D's Notebook

Tag: Indiana Pacers (Page 2 of 9)

Weekend Notes, Part 2: Sports

May 28, 2025 /

Continuing our look back at last weekend (and slightly beyond), let’s get into the sports.

PACERS!!!!

Quite the swing of emotions, this Eastern Conference Finals series.

Game one was the Pacers’ legendary comeback and overtime win.

Game two Friday was a Big Brother game for them, getting another win in Madison Square Garden by controlling the game from start-to-finish and keeping the Knicks at an arm’s length every time they made a run.

Sunday’s game three seemed to be the perfect cap on one of the great sports days in Indianapolis history. Coming a few hours after the Indy 500, the Pacers were red-hot to start. Late in the second quarter Tyrese Haliburton flipped a wonderful pass backwards over a defender that Obi Toppin caught one-handed and threw down. On the next possession Haliburton hit a long 3. Then he got a steal and breakaway dunk to put the Pacers up by 20.

Gainbridge was deafening. The Knicks were reeling. The series was over.

Only the Pacers got sloppy, the Knicks found something with their bench unit, and slowly whittled the margin until they took the lead midway through the fourth quarter and never gave it up. Indiana went from being on the verge of the NBA Finals to facing some serious questions and pressure in the span of about 75 minutes.

Worse than the loss was the lower leg injury Aaron Nesmith suffered late in the first half. He came back and played some second half minutes, but for a guy who missed 35 games with a similar injury earlier this year and is the Pacers most effective defender on Jalen Brunson, it was super worrisome.

I think it’s a measure of how engaged I am with this team that I couldn’t sleep after Sunday’s collapse. Normally only KU basketball can have that effect on me.

Which took us to last night’s game four. It was playing out like a combination of games two and three, the Pacers again getting out early and controlling the game. Their leads weren’t quite as big as they had been Sunday and the Knicks runs sooner. New York tied the game just before halftime but a 14–0 Pacers run that bridged halftime gave them control that they never relinquished.

There were some dicey moments late. The Pacers seemed to go braindead a couple times on offense, by either being passive and one-dimensional or just plain sloppy and throwing the ball away. The Knicks never completely took advantage, though. It went down to the final minute until Toppin splashed a 3 as the shot clock expired with 46 seconds left to clinch it.

The Pacers are a game away from the NBA Finals.

Nesmith played and was again brilliant on defense. He really may be the most important player on the roster in this series, as no one else can guard Brunson as well as he can. Brunson was nearly perfect when matched with any other defender, hitting every shot and getting to the free throw line often. When matched with Nesmith, though, he was a mess. The dirty secret of this series is that the Knicks have played their best ball of the series when Brunson sits. I think it’s because the ball moves so much more and better when he’s not dominating it. Also he has been truly horrific on defense and whoever replaces him can at least pretend to guard someone.

Bennedict Mathurin finally had a positive game after looking overmatched and unplayable through the first three games. He scored 20 points in the fewest minutes played of any player in playoff game in NBA history. He still had some shaky moments and I worry that he’s going to get ejected because he thinks he needs to respond to every cheap shot Brunson and Josh Hart level on Haliburton. The Pacers wouldn’t have won without him Tuesday.

Pascal Siakam was, again, brilliant, hunting mismatches and punishing them when he found them.

And Hali, of course, was spectacular. In 38 minutes he scored 32 points, had 12 rebounds, 15 assists, 4 steals and ZERO turnovers. It’s one thing to have a line like that in the regular season, which he often does. But to do it against an intense, physical team like the Knicks in late May? That was one of the greatest playoff games in Pacers history.

Now it’s back to New York for game five. Logic would suggest that the Knicks get their shit together, ride the emotion of the home crowd, and grab that one, sending the series back to Indy. However, they seemed a little broken late Tuesday. Karl-Anthony Towns was grabbing his knee after every play. But he’s such a weird dude I don’t know what to make of that. We might hear today he’s out for the series or he may play with zero limp Thursday and continue to torch the Pacers D. Seriously, if one of your best players can barely walk and it’s a 10 point game in the final minute, how do you not sit him down? That makes me think he’s picked up the embellishment gene from his Villanova grad teammates.

Brunson is actually taking heat from Knicks fans he’s been so bad on D. Something tells me he’s going to be even more physical Thursday, and will get away with it since the game is in New York.

I think these teams are very close, but as I said a week ago, the Pacers are the more coherent team. They can plug their holes easier. When they get locked in their style is more punishing than the Knicks. They have three chances to win one game to end the series. I don’t think they are going to need all three.

Jacque?!?!?

I’ve been deep in the message board rumor mongering about how KU is filling out their roster for next year since the Jayhawks’ season came to an inglorious end back in March. Last week was a tough week, losing two big recruits that KU seemed to, at one point or another, have the inside track on. Recruiting in the NIL era is a different beast.

Along with those roster rumors was the bombshell that Bill Self was talking to KU legend Jacque Vaughn about joining his staff as an assistant. Rumors that were confirmed last week when Vaughn was officially hired.

That news brought all kinds of mixed emotions and thoughts. On the one hand JV is young (but not super young) and could sprinkle some life into a coaching staff that is filled with guys in their 60s who have been together for ages. He has been a head coach in the NBA twice, and while the results weren’t great, he comes from the San Antonio coaching tree which is the best in the pro game. He coached some difficult players in New Jersey and they always seemed to like playing for him even if the wins didn’t come often enough. With the college game getting more like the NBA every day, his addition could help update Self’s offense for the modern era. And, hell, he’s one of the most beloved KU players of all time. Both an on-the-court All American and an Academic All American, the engine that ran one of the great KU squads of all time. If you polled KU fans of what team that didn’t win a national title they loved the most, that 1997 team would almost certainly top the list.[1]

There was some weirdness to the rumors, though. There was chatter that Self was being forced to bring in a young assistant with KU ties by big money donors. I have no idea if this was true or not, but the talk was out there. I don’t love the thought of Self being told he won’t get the money he wants for his roster unless he hires an assistant donors approve of.

What I worried about more was how, if you’ve been an NBA coach twice, you settle in as an assistant at the college level? Even if you’re joining the staff of one of the greatest coaches of his era at your alma mater, there are some strange optics there.

There was immediate speculation that Vaughn would join as a dreaded “coach-in-waiting,” which would fit the persistent rumors that Self has told people close to him he will only coach one or two more seasons. If that’s the case, it makes sense to give JV the chance to come in, learn the college game, especially recruiting, with a buffer of being an assistant for a year or two before he formally takes over.

These coach-in-waiting deals can get messy, though, if not handled right. Especially if Self isn’t 100% sure of his plan. The last thing you want to do is have the greatest coach in program history leave on bad terms because you forced his successor into the mix too early. What if their styles, either basketball or personality, don’t mesh? Or what if Self has indeed told AD Travis Goff he will retire next spring, but is reinvigorated by a young, exciting team and changes his mind?

I also worry about deciding who your next coach is without a formal, open interview process. Maybe Vaughn is the best person to be the next KU coach. I hate not seeing if there’s someone better “outside the family” available when Self does retire, though.

As far as we know, there is no formal language in Vaughn’s contract stating he will be the next KU coach. Assuming he and Self are on the same page, I think this is a good opportunity for him to test the college game and see if that is where he wants to spend the next part of his career. Maybe he does it for a year and realizes he hates recruiting, or the difference in talent and commitment between college kids and NBA pros is too great, or in the NIL era it is too easy to get out-bid on a recruit you’ve spent two years cultivating and Vaughn decides he’d rather go work in an NBA front office. Better, I suppose, for him to figure that out while sitting to Bill Self’s left than bringing him in after after Self retires and realizing then that his heart and skills aren’t fit for the college game.

