'It's been a long four years': Pacers embracing return to NBA Playoffs at end of drought
INDIANAPOLIS -- After the Pacers' 157-115 blowout win over the Hawks was assured, finally, once and for all that the Pacers will be an NBA playoff team in 2023-24 -- not just for a game or two but for a series -- Myles Turner's thoughts immediately went to the years when he didn't get to do this.
As the longest-tenured member of the Pacers, Turner is one of just three players on the roster who has experienced a playoff series with the franchise and one of just two who has actually experienced a playoff game in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Point guard T.J. McConnell was part of the 2019-20 team that experienced the postseason in the Disney World COVID bubble. Wing Doug McDermott was part of the 2018-19 squad that was the last to have a normal playoff series with the franchise, but he went to San Antonio for 2 1/2 years and hasn't seen what Turner has in between.
"So much, man," Turner said when asked what it meant to be back. "So much. It's been a long four years. This time the past couple years, we've been planning vacations or something like that. Not even watching the playoffs. This is when it matters. This is when it counts the most. This is when legends are made."
For most of the last 34 years since the 1989-90 season when the core group that included Reggie Miller and Rik Smits got its first taste of the playoffs, it's been mostly standard for the Pacers to at least be part of the tournament. They made it seven straight years and 16 of the next 17 seasons and they made the playoffs in 25 of 31 seasons. They had a four-year drought from 2006-10 but that was the only time they missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons from 1989-2020, so postseason basketball was a standard experience for anyone wearing the uniform.
But after falling in the play-in round in 2021, moving on from then-coach Nate Bjorkgren and hiring Rick Carlisle, the Pacers decided to press the re-set button and engage in a near-total roster overhaul that only Turner and McConnell survived. They braced for a lengthy rebuild and at times during a 25-57 season in 2021-22 and a 35-47 campaign in 2022-23, it may have felt interminable. However, just over 26 months after their acquisition of point guard Tyrese Haliburton, they return to the playoffs as the No. 6 seed a best-of-seven series with the No. 3 seed Milwaukee Bucks beginning on Sunday.
That gets veterans like Turner and McConnell back in after an extended absence and it of course means Haliburton gets to experience the postseason for the first time. The two-time All-Star's first NBA Playoff game will, of course, be in Milwaukee, about an 80-minute drive south on Interstate 41 from his hometown of Oshkosh, Wisc.
"I'm just really excited," Haliburton said. "We all grow up big basketball fans watching the playoffs and watching our favorite players have big moments. Now, for me being able to get that opportunity, I'm just really excited. I think as a group, it's been our goal the whole year. I think Myles alluded to it, it hasn't been the prettiest, but we figured it out at the end of the day."
Indeed it hasn't been the prettiest. The Pacers' entered Sunday's game against Atlanta knowing they needed to win to assure themselves of a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference, which would mean avoiding the play-in rounds involving seeds 7-10. They also knew there were a lot of opportunities in their past when they could have grabbed that one more win so that they didn't need one Sunday. They lost 11 games to teams this season to teams who won't take part in the postseason at all including a combined eight against the Raptors, Hornets, Wizards, Spurs and Trailblazers, who all won fewer than 25 games.
And as big as the margin turned out to be, Sunday's win wasn't always pretty either. The Hawks couldn't stop the Pacers offense -- it was the third time in four games this season that the Pacers scored at least 150 points against Atlanta -- but there was a stretch in the first half when the Pacers couldn't stop the Hawks either. They built a 16-point first quarter lead with an incredible 49-point outburst in the period, but saw that wither away entirely as Atlanta tied the game at 64 with 4:26 to go in the second quarter.
The Pacers answered with a 17-2 run and outscored the Hawks 22-8 before the half to take an 86-72 halftime lead, but Atlanta shot 54.5% in the first half and posted 1.45 points per possession in the second quarter.
"Our first half was really not acceptable for what our standards are and what our capabilities are," Carlisle said. "We were trading shots. We were playing like it was a Rucker Pro League game instead of a serious NBA game that really meant something."
And he let them know that at halftime.
"That was the message in the locker room," Turner said. "Just, we have a golden opportunity here. Just don't (expletive) it away. We took those words to heart and we executed."
They did, holding the Hawks to just 43 points on 15 of 45 shooting in the second half. They outscored the Hawks 39-21 in the third quarter and the Pacers' starters didn't even have to play in the fourth.
"Things can go bad,” Haliburton said, “but I thought we all did a good job of calming each other down. Just understanding that we built lead for a reason, playing the right way."
The response was in a way microcosmic of the Pacers' whole season. They've suffered humiliating losses against teams they had no business losing to and given away games they were leading by substantial margins. But when they've got down, they generally haven't stayed down. They have rarely let one missed opportunity lead to several more. Their longest losing streak of the season was just four games, and that came mostly during the road trip in December that immediately followed their In-Season Tournament run to the finals in Las Vegas. They had two other three-game losing streaks -- one in January during a western road trip that Haliburton mostly missed with a hamstring injury, then another in late January/early February when Haliburton was on a minutes restriction. They lost consecutive games just once since the All-Star break, posting a 16-10 record since the break with wins in nine of their final 13 games.
"One thing I want to say is we don't get ourselves down," said two-time All-NBA power forward Pascal Siakam, who the Pacers acquired via trade in January after he reached the playoffs five times with the Raptors, winning the NBA title in 2018-19. "At the end of the day, there's games when you feel like, 'Oh, we could have won this or we could have done that.' That hasn't stopped us. For me that's something I wanted to bring, just that confidence in to what we do and knowing we can't panic when things aren't going the way we want it to go."
That should bode well for the playoffs where tensions will be high. The Pacers enter with confidence and real reason for it. They finish the regular season with the NBA's highest scoring offense with 123.3 points per game, it's best shooting team with a .507 field goal percentage and it's second-most efficient unit behind first-place Boston. They defeated the Bucks four times in five regular season meetings including once in the In-Season Tournament semifinals, and they've been successful against everyone else on their half of the bracket. Regardless of who wins Tuesday's Play-In Game for the No. 7 seed, Philadelphia or Miami, the Pacers enter the Playoffs with a combined 8-3 record against the No. 3 seed Bucks, No. 2 seed Knicks and the No. 7 seed team. They have defeated every team in the Eastern Conference at least once including the No. 1 seed Celtics twice.
"We can beat anybody,” Haliburton said in an interview on the floor broadcasted on the video board immediately after the game.
But of course, they know the game is different in the playoffs and the Bucks team they'll be facing is a different than the one they beat four times from Nov. 9 to Jan. 3. Since the last game of the series, the Pacers acquired Siakam, traded away guards Bruce Brown and Buddy Hield, and forward Jordan Nwora and lost talented young wing Bennedict Mathurin to shoulder surgery. The Bucks actually changed coaches, parting with Adrian Griffin and bringing in Doc Rivers. They head into the postseason unsure of the status of two-time MVP Giannis Anteotkounmpo, who strained his calf and missed the season's last three games.
Still, they have the chance they wanted. They don't know exactly what they're in for, but veterans such as Turner can tell them it's like nothing else in basketball.
"Buckle up, man," Turner said. "It's fun. That's the one thing I'm trying to tell the guys. This is the best time of the year to hoop, man. You're playing during the day. You're the only game on TV. It's what you do it for. ... Embrace the opportunity. Your whole family is going to be watching. Everybody from back home is going to be watching. (Haliburton) gets to go home and play. Those are special moments."
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 'It's been a long four years': Pacers enter first playoffs since 2020
