NBA
When was the last time Indiana Pacers reached the conference finals?
The Pacers fought back from a 2-0 series deficit against the New York Knicks, giving them a shot at the Eastern Conference final.
The Indiana Pacers finished the regular season with a respectable 47-35 record, securing passage to the post-season for the first time in four seasons. On Sunday Rick Carlisle’s team pulled off a shock to pull off a 4-3 series victory over the New York Knicks, despite losing the first two games of the series.
“We expect this from our group, and then once we added [Pascal Siakam], we knew that we could really take off,” All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton said after the game. “It doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks except the people in our travel party. Because I don’t think anyone here picked the Pacers to win the series.”
The Pacers return to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2014, a decade-long wait for a shot to be crowned Kings of the East. Incredibly, they had not won a single playoff series in the intervening ten years.
Have the Indiana Pacers ever won a championship?
The Pacers joined the league in 1976 but have never been crowned NBA champions. They have picked up divisional titles on six occasions but lifted a conference title only once, with a victory over the Knicks in the 2000 playoffs.
Despite their underwhelming historical record the Pacers have proved themselves to be a tough proposition in the post-season this year, building on the pace an inventiveness of Haliburton. The 24-year-old was handed a $260 million five-year contract extension ahead of the 2023/24 season and he has repaid that faith so far.
Last month Haliburton recorded his 714th assist of the season, breaking the Pacers’ franchise’ single-season record. He scored a playoff career-high of 35 points in the Game Three win over the Knicks earlier this month and will pose problems for the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals.