrast, he wasn’t even a 30% shooter when Hali was sitting. Maybe those stabilize over the course of a season, but with Hali out all of next year, the argument to let Myles walk makes more sense.

This also means the Pacers don’t have to make a decision on Bennedict Mathurin this summer. They can let him play, likely as a starter, next season, see if his game improves/messes better with the Pacers system, and then extend or trade him next summer.

Biggest of all, next year’s draft is supposed to be very deep, with at least three franchise building block players at the top. With the new flattened lottery odds, you don’t have to be terrible to sneak into the top three. See Dallas this year. So let your center walk, play without your best player all season, and then hope the first round pick you re-acquired a month ago turns into a mega lottery ticket in the 2026 draft.

I get why some Pacers fans are pissed. But this is a completely defensible move from both Myles Turner’s and the Pacers’ perspectives. There are no true bad guys here.

I also laughed when I turned on the local news Saturday and they said there was big, breaking Pacers news! Yep, Indiana traded for Memphis backup center Jay Huff. Maybe they were just being puny, since Huff is 7’1”. But this is not a franchise altering trade. Hell, I didn’t even know Huff was in the NBA.


M’s Adventures

M was home for the weekend – and is actually working from our house Monday because she had a dentist appointment in the morning – but her real fun was the weekend before the holiday. She flew to the Bay Area to visit her sorority “little,” who lives in San Jose. It seems like they had a great time and she got to see almost everything she wanted to see, although the marine layer was thick so the Golden Gate Bridge was totally socked in and their trip to the beach in Santa Cruz wasn’t filled with sunshine.

It was a bit of a hassle to get there, though. Her first flight out of Cincinnati was delayed because of both storms near the airport, and storms between Cincy and Denver, where her first leg ended. Before she had taken off she got a message from Southwest saying she would not make her connection and that they had re-booked her on a new flight…the next morning. Keep in mind she was traveling alone, and for the first time no less!

Luckily she has an aunt that lives in Denver. S made a call and Aunt K was thrilled for M to come spend the night.

However, I was tracking M’s flight and noticed the arrival time in Denver kept moving up. And the flight to SFO kept getting delayed. There was a chance she would make it. Sure enough rather than fly nearly to Texas to get around storms, the pilots found a gap in the storms over Kansas, and they landed nearly on time.

I had already texted M that she would probably have to Uber to her aunt’s house. When she was on the ground and responded I told her that there was a chance she might make her second flight. She got very excited. And then they sat on the tarmac for at least 30 minutes before they pulled to the gate…just as the SFO flight was pulling away from its gate.

Oh well.

Turns out they were sitting on the tarmac so the ground crew could pull bags for people who were booked on other flights, including M even though she had been rebooked. Sometimes the right hand doesn’t talk to the left at Southwest. So she stood around for another half hour waiting for her bag and then had to go ask for assistance and was told her bag was on its way to California. Egad. She was a little flustered.

By now it was close to midnight in Denver, close to 2:00 AM to her body. Once she was in her Uber I went to bed and S woke up to track her progress. M made it safely to her aunt’s house just after 3:00 AM Eastern. She was thoroughly wiped out, but at least she didn’t have to sleep in the airport. We had no idea if she could have checked into a hotel if we found her a room since she’s only 20.

She got a decent night’s sleep and then her uncle and cousin drove her back to DEN the next morning for her delayed trip into SFO. She was excited that her bag was waiting at the Southwest office for her and she didn’t have to wait for it to come out on the carousel.[3]

A bummer that cut half a day off her time in Cali, but she has a story! And the rest of the weekend was great.


TdF

The Tour de France started Saturday. I doubt any of you care about that. Just in case anyone does have any interest in this year’s race, this is a hilarious and thorough accounting of each team and the primary contenders.

An entirely vibes-based guide to the 2025 Tour de France


  1. Or at least the closest weekend was. A few years, when the Fourth was mid-week, we stayed home and went to a local pool on the 4th and saved the family lake gathering for the weekend.  ↩
  2. Of course Myles is staying in the Midwest, so it’s not like he’s going to LA or New York.  ↩
  3. As a good dad I told her she probably should have reduced her toiletries since she was just going for a weekend and not checked a bag. This is why we are here.  ↩

More Hoops Notes

A day later I still have a lot of Pacers thoughts. And I still need to catch you up on a very busy weekend. So this may turn into two posts, depending on how long I yap about the first topic.


Pacers Followup

I became a Pacers fan when we moved to Indy in 2003, but they have never been at the top of my sports fandom rankings.[1] Although they have climbed a lot over the past year! Still, when they lose I’m not as mad or upset as I am when KU loses, or when good Royals teams have lost. So I was a little surprised how emotional I was when Tyrese Haliburton went down Sunday. For the Pacers season to end like that was devastating. To get so close and then it end not just because the other team was better, but because your best player’s body failed him was a massive gut punch. I was kind of in shock when it happened, saying “Oh no,” over and over when he hit the crowd, hoping he would get up.

