Editor Mahanth S. Joishy chronicles here 40 years of Pacers fandom and how it climaxed in a special campaign that strangely coincided with, and helped him endure, an unwelcome cancer battle.

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“Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.”

“Greek philosophers considered sport a religious and civic-in a word, moral-undertaking. Sport, they said, is morally serious because mankind’s noblest aim is the loving contemplation of worthy things, such as beauty and courage.”

— George F. Will

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Why do we do this to ourselves, as top Pacers analyst Caitlin Cooper rhetorically asked after the 2025 NBA season ended? More on that at the end if you enjoy in-depth, long form reading. Hard to believe what I’m about to say, or why it’s going to take me so long to say it.

Diehard Indiana Pacers fans, especially the multitude of multi-decade faithful like me experienced euphoric joy and crushing heartbreak over the last two seasons of Pacers basketball. During some games, I half-worried about my heart rate, so intense were the stress levels coursing through my circulatory and nervous systems on more than one occasion. Arguably I’ve taken basketball far too seriously for way too long for my own good, but the recent past proves why I can’t help it. According to all the professional bookmakers and all the “expert” talking heads in the NBA media universe, Indy had no business accomplishing what they did in 2023-24 and 2024-25, surpassing the expectations of even their most rabid backers like myself. Unfortunately for our tight-knit and relatively small tribe, the greatest and most unlikely two-year Cinderella run in NBA playoff history culminated in a soul-crushing Game 7 Finals defeat against an exquisitely talented young Oklahoma City Thunder squad sporting a historically great, stifling defense. A heavily favored OKC earned the right to be crowned 2025 champions after a hard-fought series, the first 7 game finals in 9 long years, against the pesky underdog Pacers. The hardwood classic bursted with shotmaking, speed, finesse, hustle, brawn, playing “the right way” as a team instead of individual hero ball, and sequences of astronomical basketball IQ from both NBA finalists, from the coaches, starters on down to extraordinary role players.

It was all a luscious treat to behold. But how it ended on the night of June 23, 2025 felt unfair, criminal even. Lingering thoughts of what if will haunt the proud denizens of Pacer Nation for the rest of our lives. Specifically, what if the Pacers’ leader and very beating heart, point guard Tyrese Haliburton, didn’t suffer a devastating Achilles tear at the worst possible time, the first quarter of Finals Game 7, the most important game in franchise history among thousands of Pacers NBA games played since the 1970s? What if a healthy Hali rode hard the momentum of his best personal start of the whole series that night to make victory at least within reach at the end, yet again, against all odds and common sense- with another clutch time battle between the world’s two finest basketball teams? What if an already-hurting Hali decided to sit it out instead and preserved his health for the coming years? What if he could heal up and hoop before next season instead of likely having to sit out most or all of a whole year to recover, thereby throwing the franchise’s future trajectory into sudden uncertainty and disarray immediately after its very best moment?

We shall never know what if. The Basketball Gods are very real, these unseen celestial beings, and they’ve been casting mysterious spells upon the hardwood in unexpected fashion since the day Dr. Naismith’s idea first appeared in 1891- as one of America’s great gifts to the world. The dark arts of the Basketball Gods manifest in surprisingly inspirational and unimaginably cruel ways. Such is the unpredictable and all-powerful nature of the Basketball Gods. It will be hard for them to ever conjure up anything much worse than the most magical Pacers playoff run of all time being cut short when Hali’s right leg buckled under him and he slapped the floor in physical and emotional agony, unable to even stand up against ever-ubiquitous gravity or the gravity of the moment, a textbook case of adding insult to injury. A single snapped Achilles tendon effectively doomed any chance for his team to win on the grandest basketball stage. We were right there, writhing on the floor with him. Dashed were the dreams and hopes of patient, loyal and optimistic fans worldwide. Hali’s teammates and coaches had no choice but to courageously play on till the end of the game, spiritually wounded and physically sputtering without their core engine, the energy viscerally sucked out of their bodies, affording almost no plausible path to beating the relentless Thunder once they began clicking in the third quarter- after adjusting for the heroics of backup point guard TJ McConnell. A video by Hardwood Vault says it all.

But the final takeaways should be uplifting and inspiring, not defined by how the magical days and nights ended. Let’s take measure of just what the pleasantly surprising 2023-24 and downright shocking 2024-25 Pacers seasons meant to one individual fan, who was over the two same seasons battling against a different sort of opponent, an ultra-rare type of lymphoma. There’s no exaggeration in saying that watching nearly every regular season and playoff game involving the Pacers from Fall 2023 to Summer 2025, and their heroic displays of pure objective greatness provided many hours of pleasure and joy, and helped me get through a very dark period, when it seemed some days like there were few other positives to hold onto, almost nothing else seeming to go right. This is why sports are so meaningful for so many, and worth falling in love with, and spending time and hard-earned money on, especially when a team sport is frequently played exactly the right way. Of course I am not the only one who feels so strongly about what a team does for our very happiness. There’s supply and demand economics. Yes, this passion may appear irrational, over the top and frivolous. Especially when the franchise in question is based in a city I’ve never lived in, hardly been to, hiring players with multimillion contracts assembled from across America and beyond, none of them directly connected to my own hometown.

But sports tribalism somehow transcends all of that to still mean something special. It’s emotional, not rational. That’s why I’m writing long and slow, sharing just one fanatic’s journey here, in hopes this essay will also reach and inspire members of Pacer Nation at any level, and other elements of the NBA and organized athletics writ large.

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Life is after all about the long game, because from now until the end there will be many more moments both sweet and bitter for us all- and maybe soon for emerging AI consciousness of some sort. But we can be sure AI will never entirely replace human sport- perhaps a handful of professions safe from the grips of emerging technology will include pro athletes. Robots are not organisms. Sports teams are organisms that live a life as well, long fruitful ones if the organization is managed right and deserve the steadfast adulation of their regional community and global audience over decades. Accounting for the long arc of the Pacers’ past, and the impending long arc of its future prospects, the Hali tragedy of the 2025 Finals Game 7 will fall into proper perspective even if the recent incident still remains fresh and raw in our reeling collective consciousnesses. This too shall pass.

The Pacers reside and preside in a Midwest US state that has been a veritable hotbed of organized basketball for decades, most profoundly at the high school and college levels. The Pacers group can claim a legacy of domination and championship that reached its heyday back in the early 70s, although these highest moments occurred in the now-defunct ABA, or American Basketball Association, before the seminal NBA-ABA merger of 1976 which created the one and only top-tier national pro basketball conference called the NBA for the first time. The Pacers have been continuously owned and operated by the Simon family since 1983, the majority of the franchise’s NBA era, and currently real estate businessman Herb Simon is the longest-tenured owner in the league.

After years of trying and failing to merge legally and logistically, at long last all franchises would compete every season in the same umbrella under the same rules. That arrangement continues to this day, with a number of teams packing up and moving (like Seattle to OKC) or brand new expansion cities being added along the way (like Toronto and Vancouver, growing the NBA footprint across the Northern border). Since then the NBA has grown into a massive, multi-billion dollar global juggernaut with teams recently being bought and sold for around $10 billion and stars signing stratospheric contracts, even before lucrative endorsement deals from the likes of Nike or Gatorade, or Hollywood movie roles, stardust phenomena that widely considered all-time great Michael Jordan helped launch into orbit in the 80s and 90s from Chicago (Space Jam, literally). Elite players after him expanded upon Jordan’s pioneering empire building. In the last few years the league has come under fire for lower quality product compared to previous decades, but I would politely beg to differ, although Jordan himself remains unsurpassed decades after his retirement. NBA basketball has surely evolved, more influenced by data analytics and three-point shot volume than ever before. But those who push these arguments are either biased stars of past eras who think they were superior and underpaid compared to the more lucrative salary market of today, purists nostalgic for the good old days, or those who have no idea what they are talking about. But that’s a debate for another day.