That said, come on, if Self retires in the next couple years, JV will absolutely get the job next if he wants it. You don’t bring someone with his background in and then hire someone else.

I have no idea if JV will be a good college coach or not. I kind of hate the coach-in-waiting concept. But if you’re going to take that path, I think he’s as good a candidate as anyone. He’s smart. He knows ball. Has had success and failure in life, so arrives humbled. He loves KU. My hope is that everyone involved has open minds, are clearly communicating, and if it doesn’t work it fails because he’s a bad fit, he decides the job isn’t for him, etc and not because of a power struggle or whatever between him and Self. I’m pretty sure they both want what is best for KU and the long-term health of the program. I would bet that’s the reason it took nearly two weeks to get the deal done as they hammered out those secondary details that may not get written into a contract.

Jim Irsay

Slightly lost in the Pacers fever was the death of Colts owner Jim Irsay last Wednesday. While his death was sudden and unexpected, with him you could never say it was a surprise. Irsay battled a lot of demons and had a couple public brushes with death in recent years.[2] He has genuinely looked awful when appearing in public for nearly a decade. I’ve not seen a formal cause of death released, but, honestly, nothing would surprise me.

To his credit, he was open about his issues with substance abuse and mental illness. He is given much of the credit for the NFL’s public campaign to de-stigmatize mental health issues. He kept the team in Indianapolis even when the LA market was wide open and begging for a new franchise. He did a lot of good things with his money.

He was also kind of a kook, in both the best and worst ways. We don’t need to get into any more of that. All humans are complex.

I had to roll my eyes at the stories of his career that were bandied about last week. “From ballboy to team owner!” His fucking dad owned the team when he was a “ballboy.” It’s not like he rode his bike to old Municipal Stadium in Baltimore and lined up with other kids from the area to help out on gamedays.

His kids will take the franchise over now. There are plenty of examples of that going sideways in other cities. But the Colts haven’t exactly been a model franchise for the past decade. Erratic is probably the kindest way to describe Irsay’s stewardship. Perhaps the team will be steadier now, whether his kids have the football knowledge he possessed or not.

Fever

Hey, guess what? There’s already an exhausting, manufactured controversy that involves Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and race. It only took two games into the new WNBA season for all the disingenuous commentators to crawl out from under their rocks and start lobbing takes. My favorites are all these anti-woke talking heads who whined when Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest Black people being killed. “KEEP POLITICS OUT OF SPORTS!!!11!!!” they shouted. That “outrage” at their sports being polluted by “angry” Black men has been cultivated into a new branch of the media that is focused on exactly what they complained about: injecting politics into every aspect of sports. You know the people and the forums, and they never miss an opportunity to blame a loss or failure on wokeness, DEI, and all the familiar right wing hits instead of a player just sucking or a team not being good enough. According to them, Clark is now the most discriminated against player in professional sports. I try to avoid these fools, but their nonsense inevitably infects the rest of sports talk and I eventually read their idiocy.

Clark is now injured and will miss at least a couple weeks. That’s bad for the Fever but maybe it will calm down the rhetoric. At least until she comes back and a Black player has the nerve to foul her, which will get the dog whistlers whistling again.

  1. 1986 and 2003 would also get a lot of votes.  ↩
  2. Or at least became public. News only trickled out well after they happened.  ↩

OMG In MSG

May 22, 2025 /

Normally on a day like this, after what happened at Madison Square Garden last night, I would have hopped out of bed early and banged out 25,000 words about the latest inexplicable Pacers, come-from-behind win.

Funny thing happened last night, though. If funny is a proper synonym for infuriating.

At 7:59 I set aside my small screen where I was watching YouTube vids and hit the power button on the remote to fire up the big screen for the game. The TV began it’s warmup process and just as the screen came to life, our power went out.

There were no storms at the time. We didn’t hear the sound of a transformer blowing somewhere near us. Nor someone using a chainsaw that had possibly sent a tree towards a power line as happened last month two houses down the block.[1]

So I waited a few minutes in case it was one of the temporary outages that we sometimes experience.

No dice.

By the time I dug out my little radio, the Pacers were up by six early.

I checked our power company’s website but it did not show any outages in our area. I refreshed it a couple times without any updates, so went to the page where you report outages. Naturally it was not working. Our power company is truly the worst when it comes to customer relations. If there’s one page on a utility’s website that should never go down, it is their Report An Outage page!

So I called. The nice lady who eventually answered said there had been reports from 15 others in our area, they couldn’t identify what the cause was yet, but that a crew was on the way to investigate. By the time we got off the phone the outage map showed 48 people in our little area were without power. There weren’t any other large outages in the city, so I hoped that meant a quick resolution. By halftime, at least.

All I could do was wait and listen to the game on the radio. Which was what I did for the next three-and-a-half hours. Thus I missed much of the experience.

The Pacers hung with the Knicks until the fourth quarter, when they decided to stop playing defense and gave up a huge run despite Jalen Brunson sitting on the bench with five fouls. I was about to turn the radio off and go to bed late in the fourth quarter with the Pacers down 14. Time to get ready for game two.

Then Aaron Nesmith hit a 3. And another. And another. And another. Meanwhile the Knicks were missing shots, both from the field and the free throw line, and turning the ball over. When Nesmith hit his fifth 3 of the quarter it was suddenly a two-point game. The teams exchanged some free throws as the Pacers slowly ran out f time.

As I said last month, though, never count the Pacers out.

This was not nearly as cool on the radio, as I didn’t see Tyrese Haliburton’s frantic retreat to the arc, the insanely high carom of his shot off the rim, the ball falling through the net, nor the wild celebration. The Pacers radio guys went momentarily crazy but quickly saw that Haliburton’s toe was on the line and that the game would be going to overtime.

As tends to happen in these situations, the team that ended regulation on the run and had the miracle finish kept the momentum and the Pacers stole game one. Thank goodness for Haliburton, as it would have been tough to come back from giving the Reggie Miller choke sign to the crowd and then losing the game.

This is the third time the Pacers have done this in this year’s playoffs, coming from at least seven points down in the final 50 seconds of regulation.

I tried to tell you people about how this team never gets rattled or gives up. Maybe you’ll start listening to me now.

(Edit: It was terribly fun to follow Pacers bloggers and listen to the radio announcers as they tried to talk themselves into the comeback after Nesmith’s third 3. So many variations of “Is this really going to happen again?” which got progressively louder as the deficit got smaller.)

Three wins to the Finals.

Oh, and the power came back on just after 4:00 AM. First I noticed that our bathroom light was on. Then I heard our TV downstairs, blasting whatever TNT shows at that ungodly hour. Now I have a fun morning ahead of clearing our two fridges of all the perishables and making a trip to the grocery store to replace them.[2] In the midst of the outage I was doing research on whole-home generators. If we assume L is going to get a fat academic scholarship in two years, we might be able to make it work…

  1. During game one of the Milwaukee series. Maybe I should want the power to go off when the Pacers play.  ↩
  2. I got a text from our cable company while typing this, at 8:06 AM, that our service had been restored at 4:26 AM. Gee, thanks for that.  ↩

Pacers-Knicks

May 21, 2025 /

The long wait is over: the NBA Eastern Conference finals begin tonight. The Pacers have been sitting around for more than week as the Knicks closed out the Celtics and then the stupid NBA calendar got situated. Somehow the Western Conference finals started before the Eastern, even though the Thunder just finished their series against Denver on Sunday. Dumb.