But it really hit me after the game was over. Seeing Haliburton on crutches, waiting for his teammates as they walked to the locker room was tough. We invest all this time and emotion into sports, and it becomes a huge part of our lives when a team goes on a run like this. I know Haliburton is a mega-millionaire, as are most of his teammates. And no one “deserves” a result in sports. But in those moments it feels grossly unfair.

That said, his injury made the actual loss easier to take. Although they fought hard, the second he went down, most of us knew the Pacers had no chance to win. It was sudden and resolute. A loss is a loss, but something about the drama being stripped away made it suck less. It shouldn’t matter but to me, at least, it did.

I found it funny in a morbid way that some people accused the Pacers of gamesmanship for the way they reported Haliburton’s calf injury after game five. Like they were exaggerating to throw the Thunder off. Add that to the list of weirdness in the conversation about Hali.

Big props to Rick Carlisle. I did not appreciate what a great coach he was until this year. He coached the Pacers when we first moved here and had one great team, and another that was poised to be great until it flamed out in epic fashion. At the time it felt like he was just doing what everyone else is the league did: play power basketball based on toughness and size and defensive excellence.

He won a title in Dallas, but that was a year when the playoff bracket opened up for a variety of reasons and riding one of the best players in the world going on an epic hot streak.

I was not super excited when the Pacers hired him for the second time in 2021. That was because I had no idea of the coaching journey he’s gone on through his career, always open to new ideas and perspectives, learning to match what he asked his teams to do to the talent they had. The past two years have been the culmination of that. A year ago the Pacers were this insane offensive team that couldn’t guard a high school roster. In time Carlisle made adjustments both in set and what he asked his players to do. To their credit, they bought in. Eventually, when the team got healthy this year, they settled into a withering style on both ends. In retrospect, as good as that system was for the regular season, it was perfectly suited for the postseason, where half the goal is just to wear down your opponent over seven games. Podcaster Zach Lowe said Monday that he spoke to a player who faced the Pacers this postseason who told him that the Pacers are an awful team to play against.

Carlisle also seems like a genuinely curious and empathetic human being. I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate him sooner.

Also deserving of credit are the players for buying into Carlisle’s system. It is based on constant motion, on pressuring all 94 feet, on fighting over screens rather than switching or going under. Basically killing yourself every minute you’re on the court. That only works if everyone buys in. It took some time – Pascal Siakam has admitted he had no idea how fast the Pacers played and how much he’d have to improve his fitness to fit in when they acquired him a year ago – but eventually that happened. In the process it unlocked players like Aaron Nesmith, TJ McConnell, and Obi Toppin, who had struggled to find their NBA footing. And it elevated Andrew Nembhard from role player to starter.

And props to Kevin Pritchard and Chad Buchanan for deciding to build around Haliburton’s unique skill set. A lot of front office’s are reluctant to buck trends or ask players to sacrifice for the greater good. For at least two seasons it has worked for the Pacers.

The Pacers made an interesting trade a week ago, swapping some draft picks with New Orleans. It was an odd time to make a deal, in the middle of the NBA Finals, but it was primarily viewed as an effort to unload picks this year when the Pacers are facing a salary crunch. It didn’t seem super important at the time but they also re-acquired their first round pick next year which had been traded around a few times. With Haliburton out for the coming year, suddenly that looks like a great move. I think the Pacers should still be decent next year, mostly because they play in the Eastern Conference. But swapping the #23 pick this year for one that could be in the teens next year seems smart. Hell, depending on other roster decisions and the health of other players, that could turn into a very nice pick/trade asset.

Ah what to do this summer. Myles Turner is a free agent. There are not a ton of teams that have the need nor salary cap space to sign him, which may reduce his value. The Pacers have said they would love to keep him, but to do so will push them into luxury tax territory for the first time in franchise history. He just turned 29 and seems to be declining just a little. With Hali missing next year, is it worth the cap hit to keep Turner around and hope he can still be as effective in two and three years as he enters his 30s? Tough decision. I think I would lean to letting him go, as emotionally painful as that might be to a guy who has spent his entire career in Indianapolis. But is a reduced Turner in ’26–27–28 better than trying to develop some young guy over that same span? Seven footers who can shoot the 3 don’t grow on trees.

That choice is tougher since the Pacers have no backup centers under contract. They lost their two opening day backups in the first 10 days of the season to achilles injuries, and playoff role players Thomas Bryant and Tony Bradley should be third options at best.

Do you move any other pieces to clear space to keep Turner? Bennedict Mathurin has two years left on his rookie contract. As much as his change-of-pace is perfect off the bench, I’m not sure he totally fits in with what the Pacers want to do when their starters are on the court. With Haliburton out, will Mathurin defer to players he probably thinks he’s better than? I like his potential but the fit has always bothered me. This could be a sell high moment for chemistry alone. Or maybe Carlisle relishes the chance to make adjustments that cater to Mathurin’s skill set.

The post-Finals discourse has been interesting. At least in the pods I listen to and the articles I’ve read, it’s been as much about how this Pacers team captured the attention of the NBA world as the Thunder winning and potentially kicking off a dynasty. Some of that was because of Hali’s injury, but it was also an appreciation of how ridiculous the Pacers were over the last two months.