Since that 1976 merger, the Pacers have never won an NBA title. They have hardly even come close over 49 long years. Incidentally that same year a storied ball club based just down the road in Bloomington, Indiana University (IU) under Coach Bobby Knight won the NCAA tournament in utterly dominating fashion, still the last NCAA Division I men’s team to go entirely undefeated from wire to wire. That college team that bears the same name on the front of their jerseys as the Pacers was so damn good, Larry Bird had actually transferred out of IU to attend Indiana State before that championship, building his own prolific college, pro, coaching, and organizational management legacy from there, and the Hoosiers still couldn’t lose. The basketball Gods certainly favored that Indiana native Larry Bird along with and separately those 1976 Hoosiers- and four other IU teams that became national champs, including the 1981 and 1987 Bobby Knight coached squads while I lived minutes away from campus in Bloomington as a kid. Over the years Butler, Purdue, and Notre Dame have been in the top 25 along with Indiana State. The lore from the Isiah Thomas and Steve Alford IU years kickstarted my deep love for basketball at a tender young age, both to play and to watch. I grew up in a hotbed of basketball, and reveled in the sport as a child along with so many of my (especially boy) peers, in a state where there was a barely discernible line between basketball and religion. Basketball was always different in Indiana.

Unfittingly for a number of those years, the state’s only pro hoops outfit languished in the purgatory between bad to mediocre, as the glory would accumulate to distant powerhouse legacy teams enjoying multi-year eras of success, some of these even birthing multiple dynasties. The lack of parity could be striking at times. Such seasons would disappoint many a knowledgeable and passionate local basketball fan, especially in small markets. The proven NBA blue bloods since 1976 include the Lakers, Celtics, Bulls, Pistons, Heat, Spurs, Sixers, and Warriors in various times as the game evolved through new styles, play actions, and trends such teams might pioneer. Each dynasty led by all-NBA caliber superstars and famous coaches in glittering metropolises, often with warm climates or oceanfronts and sex appeal, cities considered desirable for free agents and trade targets being wooed to suit up for franchises with more revenue than, say, Indiana.

Despite the stiff competition, during certain periods the Pacers have also been among the very best thanks to shrewd and daring moves by the front office in Indianapolis, and extraordinary in-house player development. The quintessential Pacer of the NBA era is still Reggie Miller, who was drafted from UCLA in 1987 and never left Indy, one of those rare elite ballplayers who finished out his entire 18 year playing career in one place, a city that revered him perhaps more than any other local public figure in that span except for Bobby Knight before he got fired by IU. Reggie earned that adulation by being an engaged citizen in the community, a vocal leader and example in the locker room, a long distance sharpshooter throughout his active years, and most of all an unapologetic assassin on the court who regularly demoralized opposing teams and fan bases- and foreign countries as a gold medalist for team USA in the Olympics too. He infamously and gleefully stuck daggers time and again into the backs of the big-market, bruising New York Knicks over the course of countless intense and literally bloody Pacers-Knicks playoff battles of the 1990s that emerged as one of the leading NBA rivalries of all time during a decade when both teams were extremely talented, well-coached, and determined to win… and genuinely hated one another. They had to get through one another in the playoffs over and over again. This is the era that cemented my deep passion for the team. From my first glimpse of a young and rail-thin Reggie Miller (so thin with bizarre shooting form like another skinny kid arriving from California decades later) in the 1990 All-Star game three point contest, Reggie was to be my favorite NBA player for decades to come. He would very much talk the talk, but backed it up by walking the walk.

My love of the fearless, trash-talking, and cocky Reggie Miller despite his slight frame was further cemented during college (while attending basketball-happy Georgetown) in the late 90s when I read his excellent book about pro basketball life. Included was an insider’s breakdown of the epic 7-game Knicks Conference Finals series of 1994 that launched him into greater international fame and permanently made him a truly reviled villain in NYC, a psychologically intertwined nemesis of film director Spike Lee- and a new legend in the Hoosier state. In I Love Being the Enemy he brought alive interesting biographical basketball information in an intelligent narrative encompassing X’s and O’s on the court, being a fiercely competitive player at the highest levels, his various relationships inside the NBA world, growing up with Cheryl Miller as a sister, and interesting events within games and playoff series from an active star at the center of the hoops circus who endeared himself to so many, just before his team’s 2000 finals run with running mates Rik Smits, Chris Mullin, Jalen Rose, Dale Davis, Derrick McKey, Sam Perkins, and other stalwarts. I learned a ton about basketball from that book, and from Reggie’s later career in basketball as a broadcaster and commentator.

Not least, I received a fascinating introduction from Reggie’s book to an abstract concept known as The Basketball Gods from my favorite active player; I would come to believe in, fear, and notice others discussing these celestials countless times in the years and decades to come since the written reference. Some events occurring inside an NBA arena over the course of a game or a season would defy logic or explanation without chalking it up to unseen forces manipulating events for their own entertainment, satiating a vested interest to interfere with the show and its characters for their own pleasure. But I also came to understand what led above all to favor from these celestial entities: repetitive, relentless hard work on the craft. They respected practice.

Besides crushing the soul of the Knicks organization at the basketball mecca of Madison Square Garden and Indianapolis’ Market Square Arena more than once in high-stakes playoff games, the highlights of Reggie’s career included pushing Michael Jordan’s formidable Chicago Bulls to 7 games, through a very tight fourth quarter in Game 7 in the 1998 playoffs, a feat in itself during Jordan’s 6 total championship runs where the Bulls basically ran roughshod over the rest of the league every single playoff series- except that one against us, featuring a last-minute 3-point game winner by Reggie over Michael Jordan himself in the Conference Finals. 1993-2000 was a glorious time to be a Pacers and Reggie Miller fan. The crowning triumph of Reggie’s career and legacy was leading the Y2K Pacers, a stacked and deadly serious roster in 2000 coached by Larry Legend of French Lick, Indiana himself. At the time many of us knew this could be a special year, and the Pacers did finally reach the finals against the LA Lakers featuring a disproportionately formidable Shaq and Kobe tandem, each entering his prime, and they pushed LA to 6 games. 2000 was the first, and for the next 25 agonizingly long years the last Pacers group to compete in an NBA finals. Peak Reggie-led ball clubs from 1994-2000 enjoyed plenty of playoff success and was a perennial, highly entertaining contender animated by Reggie’s outsized personality and tough as nails running mates that teams had to get past to play for the championship. But they were just a notch below the other championship dynasty teams they faced such as the Bulls and Lakers because they couldn’t find their way to a ring in that era.

The Pacers had one last realistic shot to win it all in the Reggie Miller era. The 2004-05 iteration had all the developing young new pieces and high expectations from across the NBA realm to contend for a championship alongside Reggie, who was accepting a new role as leader more than focal player, before he prepared to hang up his uniform and retire. We wanted this one last encore from the band, bad, for Reggie and ourselves. Alas, that season and Reggie’s final title push was destined to be violently dismantled and stained, completely out of left field, by the infamous Malice at the Palace, not a boxing match but a regular season game in Detroit’s The Palace at Auburn Hills where an insane fight broke out not only between Pistons and Pacers players and staff. Several Pacers actually charged at drunken Pistons fans in the stands who threw beer at Ron Artest, aka Meta World Peace (of all things).

