INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers are beating Atlanta by 10 points in the second quarter and coach Rick Carlisle isn’t satisfied. The Pacers are on their way to a franchise record 86 points in the first half, but the Hawks have been holding a slam-dunk competition on their last three possessions and Carlisle’s not having it. He calls timeout and stalks to midcourt, away from the bench, where an assistant coach hands him a whiteboard. Carlisle starts swinging the thing like a battle axe, and his assistants scatter.
Now the Pacers are beating Atlanta by 14 at halftime, and Carlisle isn’t satisfied. The Pacers need to win this game to avoid the play-in round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs – “a serious NBA game that meant something,” he tells reporters later – but the Hawks have scored 72 points, which is halfway to 144, and Carlisle’s not having it. He stalks into the locker room and has something he calls a conversation with his team.
“We shouldn’t have to have these conversations at halftime of the game today,” Carlisle says later. “Bad habits have a very strong memory.”
Now the Pacers are beating Atlanta by 32 in the fourth quarter, and Carlisle still isn’t satisfied. Hawks guard Dejounte Murray has just lost his defender twice in 22 seconds for wide-open 3-pointers, and Carlisle isn’t having it. The ball is still passing through the net as he’s calling timeout and stalking onto the court to meet rookie wing Ben Sheppard, one of his better defenders off the bench, but the player who kept losing Murray.
“Wake the (bleep) up,” Carlisle snarls as Sheppard walks past.
The Pacers have just beaten Atlanta by 42, their 157-115 victory pushing them into the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs against Milwaukee, and Carlisle still isn’t satisfied. This franchise hasn’t been to the playoffs since 2020, and in the interview room after the game reporters keep asking Carlisle “what it means” for the Pacers to get into the playoffs, and “how does it feel” to be here two years after the franchise embarked on a massive rebuild?
Carlisle isn’t having it.
“This organization has been in the conference finals eight times, the NBA Finals one time, and won ABA championships three times,” he says. “This is not an organization happy to be in the playoffs, and if it is, those people should be thinking about it in a different way. That’s not what this is about. This is not about small market, lower expectations. We can’t have that.”
“Can’t have that,” he says again, his voice rising along with the rest of him.
Carlisle stalks out of the room.
Dogs, Frisbees, ‘Hand Jive’ and a Lexus
This was (mostly) fun, don’t get me wrong. And don’t get Carlisle wrong, either. He’s pushing buttons now, because he knows he has a team and playoff bracket made for a 2024 Eastern Conference Finals run. The Pacers won the regular-season series 4-1 with the Bucks and the Pacers are better, having added Pascal Siakam in January after the last of those five games, while the Bucks are worse – having played the last four games without injured star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who might be ready for Game 1 late this week. But might not.
Beat the Bucks, get that momentum, and anything is possible. Well, except for beating the Boston Celtics – in the opposite side of the bracket – in the conference finals. Not sure that’s possible.
Carlisle is on edge, and needs to be. He has a team that can outscore anyone in the NBA, and I don’t mean to insult anyone around here – we grow basketball, and all that – but the team that scores the most points wins. That said, the team that allows the fewest points wins, too, and the Pacers have a team that can be outscored by anyone in the NBA. Carlisle saw some of both Sunday, with his offense tearing holes in Atlanta’s defense, and not just because Trae Young doesn’t care and I mean he doesn’t care any about playing defense.
Myles Turner scored 31 points (13-for-17 from the floor) in 22 minutes. Siakam scored 28 (13-for-18) in 25 minutes. T.J. McConnell had 17 points (7-for-11) and eight assists in 15 minutes. All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton, about to make his NBA playoff debut, had 12 points and 13 assists.
“We have an offense designed for the playoffs,” Turner said.
Their defense, when bad, is doomed for the NBA draft lottery, but as I was saying, this was (mostly) fun Sunday.
Before the game the Pacers had a dance troupe on the court doing the hand jive, as some of us of a certain age learned how to do from the 1978 movie Grease. The president of Pacers Sports & Entertainment, Rick Fuson, was granted the pregame honor of revving the Indy car and was honored later for his 40 years of service, which come to an end June 18. Pacers owners Herb and Steve Simon presented Fuson with a framed No. 40 Pacers jersey during a second-quarter timeout, and as Fuson was walking off the court, the P.A. announcer was shouting: “Wait, Rick, one more gift!”
Related: Pacers Sports & Entertainment CEO Rick Fuson retires; Mel Raines promoted to spot
Doyel last week: Pacers owner Herb Simon goes into Hall of Fame as a Downtown Indy hero
A spotlight comes on above one courtside tunnel, and there’s a shiny new, white Lexus convertible. Someone’s handing Fuson the keys, and McConnell – sneaky veteran that he is – sidles away from the Pacers huddle to see if he can go for a ride sometime. Seriously, that happened.
All of that was a precursor to the halftime show because, ahem, dogs. K9s in Flight, a Dawsonville, Ga., outfit featuring rescued dogs – motto: “from homeless to highflying” – brought out Bentley and Gizmo to chase Frisbees around the court in hardwood-protecting socks.
Pacers can reach conference finals, really
As for the playoffs: The Pacers can beat the Bucks four times in seven games. They beat the Bucks four times in five games this season, and yes the playoffs are a different animal – but so are the Pacers.
While Haliburton has taken a decided step back since late February – his scoring (from 21.9 to 17.1 ppg), assists (from 11.7 to 9.3 apg) and 3-point shot are way down (from 40% to 29.7% after going 0-for-4 Sunday) – the rest of the roster is better. Siakam is here, for one, giving the team another playmaker, and McConnell has exploded into a legitimate candidate for Sixth Man of the Year, if not MVP of the whole damn league.
OK, maybe not MVP. But McConnell has become LeBron James’ favorite player – LeBron said that – by nearly doubling his scoring output in the last 22 games from 8.5 ppg to 14.5 ppg. In those 22 games, no small sample size, he’s shooting 57.4% from the floor, 55% on 3-pointers and 86.7% at the line. The golden shooting line for a basketball player at any level is 50-40-90, and McConnell is on a 57-55-87 heater entering the playoffs.
Myles Turner is dunking on everyone, earning the No. 1 spot on ESPN’s Top 10 Plays last time out after embarrassing Cleveland’s Evan Mobley, and dunked just as viciously Sunday on Bruno Fernando. Carlisle didn’t want to talk about Myles’ 31 points, but said he loved Turner’s physical play (12 rebounds, four blocks).
“Our focus has got to be on the physical things that are necessary win playoff games,” Carlisle said.
Physicality, yes, and mental focus. Those are the Pacers’ goals against their good buddies from Milwaukee, and they met just one against Atlanta. Indiana outrebounded the Hawks 51-38 but its focus was in-and-out, with the lead ballooning to 18 in the first quarter before being cut to zero in the second – a 64-64 tie – and dropping again from 22 to 16 in the third quarter. Then Murray’s back-to-back 3’s set off Carlisle in the fourth quarter.
“We get a 12- or 14- or 15-point lead, and we get loose,” Carlisle said afterward. “The playoffs, that cannot happen. Otherwise you get your ass beat.”
Carlisle isn’t here for a good time, see. He’s here for a long time, with the 2024 NBA Finals a good two months away. Carlisle doesn’t mind talking about that as the goal. What he minds – what he isn’t having – is this nonsense that the Pacers have arrived simply by qualifying for the playoffs.
“We’re happy to be in,” he said, not sounding happy at all, “but our work’s just begun. Just getting to the playoffs is not the goal. The goal is the championship. Getting to the playoffs is one step toward the goal, but we’ve got to think big. We’ve got to have big aspirations and we’ve got to have high standards.”
The NBA Finals will be wrapping up at about the same time Rick Fuson steps down after 40 years with the Pacers. Imagine everyone riding off into the sunset in that white convertible Lexus. T.J. McConnell’s called shotgun.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
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