I also think it’s funny that there is a lot of hate for the Thunder among hardcore NBA fans. How can you hate a team from a small market that just won their first NBA title? There are complaints about their playing style (the constant fouling on defense combined with the foul hunting on offense), their lack of interesting personalities, their whole “we do interviews together” bit, the way their front office has both stacked up tons of future drafts picks and lucked into some good players they may not have deserved, and the fact the franchise was stolen from Seattle. I say wait until they’ve won another title or two before you start hating them. Every franchise should want to be like the Thunder.


Kid Hoops

OK, L had a very busy week last week. Also a concerning and frustrating one.

Last Monday she had a PT appointment that went very well. Her activity got amped up and she got through the session without any pain. She was cleared to play up to 20 minutes per day for the coming week.

Wednesday night we were back at action in the local summer league. She played about five minutes in the first half against an experienced, tough team and held her own. Then she never came back in. I was keeping score so couldn’t see if she was having an issue, so I wondered if maybe the coach was saving the rest of her minutes for game two. After the game she said she was having intense pain in her foot and could barely walk.

Oh shit.

Fortunately the pain was on the opposite side of where her surgery was. She was wearing new shoes and I wondered if that was the cause, but she claimed they fit her fine. She managed to play a few minutes in game two but was still struggling. We also lost both games and the girls got a long “talking” to after the second one from their coach. I put talking in quotes because there was a lot of yelling.

Friday morning they got on a bus and drove down to Lexington, KY for a team camp at Transylvania University. Calling it a camp was a little silly: this was just an excuse to play up to eight games in three days. There were no skills sessions or anything.

I told her to let me know how things went Friday, but never heard anything. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

I drove down Saturday morning and when I walked into the gym, she was on the court in their first game of the day. That seemed good. When I reached our other parents they said she had just scored on a nice layup. She had another one later.

After the game, though, she came up and was limping badly. Still opposite of where her surgery was. She was beside herself and eventually dissolved into tears. I told her again that I really thought this had more to do with her foot struggling with overloading because of rehab and her new shoes than anything serious. I also said if she was in that much pain she did not have to play, and would be happy to talk to her coach about it. I think that was part of her worry, talking to the coach.

They had three hours until their next game so she went back to the dorm to rest while us parents went downtown for lunch. I checked in on her an hour later and she said she would talk to her coach on her own. After she messaged me that the coach was nice about it and told her it’s more important to be healthy in the fall than now.

When I went back to the gym for game two, L looked much happier, like a weight had been lifted. She ended up sitting out the rest of the games over the weekend. We’re going to give the foot a few days to heal and then try going back to her old shoes to see if it is just a fit issue. She doesn’t have PT this week but when we go in next week we’ll see if her therapist has suggestions about getting everything to fit properly.

As for the team, they played really well. In fact they won the “tournament,” which was great given they were down to seven players after L sat out. If our best player, who wrecked her knee a week ago, had played I think we would have destroyed all the teams we played. None of them were very good. But it was a good chance for the girls to learn how to fill roles they haven’t filled before. A couple of L’s classmates who were not very good last year played really well over the weekend.

Sunday’s game were rather strange. The games Friday and Saturday were all 20 minute, running clock halves. Sunday’s first knock-out round had 16 minute running clock halves. And then the semifinals and finals were both “overtime” games: played with a five minute clock that stopped on dead balls. I’m not sure if this was to save the girls after already playing so much or because they needed to gym for something else at 1:00 PM.

We won our first OT game 4–1. Then the championship game 7–4, the other team hitting an uncontested 3 at the final buzzer.

Us parents thought this whole concept was a little silly, but our coach told us after it was actually great from her perspective. It gave her a chance to work on late-game stuff that’s often hard to replicate in practice. You can tell girls there are 2:00 left and you are down two, but there’s no real pressure there. These two OT games were pretty sloppy, partially because everyone was wiped out, but also because you could tell the girls felt that pressure of the clock.


Lexington

Just being down there one night, and watching a lot of basketball, I didn’t get to spend much time exploring Lexington. One of the other dads and I decided to watch the Independent League Lexington Legends play some baseball Saturday evening. We got into the stadium for $11, got a burger and beer for another $12, and enjoyed about four innings of mediocre baseball before we ducked out. Pitching at this level is suspect, and it was already 5–2 Legends when we took our seats in the third inning. When we left in the seventh, it was 15–4. Lots of bad defense, too. But it was a really nice night at the old ballpark.

Rupp Arena was only a half mile from the Transylvania campus and my plan was to walk over in one of the breaks. But it was approximately 999° all weekend, and I didn’t want to die of heat exhaustion in Kentucky. We drove by on our way out of town and it was as had been described to me many times: a massive, nondescript building on the outside that is attached to shopping and hotels. There is a large parking lot across the street that I was hoping I could pull into to at least take a quick picture. But even on a Sunday morning with no activities scheduled, the gates were down and I was going to have to pay to get in. I’m sure it’s nice on the inside. But it has zero character on the outside and is not in the middle of campus. Allen Fieldhouse it ain’t.


  1. I actually wrote nearly 1000 words on my history as a Pacers fan and decided none of you wanted/needed to read that.  ↩

Crushing

 

Sports can be unbelievably cruel sometimes. They can step up and make the worst possible thing happen in the worst possible time.