Anyway, it’s finally here. This is a truly fascinating series and it’s been fun to hear the NBA podcasters I pay attention to twist themselves around trying to pick a winner. While most seem to land on Knicks in seven, they still have a hard time getting there.

For most reasons you have to throw out last year’s Pacers triumph in seven games in the semifinals. The Knicks were mega-banged up in that series and were literally falling apart by that final blowout. They’ve added Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges, and Mitchell Robinson is finally healthy. Meanwhile the Pacers are basically the same team, with Pascal Siakam having an entire season in Indy and Andrew Nembhard turning into a starter in his second NBA season. Bennedict Mathurin was out last year because of injury and is the only big change in Indiana’s main rotation.

Despite the roster changes I think the Pacers did take away a lot from winning last year. They won a game seven on the road, at the time the most anticipated basketball game in New York City in a generation. Although they were swept by the Celtics in the conference finals, they easily could have won three of those games. In the NBA there is often a stair-stepped process for teams to win a championship. The Pacers took a couple of those steps last year.

The stylistic matchup is terrific. Both teams try to wear down their opponents, but in very different ways. The Pacers are always forcing tempo, running on offense and pressing on defense. The Knicks are trying to batter you on both ends, the fouling-est team that never gets called for it on defense and then Jalen Brunson punishing people at the end of the shot clock on offense. Both teams’ strengths line up exactly with their opponents’ weaknesses. The Pacers are deep, athletic, and can really shoot it, but are small and basically don’t worry about offensive rebounding. The Knicks are thin, injury-prone, but have an ideal, modern, non-scoring big in Robinson, who is a shot-blocking fool and rebounding machine. To me he might be the key to the entire series, as the Pacers don’t have anyone who can match him. Both teams are built around point guards who are end-of-game wizards.

I think the Knicks are too reliant on Brunson. So I probably just jinxed them into Towns and Bridges having huge series. I think the Pacers do a much better job of always having another player step up, not just game-to-game but moment-to-moment. So now Siakam and Myles Turner are going to be dominated by Mitchell, Towns, and OG Anunoby.

The Pacers might shoot and run the Knicks out of the series. Josh Hart might get away with 1000 fouls on defense (then bitch on every dead ball about the calls he’s not getting) and take Tyrese Haliburton, Nembhard, and/or Aaron Nesmith out of what they want to do. We know Brunson is going to fall down 100 times a game, then lie there like he got shot, and draw fouls when he didn’t get touched.[1]

Yes, I’m already getting worked up about the refs and the Knicks. Just like last year when Turner is going to get called for two absolute garbage illegal screens in crunch time while Hart never comes close to fouling out.

This is a tough one.

If the Pacers can steal a win in one of the first games in New York, I say they win in six. If not, Knicks in seven. It’s going to be nerve wracking no matter who wins and in how many games.

  1. There currently is not a more infuriating star in the league than Brunson. By all accounts a very good guy. Gets soooo much out of his body and skills. You have to admire him. But there is not a better player in the league right now at drawing phantom fouls, acting like he just had a season-ending injury then hitting a step-back 3 moments later, and all the sly stuff he does on offense like grabbing defender’s arms or jerseys then pushing off that he NEVER gets called for.  ↩

NBA Notes

May 14, 2025 /

Another wild few days in the NBA, on the court and off.

Pacers

They did it again! Going back to Cleveland for game five Tuesday felt like a sure loss, even with all the Cavs’ injury woes. Take the L on the road, the final punch of the year from the proud-yet-battered #1 seed, and then close out the series at home on Thursday.

It sure looked like that’s where things were headed as Cleveland built a 19-point lead early in the second quarter. Just like game two, the Pacers were missing open shots before the Cavaliers ratcheted up their defense to get Indiana away from what they wanted to do and then started hitting shots of their own.

The turnaround was quicker this time.

The lead was down to four at halftime and after Cleveland scored four-straight points to start the third quarter, Rick Carlisle called a quick timeout. Here came the big run, and the Pacers were leading by 12 with under a minute to play in the period. There were some rallies in the fourth quarter – the Cavs got it down to one point twice – but once again the Pacers always had an answer. Myles Turner hit a corner 3 with 23 seconds left to clinch the win and the Cavs’ dream season was suddenly over.

There was a very telling moment early in the third quarter. The Cavs were up eight when Donovan Mitchell picked off a bad Andrew Nembhard pass. There was nobody ahead of Mitchell and the Cleveland crowd was roaring in anticipation of a powerful dunk. Only Mitchell chopped his steps and timidly tried to lay the ball up, which Turner came flying in to block away. We knew Mitchell was playing with a bum ankle but he couldn’t even elevate for a breakaway dunk. After that play I knew the Pacers would win.

Mitchell did have to sit out a few minutes to get his ankle looked at, but still scored 35 points, including a couple huge 3s late in the game that gave the Cavs hope. But he also missed three-straight free throws during that run which could have cut the Pacers’ lead to three with just under 2:00 left. That dude is amazing and never stops, but his body let him down.

Darius Garland also could barely walk at times, it seemed, although Kenny Atkinson was reluctant to remove him since the Cavs’ bench was mostly ass in this series. It’s a testament to how good Cleveland was this year that they were still in this game until the end.

But, as many national observers have finally started to notice, the Pacers were simply the better team. They are a nightmare matchup for other guard heavy teams thanks to the relentless pressure they put on the ball and withering pace they try to sustain on offense. As I said a week or two ago they are a well-constructed squad where all the parts fit together nearly perfectly. And they seem to never get rattled by the moment.

Also, poor Cleveland.

It is now on to the conference finals for the second-straight season. And, most likely, there will be a surprise opponent waiting for them there. Because…

Tatum/Celtics-Knicks

I’m not a Celtics fan but it was terrible watching Jason Tatum blow out his achilles Monday night. He seems like a very good dude, in one of the best players in the world, and is never injured. Until now. He was playing one of the most complete games of his life. And then a teammate threw a bad pass that Tatum had to lunge for, only he crumpled to the ground as his achilles gave out.

The Celtics had already screwed that game, and the series, up. But any hopes of a comeback in that game or the series were gone when Tatum left the court. And now the future of the Celtics is very much in doubt. Tatum will likely miss an entire season. They face a massive salary crunch. A team that was built to contend over a 5–6 year period might need a total revamp by the time Tatum is healthy again. Time moves quickly in the NBA.

The real story from this series, though, is how the Knicks have thoroughly taken it to the Celtics. The Celtics have led by double digits in every game in the series, yet find themselves down 3–1. The Knicks were a regular season disappointment, but have found something the last couple weeks (although they barely survived Detroit in round one) and are on the verge of making this a truly special year. They’ve been lucky with injuries so far. As a Pacers fan I’m hope the reverse devil magic that seems to waylay Pacers opponents strikes the Knicks. And I would love it if the refs would not allow the Knicks to play a style closer to football than basketball, although we know that’s not going to happen based on how the playoffs overall have been officiated.

Side note about that: way back when L was in third grade and I was helping to coach her team, we had a girl who would put her arms around whoever she was guarding and give her loose hugs to stay close to her. We kept having to tell her you can’t hug the girl you are guarding. I keep thinking of that kid as I watch the playoffs this year. Superstars who are off-the-ball get completely wrapped up so they can’t move. When they try to break out, defenders will grab jerseys, waistbands, and arms, and I haven’t seen a single whistle for it. Then the Knicks take that to another level and do this to players who have the ball. I don’t get it. Prepare for a lot of complaints about that from me once the conference finals begin.