The hooligan Detroit fans were complete jerks, but what came next was unacceptable. The Malice at the Palace was such a seminal, dark touchstone for the NBA world beyond the Pacers that an excellent Netflix documentary had to be made to properly chronicle it. Reggie was not directly part of the fracas, but it was a sour note toward the end of a stellar pro career. Malice at the Palace abruptly erased the realistic championship hopes for 2005 as significant suspensions and fines rained down on the Pacers involved, especially Stephen Jackson and Ron Artest, who appeared on film to jump into the civilian seats a bit too eagerly, itching to throw fists. Much as I adored these two, an unspoken line was crossed and the league was compelled to set a harsh example. This was a random and novel way to watch a great team oozing with enough talent and a chance to go all the way, instead lose all playoff hopes within seconds on one bizarre, fateful night during the regular season in a heated rivalry matchup that got way out of hand. Another inexplicable train wreck of affairs, another championship run prematurely aborted in moments after taking years to carefully build, early in a very promising season. The Basketball Gods were in Detroit lurking in the stands. It is easier to destroy than to build.

There have been tantalizing moments since then between the gaps. The Blue & Gold faithful have been treated to elite and exciting Pacers basketball again in the 2010s, led by young and athletically gifted all-stars developed in-house like Paul George and Victor Oladipo, the former traded for the latter from OKC with Sabonis. Paul George had the great vet leader David West on his side too. These players led promising playoff runs , though escaping the Eastern Conference again proved elusive against teams with slightly better and more seasoned players like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade standing in their way. Several more valiant game 7 defeats ended promising seasons. Unfortunately, Pacer Nation’s string of heartbreak was to continue as both franchise players, George and Oladipo, suffered gruesome leg injuries on the court just as they were entering their prime years that would effectively force the Pacers and the players to retool long-term plans. Both players were never quite the same explosive forces again in Indy and exited via trades. No superstar since Reggie Miller would have the unbreakable staying power of Reggie Miller with the team and the city of Indianapolis again till present. That’s why he would appropriately remain my single favorite Pacer ever through these years, well beyond his retirement, without a close second, throughout the first quarter century of the new millennium. Many old heads and younger fans agree.

Indiana would not come close to winning a single playoff series again in the years after Oladipo’s trade, despite acquiring some promising players, until the dawn of a new Pacers era was ushered in by a single franchise-altering business transaction. A dramatic mid-season surprise trade with Sacramento in early 2022 brought a young and promising, but raw, second-year point guard named Tyrese Haliburton to town in exchange for established veteran all-star center Domantas Sabonis, the son of global legend Arvydas Sabonis who was a consistent double-double machine and bruiser in the paint. The junior Sabonis played at All-Star level but never seemed to fit well in the struggling multiyear double-big lineup experiment alongside big man Myles Turner- or in the new, speedier schemes Coach Rick Carlisle was incubating for his second stint as Indiana head coach.

The front office including Kevin Pritchard, Chad Buchanan, and Coach Carlisle, the architect of a radical new approach with an underdog championship coach pedigree from 2011 in Dallas, and Celtic player alongside Larry Bird in younger days, hoped that they had unearthed the franchise’s new long-term cornerstone in Haliburton, though it was a gamble; the second-year guard had been establishing his pro basketball identity on a Kings team with established star point guard De’Aaron Fox. Hali admitted to feeling wounded by the Kings trading him away. The business of America is business. Basketball is a business, and it was a potential winning exchange for Indiana. Were happy days finally back for Pacer Nation again after another long drought? I knew very little about the newest acquisition when the trade was announced but was stoked by his college and pro rookie highlights and commentary about his future upside. Most called the trade a steal for the Pacers. But in 2022 all we could see was potential in the thick of a fuzzy rebuild.

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That would all change pretty quickly once we saw Hali running and especially passing in a Pacers uniform. Imminently apparent in his very first game as a Pacer that I watched intently was his elite playmaking, a nose for getting to his spots for open looks, and extraordinary court vision, capped by high-arcing jump shots (with weirdly unconventional form) that he seemed gun shy about using very often in favor of passing the rock to others. Can someone be too unselfish in a league of limitless egos? Of most promise, Hali instantly optimized the new Pacers teammates around him into better versions of themselves in just his second pro season, with his basketball skills and his unending charisma. The players immediately enjoyed themselves more, as importantly- after playing with other very different point guards their entire lives. He had an uncanny ability to get everyone involved in the offense, in right places, at right times. The 2021-22 season was essentially a wash already heading into the second half with a new point guard running an unestablished offense, a poor record, plus key injuries. Even so it was already turning out to be more fun to watch the Pacers than in the previous handful of seasons where the team played slow, grinding it out on both sides of the ball in low-octane games and predictable actions. When you watch a majority of the games of a specific team for a long sequence of seasons, you understand the nuances and pick up on any notable shifts in identity and coaching style. Some changes for the better were brewing even during that first losing season with Hali and Carlisle at the helm for the tail end and the following 2022-23 season where the rebuild was coming to the end with an emerging new identity despite missing the playoffs.

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A renewed vigor that felt different from any Pacers team that came before began to manifest more clearly during the pivotal 2023-24 season defined by rousing change, Hali’s second full season in Indiana alongside a motley crew of new running mates. Even those finest, well-oiled machine Reggie teams did not do things these guys were doing on the regular. The roster overhaul now included drafted youngsters Andrew Nembhard, Benn Mathurin , Jarace Walker, and Ben Shepard, Aaron Nesmith acquired via trade from Boston, Myles Turner returning from injury, dunking demon Obi Toppin brought aboard from New York, free agent Bruce Brown signed from the reigning champion Nuggets, a re-energized veteran backup PG TJ McConnell, and key moves intended to fit a new, faster and more fun style of play that we could faintly compare to the Showtime Lakers and 7 second Steve Nash Suns, in flashes.

Hot shooter and amigo Buddy Hield had transferred alongside Hali from Sactown and the pair immediately displayed obvious chemistry on and off the court that carried over from California, and the only familiar partnership in Indy helped rev the race car engine. It was impossible to predict what this team would look like over the course of an NBA season with so many unfamiliar moving parts adapting to new systems under development by a new coaching staff. It was a team that went into training camp in full drawing board mode, dramatically updating the operating system on both style and substance after a series of gambles centered on mostly unproven young talent let go by other teams, while releasing good guys to make room. Now the Pacers looked like they were in a hurry to get somewhere unlike most rebuilding franchises, even if they couldn’t yet see where and how they were going. Thanks to high character, unselfishness and the tough mindset of individual players who had never been fully appreciated as role players elsewhere, without major rotation responsibilities, the Pacers brimmed with traits modern NBA teams don’t always construct a foundation on. The skeleton of the next great Pacers era was beginning to form by early in the season with a competitive group unafraid to get physical on the floor.

Two things stood out in the autumn of 2023. First, the high-octane offense running fast and free with Hali at the helm was at times surprisingly successful, regardless of opponent. Some Pacers games were fast-paced, high-scoring shootouts, with both sides scoring easy buckets in a speedy style we Pacers fans had never seen before. How appropriate in the proud land of the Indy 500. Tyrese Haliburton was showing a greater willingness to score while blossoming into a legit 20-point, 10-assist guy in just his third year in the league, Point God numbers achieved by few point guards in a single season over long and productive careers. This steep rise to stardom from Hali’s previous seasons both surprised and impressed observers, and began to solidify his status as the new Sheriff in town, the unquestioned Indiana Pacers franchise star. In some games Hali’s play and stats reached the level of potential All-Star and even All-NBA. Which would prove out when all was said and done in the end. His newly empowered teammates seemed to have no problem with the growing attention on Hali’s rise. These guys genuinely liked one another and apparently checked their egos in at the arena door- but not their confidence. There was a chemistry brewing this season game by game. And it was so much fun.