That’s how the Indiana Pacers’ dream run through the postseason ended last night. Not because the favored Oklahoma City Thunder dominated the third quarter to turn a close game into a comfortable win, clinching their first NBA title. That was just normal sports, not an unexpected result at all.

What was cruel was what Pacers fans had been fearing since the end of game two: Tyrese Haliburton’s achilles tendon rupturing as he attempted to drive past a defender midway through the first quarter. The Pacers were up 14–10, Hali accounting for nine of those points on three 3-pointers. Unlike the careful manner he played in game six, he looked fully engaged, fast, and intense, screaming at the crowd after his third 3 forced an OKC timeout. And then he was crumpled on the ground, hitting the court repeatedly with his fist as the Thunder ran the other way for a dunk. The Pacers’ title hopes were on the floor with him.[1]

Just like Dame Lillard and Jason Tatum earlier this postseason,[2] the cruelest of modern sports injuries seems to have taken Hali, too.[3] Not only did it cost him game seven, but most likely all of next season. We probably won’t see him in uniform again until October 2026.

Brutal. Unfair. Cruel. Sports.

(A quick aside about what a wild run the narrative around Haliburton has been the past year. First it was “Why is he on the Olympic team if he isn’t playing?” Then, “Why did he accept a spot on the Olympic team if he was injured?” And, “He’s ruined the Pacers season by selfishly playing in the Olympics rather than rehabbing.” By April he was the “Most Overrated” player in the game, based on a poll in which nine players voted for him. Then he was Mr Clutch Shot. Then he was “not a true superstar” because he didn’t score enough. Which became louder when the non-basketball focused national writers started paying attention, claiming he needed to do more when they had not watched the Pacers all year to see the Pacers were successful because Hali was far more likely to have a 19 point, 12 assist night than ever score 30. Then he was hurting his team by playing injured, only he had to play because it was the Finals. Exhausting. I only paid a little attention to all this, usually just getting what was included in the game broadcasts, but it reinforced my decision to ignore pretty much everything ESPN says about basketball when the ball isn’t in play. And sometimes ignoring the in-game commentary, too.)

Haliburton’s teammates honored both him and the collective character they’ve shown this entire postseason by not giving up. They fell behind by six then charged back to take the lead a couple times. They were somehow up one at halftime after a long 3 by Andrew Nembhard. Despite the bleakness of Hali’s injury, we were all wondering, “Could they pull off one more miracle?” Could they find a way to survive the OKC pressure for 24 minutes, find a way to manufacture and make shots, find a way to contain SGA and J-Dub and the Thunder role players?

No, they could not. But they sure tried.

The third quarter was a disaster. If not for another crazy TJ McConnell quarter the Pacers could have easily been down well over 20 points going into the final period. But too many turnovers, too much passive play, and, to give full credit, far too much OKC D overwhelmed the short-handed Pacers.

They kept fighting. The Thunder showed some nerves late, and after falling behind by 21, Indiana got it down to 10 points once, eventually losing by 12. Without Haliburton, though, and without anyone other than Bennedict Mathurin doing much on offense in the final period, there was never the feeling that they might steal the game and title.

The Thunder are worthy champions. They were the best team in the NBA this season. They have the best player. They probably would have won had Hali stayed on the court, even if he matched SGA shot-for-shot. It sucks the Pacers didn’t get that shot, though, because of the cruelty of sports.

Thus ends a hell of a ride, one that went back much further than just the last two months of playoff basketball. The Pacers, fighting injuries and rehabs, started the season 10–15 before winning five straight. Then they got blown out by OKC and Boston in back-to-back games after Christmas. The loss to the Celtics was by 37 points and the Pacers could not have seemed further away from the game’s elite. Two nights later they beat the Celtics by nine. That’s the moment I thought they might be finding themselves. A loss to Milwaukee on New Year’s Eve muted that a bit, but they followed that with six straight wins and were off, steadily climbing the Eastern Conference standings over the next three months. They wouldn’t lose consecutive games until early March, when they dropped three straight to bad teams, concerning for a team fighting for a playoff seed. Again they rebounded, going 15–4 over the last month of the regular season and checked in as the #4 seed in the East.

They weren’t just winning, though. They were winning CRAZY games. Scoring four points in 1.9 seconds. Coming from 12 down with a minute left. Every game seemed close – except when they hung 162 points on Washington – and the Pacers were always the team making the winning plays while their opponents cracked. I didn’t write about them much until April 14. Here’s what I said then:

In other words, I’m not sure if this team is quite as good as their record indicates. Or, on the other hand, maybe they’re a team that never gets down on themselves and are comfortable in difficult situations. Throw in the experience from last year’s conference finals run, and perhaps they are a super dangerous team?

I hedged my bets, but in retrospect super dangerous seems right.

In sports we too often focus on the end, and whether our teams win or not, the ring culture that LeBron James decried last week.[4] I did not give the Pacers much chance in this series. Then they stole game one, took game three, and were rolling in the third quarter of game four. They gave me hope and suddenly heartbreak was in play. It sure would have been great to take game seven down to the closing minutes and see which team buckled and which team’s culture and cohesiveness carried them to the title. But I can’t be too disappointed after the wonderful ride this team took the city on.

