After defeating the New York Knicks in six games, the Indiana Pacers are Eastern Conference Champions for the first time in 25 years. Their journey to the NBA Finals is reminiscent of their most recent run in 2000, when they also beat the Knicks in six games before falling to a star-studded Lakers team, in part led by Marist basketball’s most famous alumni: Rik Smits.
Smits, their second all-time leading scorer, played all 12 of his NBA seasons for Indiana. Now, a quarter of a century later, Smits is experiencing the Pacers’ playoff success in a new way.
When Smits retired after the 2000 NBA season, he did not intend to follow the NBA too closely. He wanted to enjoy his retirement after a terrific 12-year career and experience life beyond professional basketball.
“I really wasn’t following The Pacers much until the last 10 or 15 years,” Smits said.
He partially credited the resurgence of his love for the Pacers to his daughter, who now works with the team in their personal relations department.
“She does a wide variety of stuff for them. Taking care of the families when they get to the games. Helping with the fan mail. She’s been there a while now and she enjoys it,” Smits said.
During the period when he was not keeping close tabs on the league, the game changed heavily. Smits made a career out of sheer dominance in the post, using his 7-foot-4 frame to rack up the second-most defensive rebounds and 2-point field goals in Pacers’ franchise history. So seeing a game revolved around spacing, attacking the perimeter and shooting threes, even for big men, took some getting used to.
“Teams love having a five guy who can shoot threes and make room inside for another guy to drive,” he said.
The Pacers’ current center, Myles Turner, is no exception to how Smits views the modern big man. Turner’s 156 3-pointers this season rank second in the NBA among centers, but his game goes beyond his impact from the perimeter.
“He’s way more athletic than I ever was,” Smits said. “He’s a better rebounder and better shot blocker.”
Having five players on the court that can consistently make 3-pointers allows the Pacers to play a very unique brand of basketball with one of the most up-tempo offenses in the NBA. They try to score quickly in transition, but can fall back on one of their many sharpshooters when they are unable to. Offenses like that can cause problems for teams with less depth, as players who are not conditioned to play at a high pace may struggle to adapt and get tired quickly.
Despite the impact of the Pacers’ unique offense, Smits believes defense to be the most crucial area of the game, especially in the playoffs — perhaps his view should not come as a surprise given his 345 blocks during his four-year career at Marist.
Considering that the Pacers have allowed 113 points per game in the playoffs (the highest mark out of any team to make it out of the first round), their offense will have to continue leading the way in the NBA Finals against an Oklahoma City Thunder team that averaged 120 points per game in the regular season. Smits recognized that the defense has been the Achilles heel of the team for a long time, however, he acknowledged the clear improvement of the team in that facet.
“Especially from where they came a few years ago, when they first started with Coach (Rick) Carlisle and wanted to do this up-tempo ball, they lacked the defense. They’ve gotten a lot better there in the past two years.”
There is no doubt that the Thunder will provide a challenge for the Pacers, especially in the Paycom Center, where they are 8-1 and average a 26.1+ point differential in the playoffs. Playing in a hostile playoff environment can be difficult for some players, but the Pacers have proven to be adept in away from home. They took two games from the Knicks in Madison Square Garden, a positive sign that they may have a chance to fare better than other teams have on the Thunder’s home floor.
“It was simple for me, I just pretended they were rooting for us,” Smits said of playing in tough environments.
The Thunder are led by league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is supported by a plethora of quality players such as Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams. They will undoubtedly provide a tough defensive matchup for the Pacers, a situation similar to when Smits faced Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals.
“Most of those guys, like Jordan, you knew he was gonna get his, so you had to limit everyone else,” Smits said. “Make everyone else need to step up — don’t let anyone else have a big game.”
Smits suggested the Pacers could attack the Thunder with a similar formula. If they focus too much on stopping Gilgeous-Alexander, Holmgren and Williams may suddenly pick them apart. Alternatively, if they focus on stopping the rest of the offense, Gilgeous-Alexander could have an outstanding individual performance while the rest of the team struggles. With their own explosive offense, the Pacers can likely withstand strong performances from Gilgeous-Alexander if they can limit the rest of the Thunder’s attack.
No matter what happens on the court, the atmosphere of this year’s Finals will be something unlike anything either team has seen recently. In 2000, the last time the Pacers appeared in the Finals, they were coached by the legendary Larry Bird but ultimately fell in six games to Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and the Lakers.
“The closer you are, the more it hurts when you don’t get to the mountaintop,” Smits said.
Neither the Thunder nor the Pacers have won an NBA title before, and Smits feels that a championship win is well-deserved for both the Pacers franchise and fans.
“It has been a great organization all these years…The organization and the city are very deserving of a championship,” he said. “Everybody loves basketball there. It would be phenomenal to see everybody in the organization who worked so hard all these years and all the fans in town get a championship.”
The NBA Finals are scheduled to tip off from Oklahoma City at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday.
Edited by Max Rosen and Ben Leeds
Graphic by Eugene Barbieri
Photos from Getty Images and Robert Scheer (IndyStar)
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