Three pointers, almost all of them open, tickled the bottom of the net at a high clip from up and down the roster. Almost every trip down the floor featured prolific passing and high quality shot attempts from two and three. Good shots were passed up for great ones. The offense was a thing of beauty at its best. The Pacers were able to score on everybody at will most nights. On the other hand, the defense was one of the weakest in the league, defined by way too easy looks to opposing players from everywhere, repeatedly, including getting run over in the paint and in rebounding. These weaknesses on D and boxing out caused them to lose games against worse teams they should have beaten, leaning too heavily on a shaky strategy of outgunning teams in shootouts while hardly guarding nobody for all 48 minutes. Finding stops at critical points in games were hard to come by. This was a team-wide issue and put a hard ceiling on this team’s chances to succeed over the course of the season, and win in the playoffs when the competition ramped up. Hali himself would publicly admit how bad his individual 1-1 defense was in his first full season in Indianapolis. The one bright spot in the defense was that point of attack defenders Aaron Nesmith and Andrew Nembhard were beginning to show flashes of dogged individual defensive prowess on opposing teams’ best wings with increasing frequency. Still, overall team defense was untenable for a team harboring ambitions to make postseason noise, sporting a roster with little meaningful playoff experience besides former champion Bruce Brown.

The Pacers also made an unexpected run to the finals of the inaugural in-season tournament, going 4-0 in group play before eliminating Eastern conference powers Boston and Milwaukee en route to the final, where they played the champion LA Lakers led by LeBron and AD tough into the fourth quarter. The Lakers had more big-game experience, and it showed. The in-season Cup chase brought the young team a valuable taste of tournament style basketball early in the season, which they badly needed. The regular season also fueled a burgeoning rivalry with the Bucks, who the Pacers beat 4-1 in the regular season including the tourney after being often clowned by the central division foe in previous years- though the Pacers were bulldozed in almost every matchup by perennial MVP candidate and former NBA champion, Giannis Antetokounpo, who they struggled to stop from scoring almost at will. He’s called the Greek Freak for a reason.

By February 2024 the Pacers had proved they could be really good. The Pacers home court Gainbridge Fieldhouse played host to 2024 All-Star weekend, where Hali was selected to represent the East for the first time of ostensibly many. Hali had led the league in assists for most of the season till then, with low turnovers, and was establishing himself as a top 10 point guard in the NBA. It was obvious the Pacers showed promising upside, but needed to add a large and athletic body at the forward position to shore up the defense and also infuse another top scorer to pair with Hali, the lone All-Star on the Pacers. As they say in the NBA, we were “one piece away.” A championship veteran in Toronto, Pascal Siakam, had reportedly been coveted by the Pacers front office for years. Before the annual trade deadline, they finally managed to land “Spicy P.” It was a risk as Pascal was on the last year of his contract and would be a free agent at the end of the season who could walk away for no return. However according to early rumors post-trade, Pascal had wanted to be a Pacer too, with every intention of re-signing beyond 2024. If so the trade appeared to be a win-win that could take the Pacers to the next level. It also formally marked the beginning of the end of the rebuild effort, and maybe, just maybe, an opening of a serious new playoff contention window for the franchise. Championship caliber clubs almost always featured at minimum 2 All-Star caliber teammates. More importantly, we needed to see evidence of chemistry with yet another star, even if he was that “one piece.”

The trade went better than any of us could have hoped for, as a former champion with the Toronto Raptors and tough Cameroon native (of all places) fit right in and made the Pacers a notably different team over the second half of the season, including on defense, where to be fair it could not possibly get any worse. Acquiring Pascal also came with losing Bruce Brown and Buddy Hield in the cold game of hard mathematics. It wasn’t a perfect integration of styles at first, but the potential would become interesting quick. Spicy P had a bag of tools unlike any other basketball forward anywhere, that would fit on any NBA team. The Pacers clawed their way to the sixth seed in the East for the playoffs with their new Swiss Army knife from Up North, navigating through the thicket of Hali missing important games because of nagging injuries. But the time would arrive for patient observers to give this revamped basketball team a spin in the grinder of a playoff series.

The final regular season standings would pit 6 seed Indiana against their 3 seed budding Central Division rival, Milwaukee. Pacers fans were encouraged by winning convincingly in the regular season against the higher seed Bucks with a superior overall record, even against both Giannis and Damian Lillard, who arrived in Wisconsin after a legendary career in Portland. The Basketball Gods threw a wrinkle into the first round, as the former MVP Greek Freak would be sidelined for the entire series by injury. The Basketball Gods can cut both ways, and over the years their spells are supposed to even out among the teams competing for the same ends. The Giannis injury was the first in several injuries to Pacer opponents that would grease their 2024 playoff gambit. For the Bucks it would fall on the experienced veteran Dame to lead his new team into the second round past a young Pacers crew notably lacking on playoff experience except for Spicy P. Even absent Giannis the Bucks had plenty of championship pedigree and firepower in Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, “Playoff Pat” Connaughton, and others in addition to Dame. And it was hard, as a Pacers fan, to feel too bad for opponents after suffering through franchise-altering injuries to Paul George, Victor Oladipo, and other bad breaks.

I attended Game 1 in Milwaukee, by luck of the seeding just a short drive from my home in Madison, for my first-ever Pacers playoff game, fortified with optimism that this game could be the start of something special. I was also having a tough time dealing with my personal lymphoma battle and aggressive treatment regimen when the series started. I was genuinely worried about how many Pacers seasons I might have left, among the dark thoughts that crept up. I felt I needed this, that witnessing my team play live would be a welcome distraction from my personal troubles. In that endeavor, I was wrong as the series opener went sideways quickly. The Bucks led by Dame exploded in game 1, like his many playoff performances before, and the Pacers seemed badly out of sorts in the long-anticipated playoff debut for most of the rotation, their struggle to rise to the moment understandable considering they had never been there before, never having been part of the large jump in intensity from regular season to postseason basketball. They struggled under the bright lights with one clear exception, Spicy P, the wily and experienced player who went off just like Dame on a scoring binge. However, it wasn’t enough and the Bucks took Game 1 pretty easily after building a comfortable lead the Pacer’s couldn’t recover from. It was not a great start, and I did not feel very good in the stands surrounded by the enemy in a sea of Bucks green cheering deafeningly for their home team. I left Fiserv Forum early to get away from that unpleasant place raucously celebrating “Dame Time.” Those chants for Lillard will haunt me forever. A reminder of the very first opening night at Fiserv Forum I attended years earlier, when the Bucks beat the Pacers to christen their brand new arena.

The Pacers righted the shaky ship by winning game 2 in Milwaukee, before flying back to Indy for game 3 with a 1-1 series tie. Meanwhile, the Bucks became banged up as the series wore on, including Dame. After some hard-fought and physically taxing basketball between two increasingly bitter rivals, the Pacers were able to settle down and take round 1 of the playoffs 4-2 from the Bucks despite the game 1 letdown. The Basketball Gods showed their hand with untimely Bucks injuries, most of all to the one and only Giannis, which tipped the scale back Indy’s way, while launching the narrative that the underdog Pacers could not have beaten a Bucks team at full strength. I think they would have won a fair fight anyway, but we will never know. Injuries in the playoffs are always unfortunate, but the Pacers proved their growth by taking care of business. It’s not easy to win any playoff series in the NBA regardless of health factors. Plus Khris Middleton heroically put the Bucks franchise on his back. It was a hard out- and a good experience for the young ‘Cers.