When the Royals won the World Series in 2015, I wrote that some champions remain anonymous, but that team would always be remembered for how they ran and caught everything and got key hits in the biggest moments and came back when their backs were against the wall. This year’s Pacers team did not win the title, but they also carved out an identity that will be recalled for years to come. They were the team that came together at the right time, that never let the odds faze them, that never withered when the pressure was the highest, that always thought they were the best team no matter who they were playing.

Pacers fans should be disappointed about Sunday night, but not about this season.


  1. They weren’t nearly as impactful, but in the past 15 years the Pacers have lost Hali, Victor Oladipo, and Paul George to terrible leg injuries.  ↩
  2. To be fair, the Pacers benefitted from these injuries, both directly and indirectly.  ↩
  3. Honestly shocked some idiot, like our current HHS Secretary for example, hasn’t suggested vaccines are responsible for all these achilles injuries.  ↩
  4. Is there a DUMBER opinion than LeBron complaining about players chasing rings? Irony is truly dead.  ↩

Three Down…

OMG OMG OMG!!!!

The Indiana Pacers are playing for the NBA championship Sunday night!

Thursday was a wonderful night of professional basketball. At least if you are a Pacers fan. They started out slow, missing like their first 100 shots, and trailed 10–2. From then on it really wasn’t much of a game. The Pacers destroyed the Thunder in pretty much every way. Their defense was suffocating. They were ferocious rebounders. Their offense was locked in. It was the proverbial snowball turning into an avalanche, and the best team in the NBA this season was powerless to stop it. The final margin of 17 points hides that the Pacers were up by 30 at the end of the third quarter, when OKC effectively threw in the towel, sitting their starters the entire fourth quarter. I’m not sure that has ever happened in the NBA Finals.

It was even more satisfying given every minute since game five ended was spent worrying about Tyrese Haliburton’s health. I was of the opinion that if he was not 100%, the Pacers had no chance. He was not 100%. The Thunder had no chance. Sports are weird.

What was great about this performance was that it embodied everything that the Pacers are about. Obi Toppin was the leading scorer with a modest 20 points, four of which came very late against the OKC scrubs. Pascal Siakam had 16 points, 13 rebounds. Andrew Nembhard scored 17. TJ Freaking McConnell, man. The reserve guard had a ridiculous 12 point, 9 rebound, six assist, four steal night. The Thunder know he’s coming and every game he does things they can’t handle. No one was incredible, but everyone pitched in. What is also crazy is that the Pacers had two long cold stretches. They could have easily led by 40 or more before the third quarter ended.

Haliburton played and was fine, scoring 14 points. He didn’t do anything spectacular. Well, other than this ridiculous pass to Pascal Siakam on the break just before halftime:

I yelled, too.

The huge lead allowed Hali to sit most of the second half. I’m not sure if we can count on him being fully healthy Sunday, but at least he should be available.

The series will be decided in Oklahoma City. This was a perfect final game of the season in Indianapolis, an extended celebration for a team that has brought this city a tremendous amount of excitement and pride during the postseason. It’s been fun for the national media to discover, or re-discover I guess, how great a venue Gainbridge Fieldhouse is. That place was rocking every minute of each of the three games it hosted over the past week.

Anything can happen in a game seven. Given how this series has swung, and how much it swung Thursday, it’s hard not to fear a hard correction back towards the Thunder. SGA might score 45. Jalen Williams might score 45. They BOTH might score 45. The Thunder may find their defensive mojo and keep the Pacers from getting into their offense before there are five seconds left to shoot. They might run Indiana out of the building, flipping the script from last night. But as I’ve been saying for two months, never count this team out.

All that matters is that the Pacers have a shot. Forty-eight minutes left on this wild ride that began back in March on a crazy Haliburton shot in a regular season game against Milwaukee. The crowd chanted “‘Cers in Seven!” as the clock ran out Thursday. That’s not as ridiculous as it sounded two weeks ago.

BTW, S and I watched outside on our porch, probably the first time we’ve ever watched a Pacers game there. They don’t play many games in June so we don’t get this opportunity often. C had a bunch of friends over and they were kind of loud in the basement, the weather was nice, so we decided to stick to the outside TV. Same spot I watched the Gold Medal game in last summer’s Olympics. Yes, I am hoping for good weather Sunday so I can watch outside again.

A Bummer Of A Game Five

After a nearly two-month dream ride, the Pacers run might be over. It wasn’t just that they lost game five in Oklahoma City last night by 11, after trimming an 18-point deficit to two midway through the fourth quarter. It wasn’t just that they routinely threw the ball away. It wasn’t just that they missed open shots when they could hang on to the ball.

It was more that Tyrese Haliburton played most of the game hobbled by whatever lower leg injury he has been dealing with the past couple weeks. It was allegedly an issue late in game two, but in games three and four he showed no ill effects, at least none that were clearly visible on TV. But last night, after slipping and aggravating the injury early, he was never at full strength, and sat out a little longer than he normally would. Fortunately for the Pacers TJ McConnell might have played the best game of his life. That both wasn’t enough and isn’t likely to be repeatable, though.

