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The Indiana Pacers are back in the Eastern Conference Finals. After defeating the New York Knicks in Game 7 in their tough second-round series, the Pacers have seemingly exceeded all expectations in their first playoff appearance since 2020. But while there was always potential with the team's roster, Pacers big man Myles Turner said he had reservations about Rick Carlisle's return as head coach.
Before his latest stint with the Pacers, Carlisle had a more than decade-long tenure with the Dallas Mavericks, with whom he won the 2011 NBA Championship. Turner, as a Texas native, got to see Carlisle and his teams firsthand, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing.
“I’ve got a lot of love for Rick,” Turner said on The HoopsHype Podcast with Michael Scotto. “Whenever Rick first got here, I didn’t know what to think because I grew up watching the Mavericks' championship run, and I just was, obviously, familiar with who he was basketball-wise, but from things I heard from the outside it was, ‘Oh yeah he loves his basketball, but he’s kind of a weird guy,' or ‘He’s really good at X’s and O’s, but he’s kind of a weird guy,' and this and that.
“When I finally got to meet Rick one-on-one, I was like ‘Oh bro, he’s just like me.' Weird isn’t the word to describe Rick. He just has a very straight-to-the-point type of personality. He doesn’t really bulls—t around. We’re going to get right to the point of what we’re talking about.
Turner, who has an extensive Lego collection, also expressed his appreciation for Carlisle's passions in life.
“He’s someone who, obviously, has a phenomenal basketball mind, but as a person, he’s so well versed,” Turner said. “This dude, he flies planes, he’s a hell of a pianist, he’s someone who is in the gym literally every single day, like in the weight room with us every single day working out. I’ve got a lot of respect for who he is as a person.”
Rick Carlisle, Pacers heading back to Eastern Conference Finals
Rick Carlisle, a former NBA player who an NBA Championship with the Boston Celtics in 1986, got his start in coaching with the New Jersey Nets in 1989. Nearly a decade into his coaching career, Carlisle found his way to the Indiana Pacers, with whom he served as an assistant under Larry Bird for three seasons. When Bird resigned as coach, he suggested Indiana hire his former Celtics teammate.
The Pacers passed on Carlisle then to hire Isiah Thomas, but after Thomas was fired in 2003 by Bird, who had returned and taken over as the team's president, Carlisle also returned to Indiana to become the Pacers' head coach. Carlisle brought with him some head coaching experience; after being passed over for the Pacers' job, Carlisle was hired as the Detroit Pistons' head coach. He led the Pistons to the playoffs in both of his seasons leading the team, including an Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 2003.
Carlisle found success with the Pacers, reaching the conference finals in his first season as head coach. His second season was largely derailed, though, by the ‘Malice at the Palace' involving the Pacers and Pistons, the two teams Carlisle had coached to that point. The Pacers slipped in his Carlisle's final two seasons during his first stint, leading to Carlisle's dismissal in 2007.
In 2008, Carlisle returned to the sidelines, taking over the Dallas Mavericks. The success was immediate; the Mavericks won 50 games in 2008-09, 55 in 2009-10, and 57 in 2010-11, the latter of which proved to be a magical season in which Carlisle won his first NBA Championship as a coach. After their greatest triumph in 2011, Carlisle's teams would fail to win another playoff series during his tenure before being fired in 2021.
Fourteen years after being fired by Bird, Carlisle returned to the Pacers, who had fired Nate Bjorkgren after a single season. Tasked with leading Indiana through a rebuild, Carlisle oversaw a 25-57 first season back with the Pacers, his second-worst season in his head coaching career. The Pacers improved by 10 wins in year two under Carlisle as Tyrese Haliburton was named to his first NBA All-Star Game, but the jump this season was even greater.
In the third season under Carlisle, the Pacers, with one of the best offenses in NBA history, won 47 games, the most for the franchise since 2018-19. Indiana won its first-round playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks, marking the first time in a decade that the Pacers had won a playoff series. It was also the first series win for Carlisle since 2011.
The Pacers then overcame a fatigued and injury-ravaged New York Knicks team in the second round, defeating their depleted opponents on the road in Game 7 to secure their first ECF appearance since 2014.
Reaching the NBA Finals, which the Pacers have not done since their lone appearance in 2000, will not be easy for Indiana. The Boston Celtics, Carlisle's former team and the juggernaut who sported the best record in the NBA and thus the top seed in the Eastern Conference, decisively defeated both the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers en route to yet another ECF berth.
Game 1 of the Pacers vs. Celtics series is set for an 8 p.m. ET tipoff tonight.
