The Pacers appeared in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2024, but benefited from injuries to key Bucks and Knicks players during the first two rounds, then were swept out of the third round by the Celtics. While they were viewed as a solid team, the Pacers were also a No. 6 seed that had only avoided a play-in game due to a tiebreaker edge over a Philadelphia with an identical regular season record.
In other words, when they decided to run it back with a pretty similar roster in 2024/25, few fans or experts were projecting the Pacers to make another appearance in the conference finals, especially in the wake of a 10-15 start that had them outside of the top 10 in the East in mid-December.
But the Pacers proved during the final four months of the regular season and two-plus months of the postseason that last year’s run to the Eastern Finals was no fluke after all. The club went 40-17 following that 10-15 start, ranking in the top seven in both offense and defense during that stretch, and secured a top-four seed in the East with its first 50-win season in over a decade.
Indiana’s second consecutive first-round series win over Milwaukee wasn’t a surprise this time around, but the results of the next two rounds were — the Pacers defeated the heavily favored 64-win Cavaliers in five games, then knocked off the higher-seeded Knicks in six games to set up an NBA Finals matchup with the 68-win Thunder. Huge underdogs once again against the league’s best regular season team, Indiana pushed Oklahoma City all the way to a Game 7 before its magical playoff run finally came to an end.
The Pacers’ depth was a major part of their success. Although Pascal Siakam was the team’s leading scorer, he averaged a relatively modest 20.2 points per game in the regular season and 20.5 PPG in the playoffs, with role players like Myles Turner, Bennedict Mathurin, Aaron Nesmith, Obi Toppin, Andrew Nembhard, and T.J. McConnell all helping to carry the scoring load.
Still, while Siakam led Indiana in scoring and the club’s depth was arguably its greatest asset, point guard Tyrese Haliburton was its star. Haliburton, who ranked third in the league with 9.2 assists per game, earned a spot on the All-NBA third team, then had one of most clutch playoff runs in recent history, repeatedly hitting game-winning or game-tying shots in the final seconds of fourth quarters to help the Pacers complete improbable comebacks and steal games they had no business winning.
Haliburton’s playoff heroics made it all the more heartbreaking that he tore his right Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the Finals vs. the Thunder. Without their star point guard, the Pacers couldn’t pull off the upset in Oklahoma City, and now they face the prospect of playing the entire 2025/26 season without him, given that Achilles tears typically sideline NBA players for at least nine-to-12 months.
Just how significantly that injury will affect Indiana’s offseason plans is a crucial question that the front office will answer with its actions in the coming days and weeks.
The Pacers’ Offseason Plan
During his time as the Pacers’ owner, Herb Simon hasn’t made a habit of operating at either end of the spectrum too often, having avoided tanking and tax-paying in equal measure. But after his team’s unlikely run to the NBA Finals this season, there were rumblings that Simon was preparing to go into luxury tax territory in 2025/26 for the first time in 20 years in order to keep the core of this roster intact.
