The last time legendary Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle led a team to the NBA Finals was arguably the most improbable championship run we’ve ever seen. It’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years since the Carlisle-led Mavericks improbably torched their way through one of the gnarliest playoff draws of all time in 2011.
Déjà Vu
Those Mavericks took down an underrated Trail Blazers team featuring Brandon Roy and a young LaMarcus Aldridge in the first round before truly going up against the gauntlet. Dallas then took down the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, the pre-James Harden trade Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Miami Heat’s “Big 3” in consecutive rounds. Even in 2025, it remains the most improbable playoff run in modern NBA history.
Those Mavericks weren’t supposed to beat the Lakers, and they certainly weren’t supposed to beat ascending superteams in the Thunder and/or the Heat. This year’s Pacers group wasn’t supposed to beat Cleveland. They were disrespected by analysts in the lead-up to the New York series, and most folks have given them a slim chance to beat the 68-win Thunder in the Finals. It’s all starting to line up a bit too well.
Rewriting History
That’s why it’s only fitting that Carlisle now has the Pacers, a team he elected to leave Dallas for, just four wins away from the franchise’s first NBA title in their second appearance. It’s even more fitting that Carlisle was on Indiana’s bench as an assistant coach during their last trip to the NBA Finals in 2000.
Carlisle took over the head coach’s chair in Indiana in 2003 and led the team to a 61-win season in 2003-04. Widely considered a favorite to win the 2005 NBA Championship, those hopes started to unravel beginning with a fateful event on November 19, 2004, that has been cemented in history as the “Malice at the Palace”.
Two decades later, a much different brand of basketball is being played in Indiana that’s yielding similar results to Carlisle’s initial stint. No longer a team defined by big, bruising physicality, the Pacers run arguably the most cohesive offense in the entire league.
Finishing What Reggie Started
Outside of Carlisle, the only glaring similarity between the two iterations of Indiana basketball is the fact that both were led by a brash, confident guard teetering on the edge of superstardom. Two decades ago, of course, it was Reggie Miller. It’s Tyrese Haliburton today. Miller has often said the greatest regret of his career is the fact he couldn’t bring the Larry O’ back to Indianapolis, a feat that would surely immortalize Haliburton in NBA history if he were able to finish the job.
“This is a franchise that took a chance on me,” Haliburton said. “They saw something that other people didn’t see in me. Sometimes I think they saw more in me than I saw in myself. Coach Carlisle, the whole staff, all of those guys just stay on me all the time to keep getting better, to keep improving, to keep pushing.
“Man, I wouldn’t be here without those guys. I appreciate them taking a chance on me, I love being a Pacer. There’s nothing like it.”
