The Pacers Can Win Game Seven on the Road
No matter what the loudmouth on ESPN says
“I like that TJ McConnell,” my mom said. I was a thousand miles away and she was one the other end the phone, but her tone of voice told me she had that familiar, playful smirk on her 90-year-old face – that of a girl who had just seen the new kid walk into the classroom on the first day of middle school.
“Have you been following the Cubs,” I would ask before she passed. Lifelong Cubs fan or not, she would invariably steer the conversation toward the Indiana Pacers and often ask if I’d seen “that TJ McConnell” play.
I left Indiana as a young adult in the mid-1990’s. Soon after she died, at the end of 2021, I knew it was time to come home, if only for a while. A few months later, I moved into the little house where she spent the last 16 years of her life, where she watched “that TJ McConnell” and the Indiana Pacers.
Many, many times, my dad told me she would always be the best friend I ever had. I suppose she was. Although four years have gone by since she passed, I’m not sure I can tell you I’ve fully experienced the reality of her absence. I’ve eaten at the table where she ate and slept in the room where she slept and shopped at the supermarket where she shopped. Since my mom died, the closest I’ve come to feeling connected to her has been when sitting in the living room where she sat and watching the Indiana Pacers.
Just as my mom surely did, the Pacers have ascended. And I can’t help but believe that, like me, she has been watching. Now, they are one win away from a title.
As tonight’s game seven of the 2025 NBA Finals approaches in Oklahoma City, here is what I can tell you about the Indiana Pacers. For them, this playoff season has been much like the last in that “the experts” have counted them out from the start. In 2024, Stephen A. Smith and all the other loud mouths said they couldn’t beat the Bucks, but they did. They couldn’t beat the Knicks, and they couldn’t win a game seven at the Garden, but they did. Maybe they beat the Buck’s and the Knicks, but there is no way they could beat the Celtics. Then they lost, in four close games, to the eventual NBA Champions, and Smith and all the rest treated it like a forgone conclusion. They didn’t belong in the conference finals in the first place.
This year, it’s been more of the same bullshit. The Pacers may have made the playoffs, but they couldn’t beat the Bucks. They beat the Bucks, but the Bucks were not the Cavs. They got lucky and beat the Cavs. But the Cavs were hurt. There’s no way they could beat the Knicks. Then, when they beat the Knicks, it would be the Thunder in four. Then, maybe they stole game one, but it would be the Thunder in five. Then in six.
On to tonight. There’s no conceivable way the Pacers could win game seven of the NBA finals on the road. Not against the Thunder. Not in Oklahoma City. The Pacers don’t have the MVP.
Maybe they don’t have a superstar. Maybe Tyrese Haliburton is overrated. So what?
Someone needs to remind these people what team sports are all about, because the Indiana Pacers embody it. This is a team. A real team. The whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.
Furthermore, this team knows what seems to get lost in all the talk about who is great and who is not. The only thing that matters is who has the lead buzzer sounds. If you’ve watched the Indiana Pacers this year the way I have, you know how stupid it would be to count them out tonight.
Again tonight, the Pacers are underdogs. If they happen to win anyway, which they tend to do, Stephen A. Smith might be surprised, but the Oklahoma City Thunder will not. And, my late mom’s crush, “that TJ McConnell,” will have my vote for the Finals MVP.
I’m not a betting man. If I was, my money would be on Tyrese Haliburton. It would be on TJ McConnell. It would be on Rick Carlisle. My money would be on my mom – the best friend I ever had, and the Indiana Pacers.