Draft Lottery

As big as the Tatum news was, the biggest NBA news of the week came earlier that evening when the Dallas Mavericks somehow won the NBA Draft Lottery despite having less that 2% odds to grab the #1 pick. Outrageous!

San Antonio grabbed the second pick, Philadelphia the third. All the truly bad teams – Washington, Charlotte, Utah, New Orleans, Brooklyn – got screwed. The Mavericks, who made the play-in tournament and would have been comfortably in the bottom of the playoffs had Kyrie Irving not blow out his achilles, leaped all those teams and get to take Cooper Flagg.

I was of the opinion that this was a massive fail by the Hoops Gods, rewarding Dallas GM Niko Harrison for his insane trade of Luka Doncic earlier this year. Others pointed out perhaps the Hoops Gods did this as a gift to Dallas fans for watching their homegrown superstar be traded away.

I’m not sure which is correct, I just know Dallas picking first is stupid.

Of course there were immediate jokes that Harrison would try to trade the pick to the Lakers to get Luka back. Or he would make some other dumb trade or pick rather than just plug Flagg in next to Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and eventually Kyrie Irving. I don’t think he’s dumb enough to screw this gift up, though.

Meanwhile the Spurs, who were doing just fine until Victor Wembanyama got hurt, now have a massive opportunity to either plug another young star in next to him, or flip that pick to bring in a veteran star (Giannis?). And the Sixers, who had one of the most disgusting seasons in NBA history, are gifted their fifth top three pick in 11 years, which doesn’t seem right.[1]

I’m not big into conspiracy theories about the draft. As Zach Lowe pointed out, it’s hard to believe 29 other owners would stand by and let the commissioner rig it so one of their competitors were able to get a specific player. This sure seems odd, bordering on fishy, though.

  1. The actual process for deciding who picks where is fascinating and weird. The first four picks are determined by selecting four ping pong balls for each pick, with teams given a selection of the possible combinations. Philadelphia was one ping pong ball away from completely losing their first round pick, but ended up landing at #3.  ↩

Weekend Notes

May 12, 2025 /

Well that was a fantastic weekend! Belated Happy Mothers Days to all the moms out there. I hope you had as good of weekends as we did.

Visitors

Our good friends Dave and Maureen visited from KC over the weekend. The reason for their trip, other than hanging out at blog headquarters, was so Dave and I could watch Bob Mould play some rock ’n’ roll Saturday night. Maureen was nice enough to share her Mother’s Day weekend with us old men. I’m comfortable speaking for us all in saying that we had a terrific time together.

Friday evening we took them to Harry & Izzy’s for shrimp cocktail and steak/fish. I tried to get us into St. Elmo’s downtown, but with it being Grand Prix weekend they were already totally booked when I checked a few weeks back. H&I gets you 90% of the St. E’s experience, and as it is 10 minutes from our house, a little easier to get to. The shrimp never disappoints. As I get older I can tolerate the horseradish a little less. Sigh.

Saturday we did brunch at one of our favorite spots then did a tour of the city, including getting out to walk around/have a beer on funky Mass Ave. Maureen is an IU alum so she spent some time in Indy back in the day and was familiar with the bones of the city, although a lot has changed since she returned to Missouri in 1993.

Saturday night Dave and I went to the show with another local buddy. More on that in a moment. The wives drank wine, watched a movie, and chatted. You should not be surprised that two short, opinionated, Irish women got along famously. We should get them to run for office.

For Mother’s Day, Dave and I whipped up a spread for the ladies (and our girls) that was well received. Then we enjoyed the gorgeous weather by sitting outside for their final few hours in town.

All-in-all a terrific visit. Our many mutual friends who read this should be excited to know that the ladies came up with all kinds of fun plans for when we all are empty nesters in a few years.[1]

Bob Mould

Wow I’ve never been to a show quite like what the 65-year-old punk/indie rock legend put on Saturday.

It was at the Hi-Fi, a very small club in the quirky Fountain Square area just south of downtown. Capacity is 500 people and it’s honestly not much bigger than our swimming pool. The place was jam-packed with people who, from the looks of it, mostly went waaaaay back with Bob. Dave and I were some of the youngest people there.

What made the show unique is how Bob and his band played. They took the stage, he said a few words of greeting, and then ripped into the songs and never really stopped. Six-straight songs without a break of any kind. Then a quick swig of water and right back to it. About an hour into the show he paused for about 30 seconds to thank the opening band then introduce his bassist and drummer, then into the next song. I believe one other time he made a few quick comments but other than that, zero banter, and generally straight from one song to the next. For an hour and 25 minutes or so. With nary a ballad in the setlist. Just an absolute blowtorch of a show. Bob is a large man in his mid–60s. But he is up there shouting and screaming and playing insanely loud guitar without interruption. There wasn’t even an encore. Just 27 songs with maybe two or three collected minutes of breaks between. Super impressive. And super entertaining.

Despite our hopes that as it was the next-to-last stop on the tour he might throw a few surprises at us (Sugar songs!), he stuck to the rigid list he’s been playing all tour. The only minor disappointment on the night.

Last Day of School

Friday was C’s final day of normal high school classes. She has to go back tomorrow to take one test but otherwise is done. I was a little surprised she wasn’t more excited when she got home Friday afternoon. Over the course of the weekend I realized I think she’s a little emotional about the moment. Not that she loved high school all that much, but rather the weight of everything that is happening is coming down on her. And as our sensitive, anxious, ADHD kid, that means she’s not jumping for joy at being done with CHS.

L has one more week of regular classes and then finals next week before she is done. C’s graduation is a week from today then her party will be on Memorial Day. You are all welcome to join us!

Pool

The pool is open. The water warmed up the quickest it’s ever gotten to a reasonable temperature, reaching 80 early Sunday morning after starting in the low 60s. That’s what some good, bright, May sunshine will do for you. Some of the nephews came over and swam Sunday afternoon. The water was getting cloudy Sunday evening so I’m already in the early struggles of getting the chemistry to a good baseline.

New Pope

Hey, we got a Pope from Chicago! I’m pleased that he’s already on record basically calling our vice president a liar. Although he better watch out; Pope Francis didn’t survive 24 hours after meeting with J.D.

Just like when Francis was elected, M was the first person to let me know the process was complete. She came running down Thursday afternoon and yelled, “There’s a new pope!” I guess she’s my go-to source for pope news.

Pacers

I missed most of Friday’s game three as we were out eating with the V’s. By the time we got home the Pacers were down around 20, and while I guess they made a run to cut it to seven at one point, Dave and I decided to watch the end of the Royals walk-off win instead. Good choice.

And then came Sunday’s game four.

When I was 12 or 13, I went to the old NAIA tournament in Kansas City.[2] The night we went was in the quarter- or maybe semi-finals, and Ft. Hays State, where my parents went to school, was playing. The Tigers were an NAIA power at the time, winning back-to-back titles in 1984–85, and a ton of folks had made the four-hour drive to KC for the tournament. They filled most of Kemper Arena that night. Anyway, I vividly recall a guy wearing a shirt with the old, iron-on letters that said “Ft. Hays Basketball Is Orgasmic.” I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but still found it to be very funny.

That might be the best way to describe Sunday night’s game four. Or at least the second quarter. And just for Pacers fans, obviously. That was one of the most thorough ass-whoopings I’ve seen in an NBA playoff game. Although the Pacers kind of did the same thing to the Knicks last year in game seven at MSG.

