The Pacers needed to get to get in the playoffs to learn; now they can apply lessons

INDIANAPOLIS -- Rick Carlisle made a point to never set a ceiling on these Pacers, and when they made the playoffs for the first time in four years, he spoke as if they still had work to do and had accomplished nothing that they should pause for very long to acknowledge.

But the organizational goal they spoke of from the very beginning was getting in and getting to play a best-of-seven series, because even though this young team has plenty of years left before it has to start wondering about whether its championship window is closing, it needed to get its start in postseason basketball. It needed to learn all the lessons that can only be learned in the playoff dynamic when every possession is critical and the end of a series means the end of a season.

Now that the Pacers have won a playoff series for the first time since 2014, having downed the No. 3 seed Bucks 4-2 in the first round to move on to the Eastern Conference semifinals beginning Monday in Madison Square Garden against the No. 2 seed Knicks, Carlisle still isn't acting satisfied. However, he does believe he came away from that series having already had some of the experiences that teams need to have to understand how playoff basketball operates, and they get to apply those lessons in this series rather than having to wait another year.

"I thought our guys learned an awful lot in this series," Carlisle said. "It's hard to go through a playoff series against an experienced team like this as your first time in the playoffs. We had a lot of guys that were first timers in this. But they learned the things that you need to learn along the way."

Of the 12 players who played at least 10 minutes in the series, five were true first-timers -- All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton, second year starting guard Andrew Nembhard, third-year center Isaiah Jackson and rookies Ben Sheppard and Jarace Walker. However many of the others who had been there were in drastically different roles. Starting forward Aaron Nesmith averaged just 3.5 minutes per game in 15 appearances during the Celtics' 2022 run to the NBA Finals. He averaged 35 per game in the Pacers' series with the Bucks. Reserve forward Obi Toppin had a rotation role with the Knicks the last two seasons, but he played more than 20 minutes and scored in double figures in more games in this series than he had in the previous two seasons combined. Even Pascal Siakam, who had won a title as a starter with the 2018-19 Raptors, had a different role than he had then as one of the Pacers' top scoring options.

But Carlisle noticed that each of them entered the playoffs aware that they didn't know what they didn't know. They took advice from elder teammates and from coaches and applied that from game to game.

"I just felt the character of our team would allow our guys to learn on the fly," Carlisle said, "to take necessary teaching and advice, mentoring, coaching, whatever you want to call it. And that was the case."

The Pacers learned first that everything they'd ever heard about the difference in environment and intensity of the playoffs is true. They showed up at Game 1 in Milwaukee overly amped and jittery, which seven-time All-NBA guard Damian Lillard took advantage of and the raucous Fiserv Forum crowd punished them for.

However, the Pacers settled in in the second half of that game, and even though they lost 109-94, they walked away believing that they'd allowed the Bucks to set the pace and that they could change that if they wanted to.

"After Game 1, it's easy to be like, 'Man, that was a tough loss for us,' whatever," Haliburton said. "And it was, but we felt like after Game 1 the momentum was with us, honestly. We felt like we were fine. We knew what we had to change to be better."

They were better for three straight games after that, but then in Game 5 with their first opportunity to close a team out, they found out why the adage is that the last game is always the hardest one to win. The Bucks were not only missing two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, who ended up missing the whole series with a calf strain, but Lillard was sitting out his second straight game with Achilles tendinitis. It didn't matter, as the Pacers fell apart in the second quarter of that game and the Bucks, in the Pacers' words, outcompeted them in every way.

"We have to understand -- a lot of us had never been in that situation -- but in a closeout game, teams are going to play desperate, they're going to play hard," Haliburton said. "As players we felt like we were playing more not to lose than to win if that makes any sense. We have to do a better job of being more aggressive and playing harder and controlling what we can."

That game just added to their sense of the importance of never letting up in an advantage position. Even in the games they won, they saw big leads disappear, though they regained them again. In the NBA in general because of the increase in scoring, double-digit leads aren't as safe as they once were, but they're even less safe in playoff games when teams have less of a reason to retreat late in games.

"Playing with a lead is very hard to do in this league," center Myles Turner said. "I think that a 20-point lead is nothing in this league. Guys can come back at all times. Being able to keep your same composure when you're up and play with the same intensity, not take your foot off the gas. Pascal talks about it all the time. It's being professional. When you're up, you gotta finish the job."

The Pacers did, of course, finish the job in Game 6, making sure they didn't have to go back to Milwaukee with the series tied and their season on the line. They made mistakes in their first playoff series as a unit, but didn't allow them to continue past one game.

And that gives them confidence as they move on. They have settled into the playoff dynamic, and they head into their series with the Knicks knowing the most important thing they have to do to keep moving on is be themselves.

"In the two games we lost in this series, they dictated the pace," Haliburton said. "In the games we won, we dictated the pace. We knew we were going to have to come out and be aggressive. ... We know the recipe. We understand it. We executed it the right way."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: The Pacers look to apply lessons learned in Round 1 to Round 2