By twist of fate, next loomed the most bitter Pacers rival of them all, largely based on the substantial bad blood (and real blood) from the 90s wars of attrition during the Reggie Miller days that became the stuff of NBA lore, books, documentaries, and all: the #2 seed New York Knicks awaited. Watching those high-drama 90s battles on TV remain unforgettable memories. The 2024 Knicks would be tougher to beat than the Bucks, with All-Star guard Jalen Brunson blossoming into a scoring machine. Once again, the Basketball Gods seemed to advantage the Pacers as key players like OG Anunoby would hurt themselves, and Julius Randle would not play at all due to injury. I was fortunate to be able to attend game 4 in Indianapolis, where the Pacers drubbed the Knicks that day in delicious fashion- a substantially more enjoyable ride within friendly confines, amongst my own tribe, than being at Fiserv Forum watching the Pacers lose Game 1 against Milwaukee behind enemy lines.

The Knicks series was mostly an evenly matched, hard-nosed affair with ridiculous playmaking, and the pressure steadily built till game 7 was forced in no less a venue than the famous Madison Square Garden that would be roaring for its team. The opponents brought out the best basketball moments in each other, scratching and clawing for each point. The previous 6 games had all been grabbed by the home team for the 3-3 tie. Pacer Nation and hardcore New Yorkers alike were flooded with good and bad memories of the epic playoff game 7 battles from the 1990s. Heartbreak and elation loomed on the docket again. This time the Pacers needed to find a way to win one on the road in one of the most hostile road environments in the NBA universe, like Reggie did a generation earlier. Thanks to a worn out and injured Knicks rotation playing fewer players more minutes each per the plan of respected basketball mind Coach Tom Thibodoux, culminating with Brunson breaking a finger while fouling Hali on a fast break, Indiana squeezed out the game 7 win with a playoff record-breaking display of shooting accuracy. The time had come to face the top seed in the Conference Finals, the Beast of the East, the Boston Celtics, who barely broke a sweat to get there. They were waiting, well-rested while the Pacers played for their lives against the Knicks.

Again the Pacers faced a team heavily favored against them, with a stable of All-star caliber players with playoff experience and focused championship mindset. Notably, Porzingis was out for the series, but it wouldn’t matter. The Pacers were close to stealing game 1 in Boston, playing the Celtics to a standstill, but fumbled a lead at the end of regulation and never recovered in overtime. That game would prove too difficult to recover from for the young underdogs. Soon Hali was injured to end his season prematurely, sitting out Games 3 and 4 in a cruel twist. The Pacers were swept 4-0 by the Celtics, though they were very competitive in three of those games and had several chances to win late in the games. But Boston could hit a higher gear in clutch time, and subsequently rolled through the Mavericks 4-1 in the finals to win the 2024 NBA championship.

Personally I believed tangling with the class team of the league for four straight losses, half of them without their best player, and a choke game with him on the floor, was the best lesson possible for the young club. We were taught what the top of the NBA mountain looks like up close, pick by pick, shot by shot, turnover by turnover. Indiana could make the case as being a legitimate top 5 team when all was said and done, and pushing Boston hard despite the sweep. However, so many chatterboxes would label the 2024 Pacers playoff runs to the Conference Finals a fluke due to the injury-prone Bucks and Knicks, and they were not picked to make it back to the NBA’s final four in 2025 by almost anybody.

***

Fortunately, know-it-all talking heads do not get to decide who the winners and losers are. That is exclusively earned by the players alone on the hardwood through sweat, hard work, and team dynamics. Where others who didn’t know these Pacers that well were crying fluke, close observers were excited by the promise. Entering the 2024-25 NBA season, virtually nobody beyond Pacer Nation gave Indy any respect for their surprising deep playoff run. Yes, they faced teams with health problems. But they took care of business, vastly improved from the end of the regular season. An injured Benn Mathurin would be back after missing the entire playoffs. Carlisle and co. continued ironing out an infrequently deployed new weapon to shore up the crew’s glaring weakness: harassing full court pressure on the defensive end. This option physically taxed players. On both sides.

A team with zero expectations for another playoff run in all the preseason rankings was quietly building on the solid foundation of All-Stars Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam, complemented by a deep roster of starters and rotation bench players at every position, nearly all of whom could run fast, bury three pointers, pass the rock, nail mid-range jumpers, and drive to the hole. Now they had real playoff experience up and down the roster in pressure packed situations vanquishing two rivals, one new and one old, who did not like them at all. The offense was virtually guaranteed to be explosive again with a year together under Hali’s steady hand including through three rounds of playoff battles. He was backed by two elite point guards and no letdown in pace with McConnell and Nembhard. Real experience, despite the accusations of one-off fluke, was a vital advantage that most consensus contenders did not bring into the fresh season or fully appreciate. Uncertainty abounded in a league where many teams had revamped their rosters and coaches like every off-season, with moves specifically geared to counter the league’s expected class acts like Boston, a favorite to repeat.

The two most pressing preseason questions were whether the weak defense could be resuscitated from league bottom-feeder status from the previous year, and if the players could stay healthy- especially Hali, whose Boston campaign had been cut short. That summer he did not appear in full health during his stint with Team USA’s Olympic gold medal campaign in Paris, where he mostly rode the bench.

To start off the NBA season in Fall 2024, things did not look good on either question. The early signs were ominous. In a tragic sequence ruthlessly conjured by the Basketball Gods, the only two backup centers Isiah Jackson and James Wiseman both went down for the entire season back to back with… Achilles tears… within days of opening night, having barely even played any minutes. Poor guys, bench pieces trying to establish their careers. The blows to two young, critical bench players at the same position were soon followed by nagging injuries that took out starters Aaron Nesmith and Andrew Nembhard for a large number of games in the balance of 2024, effectively sidelining the two best defenders on the team in an already-subpar defense. Thank goodness these were not season-ending. The Pacers were forced to alter their rotation plans, and get creative. It was time to invoke “next man up” mentality in the NBA- roles would be filled by digging deeper into the bench or the G league by necessity- an opportunity to shine for those players who stayed physically and mentally ready for the opportunity for minutes when their number was called on the fly. The show must go on.

It was a poor start. Over the first 25 games the Pacers could not seem to find their game, as evidenced by a dismal 10-15 start. Some losses were to clearly inferior teams, a worrying pattern carrying over from the season before. Anxiety was setting in about whether Indiana would even qualify for the playoffs in the spring. At the rate they were going that wouldn’t even be possible. Finishing outside the top 10 seeds in the East would be a very bad movie sequel to the previous season where the team outperformed low expectations against higher seeded teams that were supposed to beat them in both NBA tournaments. The creepy ghosts of accusation about a fluke 2024 run were circling around the NBA and animated other tribes across the land who savored what they felt was a gap year for a budding dynasty. A team that wouldn’t concern their own passionate dreams. As worrying, for his part, Hali wasn’t his former self, with inferior stats nearly across the board compared to his masterful 20-10 breakout All-NBA season and the team’s record matched his own personal dip in numbers. And body language. Destiny hinged on the fitness of its franchise player- no different from every team. His movements on and off the ball and on the defensive end indicated that he wasn’t entirely healthy for a large chunk of the season. Hali would later reveal that he was struggling to enjoy his job, a sentiment all employees of anything could understand.