The Pacers were clearly the best team from the start. A bigger deal Sunday since the Cavaliers began the game with all their normal starters on the court. Indiana led by 15 at the end of the first quarter. Early in the second quarter Bennedict Mathurin got ejected for “striking De’Andre Hunter in the sternum with a closed fist.” It was some typical bullshit all around: Mathurin for taking the swipe, which was far closer to a love tap than a punch, Hunter for somehow not also getting tossed for responding with way more force than Mathurin used in his initial “punch,” and the refs for looking at the replay for five minutes and somehow coming to that conclusion.

Anyway, it was a dicey moment. Would the Pacers be able to hang on without one of their most important bench players?

They only outscored the Cavs 42–16 in that quarter, so I guess they weathered the storm. I’m not sure what the right nature analogy is, but it was either a tornado, hurricane, avalanche or tidal wave that blew Cleveland off the court. It was breathtaking. Or even orgasmic if you’re into that kind of thing.

I normally get somewhere from antsy to upset when a team continues to press when they get up by 20–25 points. At least at L’s games. But the Pacers were pressing up 40 late in the second quarter and I loved every second of it. They ripped the hearts and souls out of the Cavs in that quarter, and at the risk of jinxing the final series outcome, I don’t see any way Cleveland can recover. The Pacers are the better, more cohesive team right now. Donovan Mitchell sat out the second half with an ankle injury. Darius Garland played but is clearly still hobbled.[3] Crazy things can happen in sports so you don’t want to get ahead of yourself. But the craziness in this series seems to be that the #1 seed in the East will get run out of the playoffs in round two.

Also, Cleveland remains a cursed sports city. One of the best regular season teams in league history and they’ve been decimated by injuries and bad luck for the past week. Folks in northeast Ohio probably saw this coming.

  1. There are a lot of you, including D&M, who are reaching that point this year. Two more years for us.  ↩
  2. I know there is still an NAIA tournament, but this was back when a lot of schools that are currently in NCAA D2 were still NAIA programs and you would see some genuinely good ball with a fair amount of players who would reach the NBA.  ↩
  3. Props to him for falling down, completely on his own, when he tried to cut on his bad toe, rolling into T.J. McConnell, and somehow drawing a foul on McConnell despite traveling and initiating the contact. The refs have not done a great job in this series.  ↩

Wild Night

May 7, 2025 /

A crazy few hours Tuesday night.

Holy Shit, Pacers!!!

I knew the Pacers were in trouble when I saw, about an hour before game two of the Eastern Conference semifinals, that Cleveland would be missing three starters. THREE. How did I know they were in trouble? Because any time the Pacers faced a situation like this in the regular season, they laid a huge egg, either losing to a bad team or having to work like crazy in the fourth quarter to avoid an embarrassing L. In fact, there are multiple memes in the Pacers-verse about how the team plays like champions against good teams, and ass against bad/injury riddled teams. Just last month, as the regular season wound down, Indiana played the Cavs who were resting all their starters after locking up the top seed. Those replacement Cavs gave the Pacers starters everything they had for about ¾ of the game before the Pacers finally eeked out the win.

While the nation might have expected an easy Pacers win, I knew better.

So most of the game was no surprise. The shots that were falling in game one for Indiana kept bricking off. Cleveland played inspired, especially on the defensive end, and Donovan Mitchell was wearing his Superman cape. The Pacers trailed by 20 multiple times. By 14 going into the fourth quarter. As much as I wanted to expect a late-game rush like last month, the playoffs are a different animal and Cleveland was playing like their season was on the line while the Pacers just couldn’t find the right gears.

The margin was seven with under 50 seconds left. Five with 27 seconds left. Three with 12 seconds left. Two with 1.1 seconds left. And the Pacers won.

In that stretch Aaron Nesmith had a SICK follow dunk off a Pascal Siakam missed free throw.

Then he drew an offensive foul from Mitchell.[1] Tyrese Haliburton went to the line down three with 12 seconds left and swished the first. Then I’m pretty sure he missed the second on purpose, wiggled through traffic to grab the loose ball, and drained a step-back 3 to win the game.

There was screaming and yelling all over Indy, including in our living room, when the ball ripped through the net.

2–0 out of nowhere and who knows what the Cavs’ health, physical and mental, will be going forward. Mitchell took a beating, some of it self-imposed because of how he plays, and was hobbled late in the game.

I found this insane stat in ESPN’s story this morning:

Since 1997–98, playoff teams have won only three of 1,643 games when trailing by at least seven points in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime, according to ESPN research.

The Pacers have accounted for two of the wins in this postseason.

If the Pacers win this series, Haliburton’s 3 and Nesmith’s dunk will go down in franchise lore, shots that are shown in montages for decades.

At this point you have to at least consider the possibility that the Pacers are on some charmed run. And the Celtics seem a little banged up and blew their game one against New York. The NBA doesn’t usually have Cinderellas but maybe…

Of course now the Cavs will probably win games three and four in Indy and turn it into a best-of-three series.

High Speed Chase

I was about to wrap up things and head to bed Tuesday night when I heard loud car sounds. We live just off a very busy street and while it was after 11:00, we do get the occasional fool who takes advantage of the lighter traffic to rip down the road.

But this was different. There seemed to be a lot of engines racing. And then I noticed a lot of police sirens. I looked out our front door and saw five police cars fly by. We get emergency vehicles up-and-down that street all day but I’d never seen cops driving this fast. They were going so fast I heard their engines before the sirens.

Seconds later our power flickered, which seemed really weird. It flickered twice more in the next minute or so, and I thought I heard a transformer blowing somewhere.

Then two more cops flew by. And then two more.

C, the only other person awake, texted me saying “So many cops!”

And then more cops raced down the street, followed by a fire truck.

This continued for a while. In total, at least 20 police cars passed our house in about a 10 minute stretch.

I finally came to my senses and launched a police scanner app to try to get an idea for what was going on.

From what I could gather, a high-speed chase started at least two suburbs away, continued through Carmel, and then cut through our part of northern Indy. Three or four blocks from our house the car being chased crashed, taking out a power line in the process. We were lucky; about 300 people lost power for several hours but ours just blinked those three times.

Most excitingly, it seemed like driver of the car had fled the crash on foot and cops were setting up a perimeter to nab him. The Indy Metro Police network pulls in calls from all over the city, so it was very hard to follow as calls about a shooting on the east side, a fight in a parking lot downtown, and a couple welfare checks in other parts of the city slipped between the calls from the officers working the chase. I was able to hear cars checking in from various intersections in our area where they had posted up. There was a momentary thrill when one cop radioed in the intersection right outside our house, although I think the feed was delayed and he had already moved closer to the action. I could also hear cops from different cities involved in the chase coordinating their search. It sounded like they had the guy pinned down, or at least had an idea where he was and were using both a dog and drone to get a better view.

Eventually the calls dwindled and it was midnight and I had to get up early so I checked out. Naturally I can’t find a thing about it on any local TV station’s new page or on the paper’s site. I had to take L to PT and then school this morning. On my way back I drove through the neighborhood where the search was and couldn’t find any evidence of a wreck, damage to a power line, or remnants of police activity. Disappointing.

In our nearly seven years here we’ve now had a murder half a mile away that we could hear the shots from, a crazy person having a brief armed stand-off with cops a half mile the opposite way, a homeless person die while sleeping outside the grocery store around the corner, some idiot empty a clip on their handgun in the street two doors down, and now a high speed chase. I’m not sure if that’s going to be a selling point when it comes time for us to downsize but it makes for interesting evenings.

 

  1. Truth: Nesmith probably should have been called for a violation for stepping over the 3-point line before Siakam shot the ball. But Mitchell should have been called for a flagrant foul instead of a common foul. So even?  ↩

Weekend Notes

May 5, 2025 /

A week after prom and before four consecutive weeks where we will be very busy, it was a nice, boring, lazy weekend.

