INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana Pacers went toe-to-toe for five games with one Central Division rival, the Milwaukee Bucks.
They finally delivered the knockout punch Tuesday night — with an 8-0 closing rally to secure a 119=118 overtime victory and a 4-1 series win on Tyrese Haliburton's layup with 1.3 seconds to go.
Naturally, they weren't quite ready to discuss starting all over against another division foe, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“It wasn't pretty, but we'll take it and, you know, celebrate this for the night and get ready for the next one," Haliburton said after finishing with 26 points and 10 assists.
Some didn't expect the Pacers still to be standing at this point — even with Milwaukee's All-Star guard Damian Lillard missing the first game as he continued to recover from one ailment before leaving Game 4 with a torn left Achilles tendon.
Of course, they also weren't supposed to beat the higher-seeded Bucks in last year's first round or the New York Knicks in Game 7 of the conference semis at Madison Square Garden, either. The critics contended their road to the conference finals came courtesy of two injury-depleted teams.
Pacers players took umbrage with that notion, and Haliburton didn't mince words in September when he said the goal this season was to prove last year was not a fluke and Indiana could win an NBA title.
Since January, the Pacers have been playing a different brand of basketball.
Sure, they're still one of the highest scoring teams in the league. But now they're not afraid to mix it up as they did against the Bucks and they're better defensively than they were a year ago.
Without it, Indiana couldn't have clawed its way back from a 20-point first-half deficit. They held the Bucks to just nine points over a 9 1/2-minute span in the second quarter to get back in the game.
They forced overtime by contesting a baseline jumper from two-time league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, forcing a miss. They also forced two turnovers in the final 29 seconds of overtime to complete the improbable rally.
“We were in this situation many times (this season), maybe not quite this dire. I don't know if were down seven with 40 seconds to go but were down seven with under 2 minutes," coach Rick Carlisle said. “It's very difficult to overcome that, and we've done it a couple times. And regardless of who we did it against, we had guys that got experience with that kind of pressure and having had that kind of toughness and resilience.”
Tuesday's highlight reel included Haliburton's block of Bobby Portis at the rim, Andrew Nembhard's uncanny steal of an inbound pass and Myles Turner defending Antetokounmpo down in overtime after Pascal Siakam had drawn his fifth foul.
Only three teams entered the playoffs with a better record since January — Oklahoma City, the top seed in the West, defending champion Boston and, yes, the top-seeded Cavaliers who swept Miami in historic fashion.
Next up is Cleveland, who the Pacers are 3-1 against this season. They split two games in January and the Pacers won both earlier this month when the Cavs played backups both times. Carlisle rested his starters in the regular season finale against Cleveland.
And while the Cavs finished with the league's second-best record, the Pacers believe the great equalizer could be depth.
“We've got players who can chip in on any given night and I think that's what happened throughout the first four games of this series,” Haliburton said. “I think everybody talks about depth and how much team basketball we play. We need play off passes, assists, everything. We just just enjoy playing on the same team and playing the right way.”
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Michael Marot, The Associated Press