Still we pragmatically hoped to turn the corner in time. Through the early-season adversity, the Pacers never completely lost their winning mindset and togetherness. They never panicked or arranged major trades to shake things up. And the faithful never lost faith that the turnaround was coming. In fact the Pacers even at 10-15 remained one of the few things going right for me, a bright spot during a very difficult time, because they were still a joy to watch and follow win or lose. I was getting more attached to these guys. In my own life in late 2024, I was hospitalized for a month to undergo a bone marrow stem cell transplant from an anonymous donor, a risky and involved procedure that could result in serious complications.

But you gotta take the shot, you gotta be in it to win it, like basketball.

It was a marathon, a long game, and my best chance at a long-term solution for my potentially life threatening disease, so I went for it and never looked back. We all have the choice not to dwell on an uncertain future. Just like challenging times in sports, I chose to focus inward on mindset.

And in life too, you gotta take the shot.

As the calendar turned to 2025, I was physically and mentally struggling with the recovery process after a series of successful procedures in November and December. Coincidentally, the Pacers began to come alive. In January they roared. The Basketball Gods provided a few timely assists at this stage. Nembhard and Nesmith finally returned to action after long absences and worked their way back into playing shape, Haliburton looked more like himself again, the defense markedly improved with unprecedented connectivity, pressure, and physicality, and the team started clicking on all cylinders on both sides of the ball for the first time in years. Their confident turnaround was a relief after all the uncertainty and doubt. Indiana proceeded to have a dominant second half of the season to quell the nervous nellies and the naysayers, with one the NBA’s best records from January onward. Indiana was beating top clubs and methodically climbed up the East to win the #4 seed and close out the regular season strong, with a 50-32 record after the 10-15 start. That’s 40-17, an elite stretch of play for anyone. They emerged from the early hole they were in. I wanted to do the same for myself and my family, who were stuck in the whole with me.

Pacer Nation began to dream of another deep playoff run, although the path this time looked much harder than the year before. Even among diehard fans few of us thought in our hearts if we were being honest that we’d see the Pacers get back to the Conference Finals in 2025. Personally, I thought 2026 was more likely to be the first year of undeniable championship contention.

But to quote Coach Rick Carlisle, a wise man who’s seen some things, “With Tyrese Haliburton, all things are possible.”

Whether that sexagenarian declaration was delusional or visionary, we would find out. This time the Pacers’ first round opponent yet again was the Bucks with Giannis healthy, a terror to attempt to contain for a whole series. On the flip side Damian Lillard’s shaky late season marred by a blood clot issue threw his status into doubt. But he played. That was soon followed by an Achilles tear early in the series, which ended his season tragically as with all Achilles injuries in the NBA, a serious systemic problem that would plague too many players this year. Thanks to the unpredictable will of the Basketball Gods, we were never meant to see the long-awaited Giannis and Dame tandem in full effect in the playoffs, though the returns from their full regular season together were below expectations and I am confident the Pacers, who were clearly peaking at the most optimal time of the year, would have defeated a healthy Bucks squad anyway due to their lack of quality depth. Milwaukee fans had their hopes dashed to the ground though, and I am much more sympathetic to them, and to Dame, after what happened in Game 7 of the finals later to a player and team I valued. This has nothing to do with disliking an emerging rival. These health related developments feel unfair, and take away the game’s full potential. We should all root for two healthy teams in every series to witness the finest basketball, and the string of injuries plaguing Pacers playoff opponents for the second postseason in a row, brought zero pleasure. Pacer Nation knew both sides of this coin from the good and bad luck of previous seasons.

We were still relieved when the Pacers took the series 4-1, capped by an unbelievable game 5 featuring timeless haymakers by Hali at the end of both regulation and overtime- and stubborn answers from the Bucks who did not favor elimination. Hali played out of his mind in one of the most improbable clutch time comebacks in NBA playoff history- like our hero Reggie Miller pulled off in his prime in the biggest playoff scenarios. In yet another bizarre development in the last 10 seconds of overtime, with the Bucks in front by one with possession, the Bucks’ Gary Trent Jr., after playing the game of his life till that point with one impossible three point shot after another in his own right to keep his team in the game… did it. He fumbled a good, easy pass between his legs and out of bounds with no defender anywhere near his area code. This was extra capricious even for the cheeky Basketball Gods and their ways to observe an NBA player do this. There was no feasible explanation. Thanks to Hali’s dramatic game-winning layup past Giannis in the seconds to follow with the clock winding down, the Pacers stole the game after that mishap, and ended the series. With a 3-1 lead at the time, they could have been forgiven for giving up at the end of the game facing large deficits. But not these guys. Count them out at your own peril.

That was just the beginning of a playoffs that could only be described as enchanted, defying the very mathematics of basketball. Some began openly wondering if the Pacers secretly conducted voodoo rituals, so mind-blowing is what came in the second round against the heavily favored Cleveland Cavaliers, picked by every last squawk-box basketball analyst on the planet to blow past the Pacers with their superior talent and depth. Anchored by a stable of All-Stars led by Donovan Mitchell, Defensive Player of the Year Evan Mobley, point guard Darius Garland, and NBA Coach of the Year Kenny Atkinson. The Cavs easily won the #1 seed in the East by winning 64 games and dominating on both sides of the ball. They had picked up excellent new pieces in preparation for a serious campaign. But a different narrative was starting to circulate within Pacer nation. This team could be good. Special good, like no Pacer team we had ever seen before.

One know it all talking head declared that the Pacers would run into a “buzzsaw” in the Cavs, who easily swept Memphis in round 1 in four dominant victories. Everyone understood they were far superior to the Bucks. The Cavs were supposed to be a better version of the Pacers formula: breakneck speed, great coaching, better offense, better defense, more star talent, deeper bench. As it turns out, the Pacers were the buzzsaw and Cleveland actually ran into it. The Pacers defeated the #1 seed Cavs 4-1, highlighted by another epic comeback in Game 2 in Cleveland where Hali hit a step-back buzzer-beating 3 pointer to win the game and cap another nearly impossible double-digit comeback in the waning minutes of the game. Yes, Cleveland was dealing with several banged up players in the series too, an unfortunate situation for them at the worst time.

However, it should be becoming clear that the Pacers were simply a better team overall than the admittedly fantastic Cavaliers and the Bucks before them. They had now gone 8-2 in the first two playoff rounds, against top-tier teams, including a blistering 6-0 on the road, and 4-0 in games 1 and 2 to open. A clear, undeniable pattern was emerging. And a tough puzzle to solve for their opponents. The Pacers were winning through relentless defense, sharpshooting, and a fast-paced offense that found good shots nearly every time down the floor while defenses were still setting themselves up early in the shot clock. Their transition game was impossible to stop, often ignited by good defense. Again, this team was proving to be special. Next up, again: the Pacer franchise’s greatest arch-enemy since 1976, the New York Knickerbockers and more showdowns at Madison Square Garden against a undeniably improved team from the season before, in the Conference Finals no les, which both teams desperately wanted to win. The Knicks had to be itching for this revenge rematch.

