Mere months ago, it would have been difficult to envision the Indiana Pacers in this position.
When the calendar turned to 2025, the Pacers were just 16-18 and in eighth place in the Eastern Conference.
Tyrese Haliburton had endured an uneven start to the season.
Aaron Nesmith was two months into a left ankle sprain that ultimately kept him out of 35 straight games.
But since Jan. 1, the Pacers — with their high-powered offense, enviable depth and exhausting up-tempo attack — have been one of the best teams in the NBA.
And now they’re back in the Eastern Conference Finals for the second consecutive year.
“Something I’ve learned from my vets and just being in the NBA for enough time is to not take winning for granted,” said Haliburton, a fifth-year pro. “This is a special time. Back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals. We’re not done. We’ve still got a ways to go, but it’s a special feeling.”
The fourth-seeded Pacers booked their return to the Eastern Conference Finals with Tuesday night’s 114-105 victory over the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers, wrapping up a stunning series victory in only five games.
Haliburton led the way with 31 points on 10-of-15 shooting, including 6-of-10 on 3-pointers, along with eight assists and six rebounds.
But in many ways, Tuesday’s win was a perfect embodiment of Indiana’s balanced barrage.
All five starters scored in double-figures. Nine different players scored for Indiana. Ten played at least 10 minutes.
Cleveland led by as many as 19 points in the first half, but the Pacers kept chipping away until they finally wore the battered-and-bruised Cavaliers down.
“We’re different than every other team in the NBA,” said Haliburton, who became the first Pacer with a 30-point performance this postseason.
“We don’t just have one guy who scores all the points. We defeat teams in different ways. We move the ball. The ball’s flying. We’ve got a lot of different guys making shots, making plays.”
The Pacers’ turnaround started in February 2022, when they acquired Haliburton, then a fast-rising second-year point guard, in a trade that sent All-Star forward Domantas Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings.
That summer, Indy added Nesmith in a trade with the Boston Celtics and drafted fellow wings Bennedict Mathurin with the No. 6 pick and Andrew Nembhard with the No. 31 pick.
With that young core — along with franchise staple Myles Turner at center — on the ascent last season, the Pacers acquired battle-tested forward Pascal Siakam in a January 2024 trade with the Toronto Raptors.
The Pacers finished last season at 47-35 and as the No. 6 seed in the East, and they met the Knicks in the second round of the playoffs.
The Knicks jumped out to a 3-2 lead in that series, but with Julius Randle and Bojan Bogdanovic already out and Mitchell Robinson, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson all getting banged up or going down over the course of the seven games, the Pacers’ depth proved too much to overcome.
Indiana was then swept by the eventual champion Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals.
“When we got in the summer, we talked about getting better,” Siakam said. “This is the opportunity, now, to get better, to make sure we take a step. That’s the mentality that we have going into the next game. We have a real opportunity, and we can’t take it for granted.”
The Pacers slumped to a 5-10 start, then fell to 16-18 with a Dec. 31 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.
But Indiana went 34-14 the rest of the way — the NBA’s fourth-best record over that stretch — to finish 51-31.
The Pacers cruised past the fifth-seeded Bucks in five games in the first round.
They then upset a Cavs team that went 64-18 in the regular season but had Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and De’Andre Hunter dealing with injuries this postseason.
Haliburton’s go-ahead 3-pointer capped a seven-point comeback in the final minute of the Pacers’ Game 2 win, while Indiana’s 80-point first half fueled an emphatic Game 4 victory.
“Cleveland’s banged up. That’s well-documented,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said. “But I heard this one time in the year we won in Dallas, and [there was] a lot of stuff about the other team losing the series. Somebody made the comment: The winning team writes the script. I just have to give our guys credit. They earned this.”
The Pacers boast largely the same roster as they did last year, though they went on their 2024 playoff run without Mathurin — their third-leading scorer this season behind Siakam and Haliburton — due to a torn labrum in his shoulder.
Indiana’s 117.7 points per game this postseason are the second most of any team — and the most of any still remaining.
“I remember being our representative at the [NBA Draft] Lottery a couple years ago and not wanting to go back,” Haliburton said. “It’s special, man. This group is special. This has been built by many different moves. Adding [Siakim] has been huge for us, and we just kind of went from there. I don’t take this for granted.”