Weather

There’s no delicate way to say this: our weather was ass most of the weekend. It rained Friday night into Saturday, then off-and-on the rest of the weekend. The temps slowly dropped from the 70s into the 40s. Sunday was dark and dreary and misty and generally ugly. It felt more like January in Portland, not Indianapolis the first weekend of May.

Fortunately spring will come drifting back over the next couple days. Our landscaping guys are due here this week to clean everything up and lay new mulch. And the pool guys will be here Friday to get it started up for the season. Spring is undefeated, folks.[1]
That crappy weather meant we didn’t do a whole hell of a lot over the weekend. So more notes about sports than anything else. With one exception…

Moving Back

Thursday S and I drove down to Cincinnati to move M out of her sorority house. It was kind of an interesting trip.

We knew we would be driving into rain, but had no idea we’d spend about 20 minutes driving through a series of near-severe storms with torrential rains. The second round was the worst. Visibility was basically down to zero on the interstate, which is always fun. Even with folks using their hazard lights we were basically crawling, hoping we didn’t hit someone or run off the road. Then I came up on some fool who refused to put their hazards on. We were still in the midst of the storm when a few other fools went blowing past us at normal speeds while the rest of us were maybe going 25 MPH.

We made it to campus safely and had to dodge graduation traffic to find a parking space. Then we had to hustle to get our cars full of M’s stuff before the storms rolled into Cincy. We were parked roughly a block from her house, down a rather large hill. So there was a lot of running up the hill, then walking back down it and its multiple sets of old, concrete steps with arms full of crap. If you know our oldest daughter, it won’t be a surprise that she was moving much slower than we wanted her too, then being overly dramatic about how hard she was working.

Thankfully we got the cars loaded and her checked out of her house just before the rain hit. We went to one of her favorite spots just off campus for her final UC lunch of the academic year. Luckily the storms were going around the city, so it was just a steady rain we waited out while eating. We made it back home in normal time and filled up our bonus room with everything we moved back for the next two weeks before she returns to Cincy for her summer internship. Luckily we won’t have to move everything back right away. She’s sub-leasing from a friend who left all her furniture, so will mostly take clothes for the summer. Now in August, when she moves into the apartment she’ll have the next two years, we will need to rent a truck to get all her furniture down. I’m sure that will be a real joy. And we get to move C to Bloomington at about the same time. Are there people you can pay to do this for you?

Anyway, good to have M home for a few weeks. Her grades aren’t official yet but she’s pretty sure she got straight A’s again this semester. She’s halfway done with college! Actually more because the fall semester of her senior year she will likely be doing a co-op and not taking any classes.

Pacers

DAMN, that’s how you start a series!

The Pacers went into Cleveland, built up a big first half lead, weathered a bunch of Cavaliers runs, and ended up winning by nine after making some huge plays on both ends late.

Now, Cleveland was without Darius Garland, who was a late scratch because of a lingering injury. The Pacers shot the lights out and the Cavs had one of their worst 3-point nights of the year.

But 1–0 and stealing home court advantage is all the matters.

Another game that showed what a great combination of talent this squad is. People who don’t see them every night have a hard time getting it. They’re not an NBA title contender. But they are a team that can steal any seven game series because they know who they are and never get rattled. Tyrese Haliburton was absolute ass on defense much of the night, then somehow forced two huge stops late. Always a wild ride with him.

Local TV broadcasts of games ends when the conferences semifinals begin, so I was forced to watch the TNT feed. Which was fine. Mega props to Greg Anthony for saying, when the Pacers challenged an offensive foul on Myles Turner late in the game, “I like the challenge but I don’t think they are going to win it.” I forgot what wild stuff he says sometimes since he was in announcer purgatory for a few years.

Also, a broader NBA observation, I LOVE how NBA series between evenly matched teams swing. I haven’t watched a ton of ball outside Pacers games, little bits and pieces of each series, but am still deep into The Ringer’s NBA pods, so I hear the breakdowns after each game. It is so fun how team A will win a game comfortably, the series seems under their control, and two nights later team B has made some huge adjustments and are right back in it. The Clippers really should have won their series against Denver. Detroit probably should have upset the Knicks. The Rockets-Warriors series was crazy. I think Pacers-Cavs is headed down that same path, with two of the best offenses in the league taking turns dropping 15–3 runs on each other for another 4–6 games. It’s a league where coaches can scheme around anything but it often comes down to which team gets the hottest from behind the 3-point arc.

Fever

It’s opening week for the WNBA. ESPN showed the Fever’s final exhibition game Sunday, a matchup with the Brazilian national team in Iowa City. You can’t take too much away from the game since this was far from Brazil’s full Olympic squad – one of their best players in yesterday’s lineup is an 18-year-old who will be a freshman at South Carolina this fall – but it was cool to see all the new Fever players. They’ve added a ton of size, but it is athletic, rangy, perimeter size rather than more post players to backup Aliyah Boston. DeWanna Bonner seems like the perfect Den Mom for a mostly very young team, and was a delightful in-game interview. Loathe as I am to give a Missouri alum credit, Sophie Cunningham adds a level of toughness and versatility that was missing last year. And she might have the most “don’t look at it when your wife and kids are around” Instagram account in the league. Not that I looked.

Caitlin Clark missed Friday’s exhibition game with a minor leg injury, and played limited minutes Sunday, but her range looked deeper than a year ago and the experienced players the Fever brought in already understand how to run to spots where she will get them the ball. Kelsey Mitchell will get a little overlooked because of the new talent, but she looked to still be the steady scoring threat who is an ideal partner for Clark. Lexie Hull’s 3-point shot still looks locked in after whatever mechanical adjustment she made in the middle of last season.

As an added bonus, second round draft pick Makayla Timpson might be an absolute steal. I’m not sure if she will be a huge contributor this season. But with so many of the league’s rosters in flux because of the CBA expiring after this season, having a player with her skills on her salary could be massive in the Fever building a team that contends for years to come.

Racing

I actually watched parts of two car races Sunday. That’s how annoying the weather was and how limited the TV offerings were in the afternoon. It is May, I guess.

I watched the back halves of both the Indy Car Grand Prix race in Alabama and then the F1 race in Miami. It was hilarious how, since both races were won by large margins, each broadcast focused on “races within the race” further back in the pack. The F1 broadcast was almost exclusively about the two Ferrari cars and the bickering involved in their team trying to figure out if they should pass each other or not. Such weird drama.

Hey, we actually watched multiple horse races Saturday, keeping the NBC coverage of the Kentucky Derby on for hours, so this might have been the most “watching cars/animals chase each other around a track” weekend of my life!

  1. I just checked my notes and it appears that summer, fall, and winter are also undefeated. Wild if true.  ↩

Never Count Them Out

April 30, 2025 /

Good Lord that was a basketball game!

The Pacers laid a big, fat egg early, taking nearly seven minutes to score their first six points, blew multiple chances to put the game away in the second half, then somehow managed to come back from being down seven with 40 seconds left in overtime to win game five of their series and send the Milwaukee Bucks home for the summer.

Actually, there was no somehow about it. As I wrote a few weeks back, the Pacers have been doing this for the past three months, often against Milwaukee: improbably winning games that seemed lost with outrageous play in the closing seconds.

Tuesday it was Tyrese Haliburton getting two steals and a defensive rebound and scoring six-straight points in the closing minute of regulation to send the game to overtime. He then hit a 3 to open OT to stretch his run to nine-straight. However, he missed his next four 3’s, while the Bucks, specifically Gary Trent Jr., hit four straight 3’s to go up 117–111.