It’s worth a quick, uncanny side note here about my own personal connection to the Pacer’s slate of opponents to this point in the 2025 playoffs, which made this particular set of series all the more uniquely special for me, beyond the rare feat of back-to-back Conference Finals appearances in the bag. The Bucks are in Wisconsin, not far from where I live in Madison, and the only NBA team in the whole state. The Bucks are effectively the hometown team, or the closest thing to it here. Coincidentally, Tyrese Haliburton was also born and raised in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, not too far from Milwaukee either, which adds another angle to the heated rivalry. Meanwhile Cleveland is where I lived for three years and graduated high school in the 90s, and I am still very fond of the Cleveland area in general. Finally the great City of New York is my beating heart, having spent 16 years of my adult life there, despite my dislike for the Knicks and my unbroken membership in Pacer nation well before those years, and well after. In fact, I consider myself a New Yorker for life despite leaving 8 years ago and a Pacer for life. I’m a rabid fan of New York City as a metropolis, just not its sports teams, and I proudly worked for NYC local government throughout those years. So we saw in two consecutive postseasons the Pacers play the Bucks (twice), the Knicks (twice), and the Cavs once. Ironically, Indianapolis is the city I have spent barely any time in, and know the least, among the four franchise domiciles, but I remained an obnoxious card-carrying Pacer through all of those years.

This time the late-game, nearly insurmountable comeback heroics took place in Game 1 against a Knicks squad with a battering ram of an offense between Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony-Towns- and luckily, a leaky defense to match. The Basketball Gods had their fingerprints all over this insane game, the most insane of them all to date in the entire 2025 playoffs, and that is saying a lot. Deep in a hole towards the end of the fourth quarter against likely the best team the Pacers had yet faced, forward Aaron Nesmith went into Beast Mode. With his team struggling to find answers, this hardhat-and-lunch-pail, Southern Strong fan favorite best known as a solid role player suddenly became All-NBA for several minutes, exceeding the expectations of the most optimistic diehard Pacers fanatics like myself to do something no NBA player had ever done. He mercilessly strung together a blistering 6 timely three-pointers in the final quarter to keep the desperate Pacers within striking distance while breaking a playoff record. Even so the Pacers were down in the closing seconds, until lightning struck again with in the closing seconds. Hali bobbed and weaved frantically before tossing in a long jumper that… clanked on the back of the rim… shot up straight and high into the very air being sucked out of Madison Square Garden…hung tantalizingly in the atmosphere for a moment… and finally swished through the net at the end of regulation.

Hali mistakenly thought it was a 3-point game winner as we all did, and he made a tribute choke signal while pointing at the ultimate Pacer sitting feet away on the sideline, calling the broadcast… Reggie Miller… in MSG itself… in the most glorious example of all time of NBA history repeating itself to close a Conference Finals game between two arch-nemesis franchises… dating back to the decade before Hali was even born, appropriately in 2000… the very last year the Pacers beat the Knicks in the Conference Finals… after all the Conference Finals battles between the two…to get to the championship round before. Please read that last sentence again for a full grasp of that one moment: the torch, or the baton, or whatever this was had been officially passed on between my two favorite Pacers players, 31 years after the Knicks-Pacers rivalry began in 1994… and Reggie Miller’s jersey number was… you guessed it… #31… and the year Pascal Siakam was born in Cameroon. A most joyful moment to add to Pacers lore.

But wait! The very end of Hali’s right shoe… at the very end of the leg that would fatefully feature later on in these playoffs…was barely touching the 3-point line by less than an inch of toe… meaning, it was a 2-pointer and not 3. That’s the rules, and them’s the breaks! The would-be game winning shot sent the game to overtime at least by tying the game at the end of Nesmith’s clutch Beast Mode turn, which was not meant to be in vain. Hali, Nesmith, Miller, and everyone else watching the game live wondered the same thing… had Hali celebrated too soon and jinxed it? The game was not over, only tied with that dramatic shot. Time for overtime time. The game had not been won, only extended. What more could Pacer Nation ask for, than another shot at taking game 1 in MSG after the late-game heroics of Nesmith, Hali, and the squad?

In OT, the Pacers would not disappoint, once again displaying clutch shot after clutch shot in their emerging brand of uniquely gorgeous team ball under the highest stakes: hunting furiously for great shots, taking and making them, and getting timely stops on the Knicks’ unrelenting offensive attack led by All-NBA bucket getters Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. The Pacers stole another big matchup, this time the first game against the Knicks in their first Conference Finals matchup since 2000. Hali backed up the embarrassing poorly-timed choke signal, the last in a string of mimicking the signature celebratory moves on the court vs. the likes of Malik Beasley (butt-shake dance), and Dame Dollar (looking at his wrist like, “what time is it!? Dame Time!”). The choke was different, possibly the first respectfully positive Pacer mimic he ever pulled, at timely tribute to Pacers legend Reggie Miller watching from feet away. Reggie pointed back in recognition. Game respecting game.

Giving away game 1 at MSG haunted the Knicks for the entire series, and the Pacers managed a 4-2 series win once again without home court advantage, once again stealing the first two games of the series on hostile territory, making them 6-0 in the first two games of their playoffs. I started to realize for the first time after Knicks game 1 that despite the media and opposing fans’ constant squawking and endless cynicism, that this team was proving to be simply better than the teams they were besting in the only proving ground that mattered, the court itself. The basketball court of law. A 12-4 record against the East’s other elite playoff teams when the stakes were highest was no fluke. No way. Nor was the success in 2024. Hali was smashing down before our eyes the very concept that he was the most over-rated player in the league, as an anonymous player poll had anointed him. Would Hali and co. have pushed themselves to doggedly execute these late-game clutch heroics when contests seemed lost, without that extra motivation? Hmm. Only the Basketball Gods know the answer to that. What we do know is that Hali pointedly said, “over rate that.” There is nothing greater in sports than a player who talks the talk and then walks the walk.

Reggie Miller, anyone? In the 2024 playoffs Hali cemented himself in my heart as my favorite NBA player since Reggie Miller, with all due respect to the exciting greats in between the two eras with shorter Pacer stints, such as Jermaine O’Neal, Lance Stephenson, Paul George, David West, Roy Hibbert (my fellow Hoya), Victor Oladipo, and Domantas Sabonis. They brought star power and grit, but never managed to find a way to win through adversity and take the East. We were on to something special. And I needed, and relished, every moment of it.

***

After the Eastern Conference Finals a small minority of NBA commentators began to realize how good Pacers basketball could be. A few even admitted the opening of a very slim window to beat OKC in the finals, but that ultimately theThunder would slam it shut. Most gave the Pacers no chance at all. Again. We fans who are admittedly and obviously biased by our emotions, recognized that the odds were stacked against the Pacers about to face a historic juggernaut in OKC. But I saw the +500 straight bet odds for the Thunder to win the series and the +300 straight bet odds for the Thunder to win game 1 at a sports book and was deeply insulted by the utter lack of respect. So I placed separate large (legal) bets on the Pacers to win each.

It was the perfect billing, a most fitting end to the 2025 season: two small market franchises who patiently underwent risky, methodical, multi-year rebuild efforts to build the best defense (OKC) and best offense (Indy) the league had seen in decades, managed by two smart coaches, Mark Daigneault and Rick Carlisle. Oozing with talent and youth, the two best teams left standing had made it to the largest stage ahead of schedule, peaking at the right time, and broadly healthy. Fans were in for a treat beyond the borders of Thunder Nation and Pacer Nation, although some fools picked OKC to win 4-0 or 4-1.

The Basketball Gods had something very different in mind for the showdown between these two tribes who had never brought a trophy to their towns, in the first “Gen Z” finals.

