Here’s a quick question. Are you afraid of change?
That question should be what every Pacers fan asked themselves following Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. A team rarely goes from the blistering high of being four quarters away from an NBA Championship to the soul-crushing low of not only losing said game, but losing out on contention for at least the following season as well.
Unfortunately, that is how the 2025 Indiana Pacers went down. What started as a potential lost season, with injuries and chemistry issues leading to a poor record at the turn of the year, turned into the ultimate Cinderella run. Tyrese Haliburton’s eventual recovery from his hamstring and back issues helped lead the team to a 10-2 record in January and the eventual fourth seed in the Eastern Conference.
Finals Run Recap
Following a five-game series win over the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, Indiana shocked the basketball world by upsetting the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers in five games to make the Conference Finals.
During which they accomplished yet another upset by downing the New York Knicks in six games, including one of the hottest shooting nights in NBA history by Aaron Nesmith and Tyrese Haliburton’s miracle bounce to send Game 1 into overtime, which led to Indiana stealing homecourt advantage.
At that point, many considered Indiana to be playing with house money against the heavily-favored Oklahoma City Thunder. Still, they showed they were well within their league with yet another clutch Tyrese Haliburton shot on the road to win Game 1 and steal homecourt advantage for the third straight series.
Following a split in the next two games, the momentum was all on Indiana’s side. Could they actually get it done? Could the team nobody expected to see in the Conference Finals, let alone the NBA Finals, pull off the most unexpected ring in NBA history?
Unfortunately, not all fairy tales have a happy ending, and this time, Cinderella’s slipper did not fit. Right as it seemed like they would finally break the cusp of just being a fun “League Pass team” with no championships, the Pacers’ luck ran out in the most cruel and unusual way.
Now they lay stuck in the dark, searching for a way to navigate life without their compass for one season, while risking the NBA leaving them behind for good.
Return To the Shadows
The NBA moves on fast, and while the Pacers successfully captured the hearts and imaginations of countless NBA fans and non-fans during their 64 days of magic known as the NBA playoffs, rarely a peep is uttered about them in media circles in the present day. It seems they have returned to their usual sector of mediocrity in mainstream basketball discussions, only this time potentially risking further alienation due to losing their superstar for a season.
This is not exactly a foreign concept to the little old team in Indianapolis, seldom given a national TV spotlight and often relegated to being a “hidden gem” among basketball fans. In wrestling terms, the Pacers would be the NBA’s version of WWE’s Intercontinental Champion, good enough to get some recognition and sometimes even mix it up with the top draws, but never quite able to shatter that glass ceiling and rise to true main event status due to one reason or another.
Truth be told, who knows what happens if Haliburton never took that fateful negative step with five minutes left in the first quarter of Game 7? Would the NBA Championship reside in Naptown for the first time in league history? Would Haliburton and Pascal Siakam cement their status as Hall of Famers? Would Myles Turner stay a Pacer for life and potentially get his number retired in the future?
These are all valid questions; unfortunately, they remain unanswered, and Pacers fans, along with the players and anyone associated with the team, may have to live with that what-if for the rest of their lives.
Who Will Bring Indy Back in the Spotlight?
Regardless, it is useless to dwell on the past in this day and age, especially in a sport as fast-paced as basketball. After Indiana’s first game of the 2025-26 season, a Finals rematch against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the question of “What’s next?” has to enter the minds of Pacers fans as they gear up for a gap year without their superstar.
With the rest of the league moving on since that fateful night in Oklahoma City, the Pacers have had to do the same. Growing uncertainty about the futures of Bennedict Mathurin and Aaron Nesmith was partially quelled this week, as Nesmith signed a two-year contract extension, keeping him in the blue and gold until at least 2029.
Conversely, Mathurin is in the final year of his rookie contract and opted not to sign an extension before the season, choosing instead to bank on himself and weigh his options after a full season in the starting lineup.
Additionally, with the Thunder being given the game of the new NBA on NBC partnership, every member of the defending champions received their championship ring.
In the other conference, the defending Eastern Conference Champions have to wait an additional two days before playing their first game of the season, which will undoubtedly have plenty of painful reminders of Game 7, which was only four months ago. In fact, the Pacers may have a case for the most forgotten NBA Finalists in recent memory, as they have been relatively absent from NBA promotional material and glossed over in season previews by various outlets.
It’s understandably hard for fans, and even players, to move on from the closest thing the NBA has gotten to a modern Greek tragedy, but on the bright side, once you reach rock bottom, there is nowhere to go but up.
The 2024-25 Indiana Pacers will live on forever in the form of campfire stories told by Pacers fans to their kids, which will inevitably be passed down to their children. Hopefully, those stories will be followed up by ones about how Indiana rebounded after their failure and finally won the big one shortly after. Haliburton will return next year, and Indiana has a full year to find a frontcourt replacement for Myles Turner, whether through a trade, a signing, or one of its pre-existing centers.
The sun will rise once more in Naptown, and hopefully, this sunrise carries a Larry O’Brien trophy with it.
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