Haliburton’s game is based on speed and changes of direction and jumping while knifing around defenders. If he is compromised in his ability to do that, the Pacers have no shot.

There is the hope that with two full rest days before game six he can rally and be close to full strength for that elimination contest.

My fear, though, was that each time he grabbed his calf we would see him crumple moments later after his achilles had given way. At this point there’s a part of me that hopes the Pacers get blown out early Thursday so he can sit without suffering a potentially devastating injury that would wipe him out for not just this series but all of next year, too. NBA players love to destroy their achilles in the playoffs. Ask Jason Tatum and Kevin Durant, among others.

Game five was a great, brief explainer of both of these teams to the casual fan. The Thunder are a remarkable collection of young talent. SGA is the current MVP and one of the three or four current best players on the planet. Jalen Williams is too good to be labeled as just a sidekick. Chet Holmgren, if he can stay healthy and get stronger, will likely be one of the 15 best players in the league soon. Yes, Oklahoma City might have three All-NBA caliber players. Then they have a nearly perfect supporting cast around those three. And they have like a billion draft picks in the coming years, so they are perfectly positioned to weather the eventual salary cap hell.[1]

The Thunder are very good, very young, and set up to be that way for a long time. You have to be careful declaring dynasties these days; a year ago at this time we thought there was a new Boston Celtics dynasty. If any team in sports is positioned to dominate for the coming future, though, it is OKC.

Then you have the Pacers who are also built around two remarkable, if slightly less exceptional players than SGA and Williams. There’s no one in the NBA quite like Haliburton. The same can kind of be said for Pascal Siakam. Those two are both in the top 25 players in the league. They also have a fantastic and near-perfectly suited roster built around them. Again, that collection of talent isn’t as exceptional as the Thunder’s, but they work in a way that makes them far better as a sum than you would expect.

The Pacers are also unfazed by falling behind, whether it is because they are playing dumb, out of control, etc or their opponent is just handing it to them. They keep doing their thing knowing eventually it will start working again and they’ll get back into the game. Last night the Pacers were terrible in the first half. Throwing the ball away constantly. Taking bad shots and missing easy ones. Yet the Thunder couldn’t put them away and in the third quarter the inevitable comeback began. They just didn’t have enough, either as a team or from their superstar, to pull off another miracle.

It’s funny how these series go. I didn’t think the Pacers had much of a chance when it began, knowing how good OKC was. Then Indiana stole game one and seemed to break the Thunder’s collective spirit in game three. Instead of admiring the Thunder I was learning to hate them, from SGA’s constant pushoffs and referee bailouts on touch fouls, to Lu Dort and Alex Caruso manhandling the Pacers in the middle of the court without ever getting called for it, to Holmgren’s constant whining and truly unfortunate aesthetics. This is what is supposed to happen in the NBA Finals: you end up despising the team you are rooting against. Had the Thunder won this thing easily I’m not sure I would have gotten there. But the Pacers made this a series, and if they don’t pull off a massive upset over the final two games, will honestly look back on it as one they let get away, not one where they were hopelessly overmatched.

I’m starting to get into eulogy territory and it’s too soon for that. Hopefully I can put it off one more game and save it for next week. Between Hali’s health and the Thunder starting to feel locked in, things don’t seem promising for Thursday. You just never know with these Pacers. Maybe they have one more amazing game left in them and can send the series back to Oklahoma where anything can happen in game seven.


  1. The Thunder were, in fact, one ping pong ball away from owning the #3 pick in this year’s draft. Kevin Pritchard has done a terrific job building the Pacers, but Sam Presti has done an all-time job turning the Thunder into the franchise with the best and longest path to sustained excellence in the league.  ↩

Weekend Notes

A full, fun weekend that had healthy doses of sadness and even a little fear.


KC Trip

As mentioned Friday, I headed back to Kansas City for the weekend to attend the memorial service for Jack N, the father of one of my closest friends. We’re at the age where these are happening more frequently, but no matter the circumstances they are never easy. It was a fine service and honored the deceased in a way I think he would have appreciated.

That was the reason for the trip. I obviously did more than just attend the memorial.

I flew in Friday afternoon, my buddy Dave picked me up, and we headed directly to Joe’s Kansas City Barbecue, where I knocked out a jumbo Z-Man, fries, and a frosty Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat. Joe’s never disappoints.

On our way to Dave’s house, which was my home base for the weekend, we stopped at a liquor store. I was thrilled that they still had some Boulevard Irish Ale not only in stock but in the cooler. Where it was once kind of easy to find in Indy before St. Patrick’s Day, it has disappeared in recent years. An unexpected bonus!

That evening Dave and his wife had plans, so I took my Irish Ale to John N’s house. Despite having just returned from an overseas trip and planning for his dad’s services the next day, he was gracious enough to invite me out not just to visit but so I could avoid having to watch the Pacers game in a bar. I figured KC drinking holes would lean heavily towards the Thunder.

