Why the Pacers Could Be Back in the NBA Finals Sooner Than Expected

For all the what-ifs to rattle Indiana Pacers fans over the past 11 months, here’s hoping they’ve done enough math to know that the associative property isn’t always elementary in the Association.

Neither is sustained health.

Even so, the coming months offer an oxymoron for Pacers faithful. Call it cruel optimism.

Fans know their team eliminated the newly crowned Eastern Conference champion New York Knicks and latest Knick doormat Cleveland Cavaliers en route to winning the East last season. If defending NBA champion Oklahoma City defeats San Antonio to win the West, they’ll surely stew anew about the Tyrese Haliburton Achilles injury and Game 7 loss to OKC in the 2025 Finals.

In the name of exorcising demons instead of exercising them, though, let’s direct Pacers fans to Haliburton’s X account. Recent footage suggests far more optimism than cruelty.

Two words – “Week 48” – introduce video of Hailburton looking sharp during a workout at the Pacers’ practice facility. See the two-time All-Star point guard run, cut, dribble, shoot and step back – all just shy of one year since sustaining a torn right Achilles tendon in the opening minutes of Finals Game 7 against the Thunder.

The video also shows Haliburton has made time for the weight room when not scrimmaging. He’s also still able to smile.

Haliburton posted on Tuesday, some five months before the 2026-27 season tips off. There’s musical accompaniment, of course; not “High Hopes” by Frank Sinatra, but Drake’s “Janice STFU.”

Sample lyrics of the SFW variety: “They tried to kill me once, but darling, you just resurrected me.”

Talk about confirming motivational buy-in from your star.

Haliburton said this month he expects to be a “full go” for the Pacers’ summer minicamp. Without a selection in the June draft, that gathering figures to be an encouraging reunion for a team whose health woes last season weren’t merely limited to the devastating June blow to “Hali.”

Coach Rick Carlisle dialed up nearly 50 starting lineups in 2025-26, as Pascal Siakam (62 starts) and Andrew Nembhard (57) were the equivalent of the team’s iron men. Meanwhile, center Ivica Zubac played in just six games after arriving in a February trade from the Los Angeles Clippers. Then a rib injury ended his season.

For Pacers fans leery to lean into the “What’s old is new again” motif so early – hey, it’s what they’ve got – the Haliburton video has a cousin.

How about this recent send-up of Carlisle from new Butler coach and former Pacers assistant Ronald Nored?

“He’s never stopped adjusting. He coached one way several years ago, and he was a Hall of Fame coach. And he coaches a completely different way now,” Nored told the Indianapolis Star. “To watch him and see he has progressed in his long career, continuing to want new ideas, understanding where the game is going next, was something that was really important for me to learn.”

Carlisle’s latest handiwork will be on display soon enough, as Haliburton works in with Zubac while the team touts the center it has lacked since Myles Turner left in free agency last summer.

What if next season’s Pacers jell early and stay cohesive? It’s fair to wonder.

A fan base that endured 25 years between Finals appearances to start the millennium may now only have to wait one more.