Trent was incredible. His shots were barely touching the net. Two were shots he barely had in his hands before launching as the shot clock expired. This should have been one of the great days of his career, and the launching point for someone to give him a shitload of money this summer.

However…

With 29 seconds left and up four points, Trent threw a terrible pass that turned into a Haliburton and-one layup. Seconds later, AJ Green threw a pass to an unguarded Trent as the Pacers tried to trap and get another steal or foul. The pass sailed directly to Trent…then through his hands and out-of-bounds. The Pacers had 10 seconds to go for the win. Which Haliburton clinched by blowing by Giannis and laying the ball in with one second left.

Reggie Miller stuff.

I felt kind of bad for Trent. Then I remembered he’s a Dukie so fuck him.

And then things got really interesting.

After time expired, for some insane reason Haliburton’s dad ran on the court and began taunting Giannis, who initially looked confused then stepped to the old man. They were separated, cooler heads seemed to prevail, and both teams went through the postgame interactions normal after a tense, physical series. Only when Giannis met Bennedict Mathurin, events took another turn. There’s been no word on who said what and who said it first, but soon Giannis was gripping Mathurin tight to his own body, not letting him leave and speaking directly into his ear. Soon players and coaches were pulling the duo apart, but this led to other players yapping and shoving. Amazingly, Bobby Portis Jr, the most belligerent of the Bucks anytime these teams play, seemed pretty chill and was slapping hands with Pacers. And then Giannis and Old Man Haliburton went at it again, with Giannis putting his forehead directly on Haliburton’s as they “chatted.” Kevin Porter Jr. was losing his shit at midcourt, which nearly caused another ruckus.

Eventually everyone calmed down. Mathurin was basically drug to the locker room. James Johnson, the most feared player in the NBA, approached Giannis pleasantly and got an earful about Mr. Haliburton’s actions. Somehow all this happened while NBA TV was interviewing Tyrese so he never got involved in it and was surprised when he got to the locker room and was told about his dad’s actions.

Ironically, while all this was going on Metta Sandiford-Artest, FKA Ron Artest, was sitting courtside taking it all in, looking serene as could be. Thankfully events didn’t spiral they was they did when Artest lost his mind in Detroit 21 years ago.

What a truly dumb moment. A terrific win, one that will be recalled for decades around here, got sullied by a player’s father inserting himself where he did not belong. Mr. Haliburton has always seemed a little thirsty for attention. It might be time to make his ass watch from a suite or outside the arena if he can’t keep it in his seat. I’m not sure what he thought he would accomplish by infuriating a much younger man who is 6’11”, 245 lbs. and all muscle.

I don’t think Giannis was completely innocent here. As noted on Bill Simmons’ pod this morning, he’s had a few postgame run-ins with opponents in the past. Like so many superstars, he is wildly competitive and sometimes lets that get away from him in defeat. But he absolutely won the post-game press conference, which made the Pacers look even worse.

What is important is the Pacers, despite a rough start, closed the Bucks out and can now take a few days to relax before they face #1 seed Cleveland. I don’t think that’s a terrible matchup for the Pacers, as long as they remain focused. Which is always a crapshoot with these guys. They can throw waves of defenders at Cleveland’s guards. They can go small against Cleveland’s bigs. Most of all, they know exactly who they are, how they need to play to maximize their skills, and have been deeper in the playoffs more recently than the Cavs. Cleveland should absolutely be favored. But the Pacers aren’t some sacrificial opponent they can run right through before likely meeting the Celtics in the conference finals.

Prom Weekend Notes

April 28, 2025 /

Another very busy weekend for us, mostly revolving around C’s senior prom.

We kicked off the weekend by going across the street to watch the #1 high school volleyball team in the state, FHS, play our local squad. “What a weird way to spend a Friday night,” you might say to yourself. True, true. We have good friends with a senior on FHS and we’ve been meaning to see him play for a couple years. We couldn’t turn down a chance when he was literally across the street.

After a sluggish opening set in which they had to come from behind to win, FHS trounced the school our property taxes support in the next two sets for an easy win.

NFL Draft

You all know I hate the NFL draft. So many words wasted setting up and breaking down an event when Sure Things routinely bust, and No Names routinely become All Pros. It’s all a crapshoot, but we break it down in more detail than we do the policies of people running for office. “Maybe if we focused more attention on…”

The Colts did ok. They got their tight end in Tyler Warren. Will any of the quarterbacks be good enough to get him the ball, and will the offensive line, which they didn’t do much to improve, be able to protect whoever is taking the snaps?

There was another big story from the draft. But since I didn’t watch a minute of it, I can’t really get into the lunacy of how this story was treated by people inside the NFL media and, bizarrely, by the most attention hungry near 80 year old in the world.

I think the whole Shedeur Sanders thing is weird because I listened to exactly two podcast segments previewing the draft and in both of them there was a clear indication that he was slipping, for whatever reason. One previewer flat out said he would not be a first round pick. And once Sanders didn’t go early, I think there were a lot of teams that might have admired his skill and potential but had no interest in bringing all the drama that would come with picking him into their quarterback room. Especially since, at that point, he’s probably starting as QB3. All I know is he didn’t look that good against KU and neither of the two DBs who basically shut down the CU passing attack, two short passes that turned into long gains excepted, didn’t get picked. Where’s the outrage in that, I ask you????

Prom

OK, onto the biggie.

I missed the fun of C’s junior prom as I was in Cincinnati with L for basketball. Which is where I would have been again this year had L not had surgery. Or, more likely, I would have spent part of the weekend in Cincy but been back in Indy Saturday evening. I’m not sure I would have survived missing two prom nights in a row.[1] Anyway, I was indeed here this year.

On balance it was a good night. C went with a buddy, as did most of the folks in her group of 11. We hosted them before prom for pictures and food, put them on a bus for the event downtown, then had them dropped here afterward. After changing they went to a big post-prom party about a mile from our house. I collected the girls from the bash at 1:45. All of them were able to walk on their own and other than being VERY chatty in the seven minute ride home, seemed no worse for the wear. One of the girls even noted how we had a “fun” conversation when I was driving them around Siesta Key a few weeks ago. I appreciated the self awareness and humor.

Picking up from the party was a scene, man. It was in a very fancy neighborhood. One P. Manning used to live a couple blocks from the host’s home when he was still a Colt. When I pulled onto their narrow street, there were cars parked unevenly on each side. It’s basically a one-lane road, so this made it extremely stressful driving through. In the dark. With drunk kids stumbling around. There was one gap that I could not have had more than a couple inches on each side as I squeezed S’s Telluride through it. I made it. Somehow.

So I’m almost to the house, C knows I’m coming and is supposed to be rounding up the girls spending the night at our house, and I see this kid on the side of the street. He looks at me and kind of waves his arms to get me to stop. I come to a halt, roll down the passenger window, and he leans in:

“Hey Mr. B. Do you want me to go get C for you?”

It was the younger brother of one of M’s best friends. I thought that was hilarious. It was pitch dark, I was driving my wife’s car, and he somehow identified me. Apparently he does not drink, which could have been a factor. I texted his dad Sunday morning to both pass along my thanks and tell him how impressed I was.

I think I got C and her crew right in time. Big packs of kids were wandering the streets. Car alarms were going off. Kids were parked up on very nice lawns. I guess there had been a late flood of students who were not invited and had just been turned out. We didn’t hear about the cops coming, but it would not have surprised me if they showed up shortly after we left.