Anyway, John and his family and I had a good conversation while watching a little of the Royals game and all of the Pacers game. More on that in a bit.

Dave let me borrow his car, a 2019 Audi Q5. Fitting the theme for the weekend, it was like being with an old friend! I found it interesting that despite being just two years older than my Q5, his drove very differently. I’m no mechanical expert but I think his engine was tuned slightly differently, making it feel smoother than mine had been. However, his media screen was not touch capable, so I drove myself a little crazy trying to tap the screen to have Siri read texts to me without any success. There’s your mini car post for the month.

Saturday morning Dave and Maureen took me to Gram & Dun for brunch. I ate what was, without a doubt, the best breakfast burrito I’ve ever had. It was amazing.

After the service and reception, our friends the Murrays hosted a small gathering, which eventually moved to Waldo Pizza for dinner. I’m almost positive I had not been to Waldo Pizza in 22 years, so that was excellent.

Saturday also just happened to be the 22nd anniversary of the day S and I got married in KC. It was kind of wild to be back there, sadly without her, when that day rolled around. I was pleased to hear the lady who guided us through our pre-marriage classes is still active, and our good friend Ann remains close with her. I was also glad that it wasn’t 102° like it was the day we got married.

Sunday morning Maureen, despite it being her birthday, made sure to send me off with a wonderful breakfast. I was on the mid-morning flight back home. When the weather is right, there may be no easier trip in the world than flying between Indianapolis and Kansas City. Two new airports that are super easy to navigate and don’t get super busy. I was door-to-door in exactly three-and-a-half hours. Had I driven, I wouldn’t have been to St. Louis yet in that time.

One other travel note, the Racing Louisville FC women’s soccer team was on both of my flights. Apparently there are no direct flights between the ‘Ville and KC, so they must have bussed up to Indy. They lost to the KC Current Saturday evening. I did not mention the result to the players who were next to me in the boarding line Sunday.

I know a lot of the people I saw this weekend are readers of this site. It was great to see you all, although sad it took a funeral to get me back there this summer.


Pacers

Man, the NBA Finals were on the Pacers racquet, to use a tennis term. Up 2–1 in the series and leading by 10 points late in the third period, with Obi Toppin going to the line for two free throws. I had a bad feeling when he missed both, which turned out to be a key moment in the Thunder coming back to even the series at two games.

I watched the entire game, as already noted, at the N’s house. And while I was paying attention, we were also catching up. So my attentions were, at best, split 50–50 all night. For example, the play when SGA pushed off, traveled, and then got an and-one that gave OKC the lead barely registered. Had I been watching that play at home in my normal seat, I would have been screaming and yelling, possibly punching things, and maybe had to take a walk outside. For sure I would not have been able to sleep after the game. I shared this with a non-KC friend and he said, “That might be the healthiest move: force yourself to watch games with people who will make you unfocused on the result and less stressed.” Only took me (almost) 54 years to figure that out!

You hate to say the series is completely over after how good three of the first four games have been, but the Pacers have certainly blown their advantage and put themselves in a tough spot. At least they get to come back home for game six regardless of what happens in Oklahoma tonight. Never count them out, but they are running out of chances.


HS Hoops

It was an open recruiting weekend for high school sports – there were a bunch of college softball coaches on my flight Sunday who had been in Kansas City for a big tournament – and CHS played four games in an annual event here in Indy. Friday they went 2–0, including waxing a team that beat them last year and has one of the best rising juniors in the state. She scored 30+ but our girls kept the rest of the team in check. L didn’t play much in the first game, but got in for most of the fourth quarter of game two. Her travel coach was there and sent me a picture of her inbounding the ball. I shared it with S and she noted that L’s legs are back to being the same size! She’s got her muscle back after the weeks of cast and boot.

Saturday S went to the games and sent me some good updates. That might have been the highlight of the weekend; I’m not sure she’s ever sent me updates before! L played a little more, and a little better in each game. She got to the rim and scored while faking a defender in one. In the other, she scored, got fouled, and swished the free throw.

They beat a good team in the morning game, and then played the team they lost to in sudden death overtime a week ago in game two. We were waxing them, up almost 20, when things got bad. Like seriously bad.

S sent me a message saying our best player had suffered a “devastating” knee injury, probably tearing her ACL. S said the girl was screaming, other players were looking away, and it was just a terrible situation all around. A little later she updated me that it seemed like she had actually dislocated her knee, and the on-site trainer had popped it back into place. OK, 😱🤮

Then another five minutes went by and S texted me that one of L’s best friends had just broken her finger and left the game.

Obviously our girls were a little shook by all this, and tried their hardest to blow all of that lead. L got a lot more minutes and admitted to me later she was not ready to handle the ball against pressure yet. Glad I missed all of that.

But our girls hung on to go 4–0 for the weekend.

We don’t have an update on our star. S was concerned that despite just being a dislocation she could have also torn ligaments as well. I guess we’ll find out soon. That’s a serious bummer for her and our team. And our other injured girl will have surgery on her finger and be out the rest of the summer. The girls have 10 games this week and just eight healthy players, one of whom is still rehabbing her dumb foot and not in full basketball shape yet.

I thought summer was supposed to be fun.