In Game 1 the Pacers conjured another shocking victory from the jaws of defeat, the most unlikely of them all against the best opponent of them all, with another impossible fourth-quarter comeback from a double digit deficit under intense pressure. Amidst a deafening OKC home crowd, who could almost taste the first NBA championship parade in Oklahoma. The Thunder were leading wire to wire from the opening jump ball until there was less than one second left on the game clock. Their stifling defense forced a silly level of turnovers on the Pacers. But the Pacers kept grinding, never gave up, and stole game 1 on another last-second buzzer beating jumper just inside the three point line by… guess who… Hali. Hali had done it again. Buzzer beaters in four straight playoff series! The first NBA Finals game-winner since the GOAT Michael Jordan himself in 1998! Indiana was now a blistering 4-0 in playoff series openers, including 3-0 in hostile arenas. Winning every clutch moment. More profitably I tripled the money I’d bet on Game 1. This was my first ever sports bet and I was now 1-0 despite +300 odds. I knew this was possible before the series started because I still believed beyond the numbers and OKC hype that the Pacers could possibly be the better team in the moment when few else thought so- and the well-rested Thunder might be rusty and overconfident if they internalized their own fawning press.

***

Without too deep of a rehash, we know how it all ended after the hard-fought see-saw series featuring heartbreak including a winnable game 4 that OKC stole from the Pacers at home, squashing the opportunity for a commanding 3-1 series lead. The fairest Cinderella run of them all was destined to end with game 7 and a torn right Achilles tendon. Midnight.

A week later, it might seem impossible to get over the soul-crushing heartbreak of Hali, the wider Pacers organization of professional coaches, front office, ballboys, Boomer, the Pacemates and halftime performers, medical, strength, and conditioning staff, security officers, the number crunchers, the broadcasters, influencers, journalists, the city of Indianapolis, the entire state of Indiana repped proudly on the jerseys, and the wider orbit of fans observing from far beyond Indiana.

Why do this to ourselves, consciously deciding with eyes wide open to jump on the rollercoaster, knowing full well the alternating oscillations between rise and fall that define the ride? Why do we make the choice to don blue and gold, or adopt this peculiar set of giant young strangers from different US states and different countries like Canada and Cameroon as our native sons? Why spend money and time on this tribe, buying NBA TV packages, attending playoff games as I did in the 2024 Bucks and Knicks series, purchasing and wearing copious amounts of Pacers merch, or betting money on games based on gut instincts? Side note for curious minds: the big money won on game 1 and the big money lost on the series added up to… net zero. My very first sports betting experience technically amounted to… nothing.

I won’t claim to speak for others here. I can only tell you why 40 years of Pacer fandom, and all the ups and down along the way, were worth it for one particular fan of one team in one sports league on the planet. Even if it was all hurtling towards this last week’s ultimate disappointment well under all the previous lows on the roller coaster. 2023, 2024, and 2025 were the worst years in my personal life, full of physical suffering, chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, long hospital stays, and worst of all fear and anxiety due to a battle against lymphoma. To me watching the basketball, and the many extra hours of intaking analysis and studying the game, were pure pleasure, win or lose. A very good distraction. That cannot be taken from you. The sport kept me going during the hard times, particularly in summer 2024, when not much else was going right. For others the darkest times might involve other things besides disease, such as financial trouble, relationship breakups, substance addiction, the death of a loved one, or other unavoidable features of this temporary consciousness we all face.

Sports in these seasons and all times mean much more than just entertainment to some of us. It represents hope. It is not only about winning championships, although that is the overarching goal of all 30 NBA franchises every year, as just one example from one athletic league. Putting together a single championship season is designed to be a feat of mental and physical strength most NBA players, all among the finest and largest athletes in the world at any given time, will never enjoy. The history of the game is littered by dozens of all-time, All-NBA greats who never held the trophy. If it weren’t hard, it wouldn’t be worth fighting so hard for. Only one team per year gets to savor climbing that mountain with their guys. In the last 7 years, 7 different teams have earned it And that has brought unbridled joy to 7 other tribes. Just not my particular one, not yet.

Sports fandom isn’t just about being the last one standing. It’s about the promise. It is about the journey, and the process. Even if that process takes 50 years or longer, loyal fans are always there for it, like the sacred wedding vows so many are taking today and every day: for better and for worse; for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health. It is a hardcore commitment to feed each other, and off each other, for life. This is an unwritten forever contract and bond between player and fan at best. And the Pacers today might be in the midst of the most promising phrase, a championship window.

Looking ahead with eyes wide open, barring surprising medical advances (are you listening, O Basketball Gods?) Hali’s expected absence for the upcoming season probably shut the door on the Pacers’ aspirations to win it all in 2026. Other teams have the same dilemma. It may or may not even force Indy’s front office into a roster shakeup of some form that we won’t want to see- which already started with the surprising departure of 10 year Pacer center Myles Turner to the rival Bucks for a lucrative contract. NBA basketball is still a business, cold at times, and the Basketball Gods it should be exceedingly clear by now are completely indifferent to the prayers and rituals and rain dances of any one tribe.

It isn’t adversity that defines us as individuals or professional organizations of any type, it is entirely how we respond to adversity. Whether that’s cancer, or a leg injury. Or the broader challenges of business, politics, education, and war. Do we get up and carry on?

So what’s the Pacers promise of the current moment? I believe that the championship window will open again for the 2026-2027 season and beyond. That faith is rooted in the fact that Hali will come back strong, not only because of a healed body, but because of his winning mind and exuberant personality. At age 25, Hali’s basketball IQ is already off the charts, so much so that a Coach Carlisle previously known for exerting control and running well-defined set plays, allowed loosened the reins of the offense and let the horses run free- and mostly roughshod over opponents. Never happens if they don’t win ballgames. And what the Hali, they have been winning under this random offense formula so consistently that other teams may follow it. Hali wasn’t the most clutch player by almost every available metric in any single NBA playoff in history because of athleticism (no offense, fam!). He has openly stated before that if he can walk, he will play. The young man will walk again. He WILL walk the walk again. In fact, he will mimic, dance and skip around to celebrate again in the big moments.

The Tyrese Haliburton basketball brain is his biggest asset, and the Pacers. Our own minds will drive any type rehabilitation for us all whenever needed. I bet Hali will continue to study the game and brainstorm with whoever will listen during the long months of downtime, through the difficult rehab and beyond. The Basketball Gods reward high IQ basketball in motion time and again. Along with hard work and team chemistry.

So we should be swelling with pride and gratitude above all. Let’s live in this moment and savor it. We got to live through another awesome chapter. We will be reigning Eastern Conference champs till well into 2026, and nobody can take that away. We are in a good position overall in relation to the rest of the league- who might be mimicking our style in the coming seasons. We might have lost the latest round in 2025. But the past is the past. It is a long game. Don’t take any of it for granted. The what ifs do not define us, and from now they really don’t matter. The past is all a set of illusions, in basketball and in life. The next jump ball and fresh opportunity are always around the corner. Tantalizing new talents will join the squad in the future. Every team is a part of that.

What does the murky crystal ball say? It is possible to faintly make out more deep playoff runs for the Pacers in the latter half of this decade for starters. “With Tyrese Haliburton, all things are possible.” That’s already been proven now with style. And OKC, if they keep their amazing traveling act together, have put the league on notice as another worthy, young, and connected contender gunning for a multiple championship dynasty after 7 years of parity in the NBA.

Read the road signs, sports fans. The long game is far from over. There just may be two new youthful dynasties brewing in the East and the West with staying power. The torch may have passed on from the older generation of greats, the LeBrons and Curries and Durants, on to Gen Z for the foreseeable future. It’s their time now. There could even be another Pacers-Thunders finals in the future, featuring even better squads. Can you imagine? Just try and over rate that for drama, intrigue, and excitement.

Whenever that happens I’ll see you at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for it if I’m able to, YES ‘CERs!