The kids had great weather for pictures. The prom itself was apparently pretty fun. C’s group all got along, which given they are all a little flakey/squirrelly, was a minor upset. Last year her date, again just a friend, acted like an asshole to her all night. This year she and her date seemed to get along fine.

Just two bummers on the day. Like last year, she had a meltdown when getting her hair done earlier in the day. I didn’t have to experience either episode directly, just had to be the target of S venting after. We agreed that at some point we are going to suggest that when she’s ready, C should elope rather than go through all the stress of a wedding day. If getting her hair done to hang out with friends for a few hours cranks up her anxiety, I can’t imagine what prepping for a wedding will do to her.

The second bummer was Sunday morning, when I came downstairs, I found the large box of Jimmy John’s that had been leftover from the pre-prom part of the night had been taken out of the fridge by the girls and left on the counter all night. There was about $60 of sandwiches in there, and I planned on getting into them on Sunday. I wasn’t willing to play the food poison lottery so, not without anger, tossed the box into our trash dumpster.

I guess the important thing is we survived prom weekend and C, other than being totally wiped out Sunday, seemed happy with how things went.

Another item, and a big one, checked off of her senior year list.

Pacers

When we got back from volleyball Friday the Pacers-Bucks game had just gone to halftime, with the ‘Cers leading by 10.[2] They hit the first shot of the second half to go up a dozen and then the bottom fell out. Horrible shots, terrible passes, curious coaching decisions, Bennedict Mathurin losing his mind momentarily when the game was still close. Tyrese Haliburton letting his home state crowd get in his head. OK, Giannis and Gary Trent, Jr. were going off. Trent hit nine 3’s. NINE. But the Pacers had the game in control and totally fell apart all on their own. Still, up 2–1 in the series.

That set up a pivotal game last night. Which I did not watch, for three reasons. 1) I was operating on about four hours of sleep. 2) I had to get up extra early Monday to take L to PT. Most importantly, 3) Tip off was at 9:30 PM Eastern. WTF????

Apparently I didn’t miss much. Dame Lillard blew out his achilles early. When he went down, so did the Bucks’ chances, as the Pacers played terrific ball for another easy win.

Three-one with the series coming back to Indy and Dame done for the series. Both sad and indicative of the world we live in that the first 20 minutes of Bill Simmons’ podcast Monday morning were about where Giannis plays next year.

  1. L also had a game the night of M’s junior prom, but it was in town so we did pictures and stuff and then hustled over to watch hoops. Not sure how we avoided a conflict M’s senior year.  ↩
  2. I’m not sure who decided this ‘Cers thing needed to happen, but I hate it, and only used it here so I could bitch about it.  ↩

Pacers-Bucks Notes

April 23, 2025 /

A few thoughts about game two of the Pacers-Bucks series last night.

Once again the Pacers jumped out to a big, early lead. Not as much of an ass-kicking as in game one, but there was never any doubt who the better team was. And that was with Dame Lillard coming back. He actually played remarkably well in the first half, then clearly suffered a bit from his long layoff in the second half. The Bucks have so many holes, though, that his presence did not mask many of them.

The Pacers were rolling when, suddenly, the shots stopped falling in the third quarter. This was not because of anything the Bucks were doing. These were WIIIIIIIIDE open shots the Pacers just kept missing. They could have easily pushed the margin out over 20 and put the game to bed before the fourth quarter began.

Milwaukee did step up their defensive pressure eventually, and that did have an impact. The Pacers went stagnant on offense. The ball stopped moving and every possession turned into a slog of back-down, one-on-one nonsense resulting in forced, off-balance shots as the shot clock wound down. The Bucks made a couple runs thanks to this, even getting the margin down to just two points inside two minutes to play. The Pacers answered with consecutive 3’s sandwiched around a defensive stop and escaped with a 2–0 lead in the series.

The good news if you are Milwaukee is you found some things on defense Tuesday. You played well on offense most of the night. I still think they have too many holes, and the Pacers too many advantages, for that to swing the series. But I also don’t think this is an easy sweep for Indiana as it might seem after the first two games.

The bad news for Milwaukee, ironically, is that aside from the opening minutes, they played really well. Bobby Portis was draining 3’s. Giannis was doing Giannis things. Dame, as mentioned, looked solid and you assume will get better over the course of the series, although there is no telling how his body will react after spending weeks on blood thinners and not playing. Despite all that the Pacers still won, and only a 13–0 run late made it look competitive.

The road games are going to be harder than the first two, for sure. You figure Giannis has at least one GO OFF game in him this series that the Pacers won’t be able to do a thing about. But watching last night, I really appreciated how good this team is. They aren’t NBA title contenders, unless the Cavaliers and Celtics have multiple starters get injured in the coming weeks. But they are a damn solid team that is deep, can shoot, is pretty athletic, has gotten much better defensively, rebound better than a year ago, and play at a pace that is deadly to older teams without depth like the Bucks.

It’s hard to be in the middle in the NBA. For a decade the Pacers were on the wrong side of that middle, never getting those two really good players you need to challenge the best teams in the conference, but also never bad enough to get a franchise-altering talent. Even when they snuck into the high lottery, their reward was Bennedict Mathurin, a player I really like, but who is not THE guy you build around.

This is the perfect team for Indiana. They play hard. They are fun to watch. They win more than they lose. If you don’t have a true title contender, this is the kind of team you want.

There were two different double-technical foul moments Tuesday, and a ton of yapping back and forth. I was almost disappointed when Kevin Porter Jr. slapped hands with Thomas Bryant and apologized after earning a flagrant foul for tripping Bryant on a break. These teams have hated each other for over a year. There will be a genuine dust-up before this series is over. And I can’t wait for it.

While watching S asked me who my favorite Pacer was. I had a hard time answering. Haliburton should be obvious answer. He’s the guy who elevated the franchise after a decade of treading water. He was voted as the Most Overrated Player in the league in The Athletic this week. I’m convinced that is only because he talks so much trash. But it’s not fun trash, or menacing trash, the kinds that earn the respect of your opponent. It’s the always hiding behind a teammate trash. It’s the backing away during a timeout trash. It’s the deadball trash then acting surprised when the opponent takes offense. I’m fine with yapping, but his act can get tiresome.

As I said, I really like Mathurin. I think he’s a lower budget Anthony Edwards. Not as explosive or as purely talented as Ant, but a similar game and attitude. There’s an immaturity to his game (and Ant’s, coincidentally) that gives me pause. And I also wonder if he’s going to be the player that gets moved out as the front office has to deal with a salary/roster crunch this summer.

Pascal Siakam has such an interesting game, all weird angles and awkward lunges, and I admire it but I can’t say he’s my favorite.

Myles Turner has been on the Pacers longer than anyone else, and seems reenergized this year. But I still hold it against him for picking Texas over KU out of high school.

Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith both play their asses off, and keep getting better. But they are kind of quiet and anonymous and not the kind of players you get drawn to as favorites.

TJ McConnell is so much fun to watch. He should not be a good NBA player, but wills himself to it every night. But I’ve never been an “adopt the little guy” guy when it comes to picking my favorite player.

Obi Toppin is the best in-game dunker in the NBA, and has turned himself into a decent shooter. But can you really pick a bench player who sometimes disappears just because he has jaw-dropping dunks once a week?

I told S the obvious answer is Johnny Furphy. Jokingly, of course. I think Furph has a bright future, but he needs to be a rotation guy for my Jayhawk love to win out.

After all that the answer is that I don’t have a true favorite Pacer. And despite all those caveats and disclaimers, it’s more about this being a balanced team where everyone is a part of the team’s success than the positives and negatives of any particular player.

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