Oh, and L was up in the air trying to block a shot when she got sideswiped by a teammate and knocked to the floor. She has a massive bruise on her hip and actually got some whiplash when she hit the ground and her head snapped back, so her neck is super sore and tight.

It might be time to get her some golf clubs.


US Open

With the travel I did not watch as much of the US Open as I normally would. I was home in time to see the wild final three or four hours Sunday, which included a long weather delay, a moment late in the tournament when six guys were tied for the lead, some epic meltdowns and classic US Open destroying the best golfers in the world stuff, and then JJ Spaun rolling in a ridiculous 60-foot putt to ice his first major victory. Conditions had eliminated most of the best and best known golfers, but the final two hours were a lot of fun to watch.


Royals

They stink.

I’ve not written much about them this year. I’m not watching them as closely as I did the back half of last season, but I am tracking scores each night. There have been a lot of bad Royals teams over the years. This one may well be the most frustrating because they get good-to-great starting pitching almost every night and just cannot hit the ball. It doesn’t matter whether I check the score early or late, I’m almost certain the Royals will have no more than two runs, and most likely none. It’s really uncanny how poor they are at scoring. I guess this is balancing how great they were last year at getting runners in scoring position home.

A Night Of Hoops

A full evening of basketball with some big moments worth sharing.


Pacers

WOW! Up 2–1 on the massive favorites thanks to two amazing quarters.

Oklahoma City was the better team for two periods Wednesday, the first and third. Sadly for them, the Pacers were even better in the second and fourth and now lead the NBA Finals.

I only saw the second half – more on that momentarily – but that was a fantastic game. The teams made runs at each other all night, neither able to land a knockout punch until the closing five minutes or so when the Pacers strung together makes and stops while the Thunder all seemed to whither under the pressure of the pace, moment, and crowd.

Bennedict Mathurin has driven me crazy this postseason. It has often seemed like he’s trying to do too much, and he’s had several moments (especially in the Cleveland series) when he let his emotions get the best of him. He was magnificent Wednesday. 27 points, from every part of the floor, and always within the offense. He’s the only guy on the Pacers roster who can play the way he does, getting his shot when the offense breaks down, so it is a massive bonus that he seems to be locked in for the moment. Now we just need him not to try to force things Friday night.

TJ McConnell did TJ McConnell things. In one sequence he got two steals and accounted for four points in about 15 seconds. Those four points tied the game before the Pacers took over. Obi Toppin had some more rough moments early, but he was fantastic in the closing run. So good that Rick Carlisle sat Pascal Siakam for the final four minutes, not because Pascal wasn’t playing well but because Toppin was so good.

It was a mature, big boy, classic NBA Finals win. It may not mean a thing in the end, but if the Pacers win this series, standing up to the Thunder in game three will be as important as their game one comeback.

It was so fun seeing the NBA Finals played here in Indy. The crowd seemed lit, and the parts of podcasts I’ve been able to listen to so far raved about how great the environment was. There’s been grousing from some about two small market teams playing each other in the final. That ignores both that these are two of the most fun and interesting teams to watch – way more fun than the Knicks, Lakers, or Celtics – and that these are two super passionate fanbases in insanely loud arenas. Everyone worried about the names on the fronts of the jerseys and airport codes is missing a series that is everything you can ask for on every other level.


High School Ball

I missed the first half of the game because it was week two of high school summer ball. And the most important aspect of that is that L was back on the court last night for the first time in nearly five months.

She was not cleared to play a week ago, so sat out a close loss to the defending 4A champs and a nice win against another 4A team on Wednesday, then a 2–1 trip to a shootout in Lafayette last Friday.

But this week she was cleared to play 10–15 minutes. She ended up playing the lower side of that across two games, partially because that’s how the rotations worked and partially because they practiced and then lifted weights in the morning so she was sore all over.

She did ok.

In the first game she played the last four minutes of the first half. For her only shot attempt she found herself open on the wing, stepped into a long–2, and drained it. Her only other scorebook entry for that game was a turnover when she waited a little too long to pitch it ahead on the break and a girl made a fantastic play to pick her pass off.

We won that game, against the team that lost in the 3A state title game last season (we would have played them to go to state had we won our first semi-state game), in overtime. That team immediately played again and lost that game in overtime as well. Their best player is this amazing junior. She scored 18 in the first half against us. I didn’t see the official book from either game, but she had to have scored close to 60 points for the night. And these are 40 minute games with running clocks.

In our second game L played the first six minutes of the fourth quarter. She had a rebound and nothing else. She and one of her travel teammates were battling for a loose ball and apparently she cussed, sending them both into giggling fits. After the game I mock yelled at them both for not taking the game seriously.

She looked slow, sore, and out of shape. While she’s been watching practice the past two weeks, she wasn’t a full participant until Monday, so she still needs to integrate into what her teammates are doing. I told her not to push things, not to get frustrated when things are hard, and not to worry when she fails. Rehab is a long process and we’re not to the end yet. The important thing is to get back on the court, start getting her body back in basketball shape, and give us a base to work over the second half of summer. The goal is that she’s back to 100% and ready to fight for minutes in October.

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