Exits: How do you remember?

Pacers beat writer Tony East recalls the quiet, personal moments alongside Indiana's roster this season, before Tyrese Haliburton fell to the floor.

It’s screwy how many tasks and events make me think about the Pacers and my understanding of them. To know the Pacers is my job. The waggish nature of my brain forces me to relate every activity I do to some aspect of the Pacers. That’s not my job. But I was sunny when it happened recently, leaving the dinner theatre.

I saw a performance of the musical “Waitress” which tells the story of Jenna Hunterson. She’s a masterful pie baker, a waitress, a wife, and adored by her co-workers. Early in the story of Jenna, we learn that she is pregnant and not thrilled about it. Her husband, Earl, is the father. Later, Jenna has an affair with her new obstetrician, Dr. Pomatter. There are many plot details missing from that description, which is intentional here to say that I found it fascinating that the protagonist, one which every viewer agrees is in the right every step of the way, is a soon-to-be mother cheating on her husband and hiding money from him all the while.

If you see the musical, you’ll understand. Earl sucks, mainly. Jenna rips. But as I left the theatre, I mentioned to someone that I found it interesting how that plot gets remembered. Someone with what would be considered immoral decision making is remembered fondly for her bravery. Intense care and hope for her child, guiding it all.

Driving home, Jenna made me realize again that everyone will remember the 2024-25 Pacers wrong. Their morality, and their mortality, reduced to one moment and one game in Oklahoma City.

I swear it was the only audible sound in the arena during that game. Tyrese Haliburton, down on the ground in pain after tearing his Achilles in Game 7, and the usually-loud Paycom Center was just one noise to me.

Pound. Pound. Pound.

Eight times, in total. Haliburton smacked the court while the Thunder went the other way with the ball and scored. Moments later, an athletic trainer joins a yelling Haliburton – I later saw the cries on a replay. I couldn’t hear it. Fans were still cheering, allegedly. Live play did continue after he went down. For some reason, all I could hear from my perch at the top of section 103 was Haliburton beating the court. Moments later, four more pounds, this time with a closed fist. Maybe five seconds passed and he smacked the floor with an open hand with a quicker rhythm. Four times, again.

James Johnson carried Haliburton off the floor. The game resumed. The Pacers were winning at halftime. The Thunder won. It all happened, you and I know the story. I was there. I could recall the specifics of the game because it’s my job, but my occupied brain space from the action of Game 7 is largely filled by that sound and scattered mental photos of that moment.

When you live with people, you can tell what individual is coming up or down a staircase by the rhythm and weight of their footsteps. There’s a pattern in the sound. That’s what I liken Haliburton’s emotive strikes to – they’re the defining sounds of a specific game, perhaps one of the biggest half-dozen in NBA history. I know where my mind is headed when I hear those pounds: I wonder, again, what was Haliburton thinking and feeling?

Frustration. Agony. Anger. Disbelief. An amalgamation of emotions – none of them good. All of them beaten into the hardwood by an eternal optimist who, for the first time in hours, wasn’t smiling.

That’s how it ends? I think outside of OKC fans (rightly), that question has been mentally, or even verbally, asked by just about every NBA devotee on or since June 22. The Indiana Pacers postseason run was among the more unbelievable stories in the history of sport. Haliburton, specifically, re-defined the word clutch. An entire career of moments for many – he did it in two months. Every time the Pacers looked overmatched in a game or a series, they got up off the mat and found a way to advance. The finality of a Game 7 meant they didn’t get the chance to do it one more time.

Everyone is left with a memory that feels incomplete. That’s the challenge that I myself have been facing. Everyone chronicling or covering anything wants to meet the moment on these stages, and I hope I did that after Game 7. But it’s supposed to be a story about a game, and it wasn’t. It was about endings. I don’t want my own memory of a playoff run, of an NBA Finals Game 7 that I was somehow allowed to attend, to be a devastated soul. The cadence of thuds against the parquet as he realized his fate, now familiar to me. That isn’t a complete feeling.

There was so much more to the Pacers than that moment.

I’ve tried, with mostly success, to trick myself into recalling different moments that remind myself who the team really was. And, what they really did. Before a playoff game in Madison Square Garden during the Eastern Conference Finals, I bumped into a prominent Pacers person (obscurity intentional) while walking off the court. There’s less than two hours before tipoff and they were mentally gripped by their cell phone. This person calls my name and motions me over. They want me to watch something.

They’re on facetime, watching their kid play in a little league baseball game states away. Said kid is up at bat – perfect timing. A few pitches go by, and they get a hit and reach first base. Using one hand to hold the screen, the other fist pumps. We high five. I retreat to the media room as they strut to the court in a much better mood.

It’s those moments that remind me of what is actually happening in the NBA. It’s a bunch of human beings. Doing their jobs, living their lives. Obviously it’s much different than the typical occupation. There are almost no similarities with the corporate world. But everyone is a person. And that moment – the third round of the playoffs where every emotion is overstrung – changed how I hoped I would remember the Pacers season.

Of course, that change in heart came before I knew the result of the team’s postseason run and its devastating ending. But I realized right then that I hoped I would remember the magic of the 2024-25 Pacers through the lens of the people. Players can attest that, from that moment on, I started to ask them about obscure nonsense while we were shooting the breeze in various settings.

I’m sure Obi Toppin, for example, was wildly confused when I asked him about a specific quirk of his in late May. Every game, the national anthem ends and Toppin beelines toward the basket. He jumps as high as he can and hangs on the rim for a few seconds, swinging around like he’s on a playground.

“How long have you done that?” I asked him at his locker. It’s not random in that I inquire about player habits all the time. In this instance, it may have been perceived as out of place, twisting away from the typical, fringe-antisocial questions that fly during postseason media sessions. Toppin, smiling as usual, couldn’t remember exactly when he started this ritual. He does it to test his bounce and know how he, one of the league’s best athletes, will feel when flying through the air in game that night.

That’s what the Pacers were. A collection of humans – basketball players, more specifically – who have peculiarities made memorable by their success. As time has passed since their Game 7 defeat, my recollection of the season and playoff run has become more and more filled with those unique features.

Many of these mannerisms will continue into the future. Haliburton, for example, has the same routine just before tipoff every game. He goes through the team’s high five arrangement, lined with all 18 players, then darts to his team’s basket. He reaches up and grabs the net from below. His arms, straight up. His head, looking straight down at the ground. For about three seconds, he’s frozen just like that before he snaps back toward center court to get things started.

T.J. McConnell uses said high five lineup to be himself. He has a unique handshake with every single one of his teammates. He claims to be the one who came up with each routine. I believe him. Even with new faces, that will continue into future seasons.

Aaron Nesmith will sprint sideline to sideline a few times in the 30 seconds before a game begins. Bennedict Mathurin will hold a basketball literally everywhere he goes – media sessions, film work, just sitting at his locker – until he doesn’t play anymore. Even then, he may never let go. These snapshots help me remember the 2024-25 Pacers. It made them who they were, and I’ll see some moments like those again going forward.

There’s some things I, and anyone, won’t see again. During certain home games, the Pacers had players pick out their own introductory song during starting lineup announcements. Haliburton’s was 50 Cent’s “Many Men”, fitting for a guy who was named the league’s most overrated player by his peers. He changed his song to “WTHelly” after it was released. “Many Men” instead went to head coach Rick Carlisle. The whole team sang along.

Andrew Nembhard, a big rap fan, had “Wonderwall” by Oasis as his introductory soundtrack. He claims it was assigned to him. I love Oasis but I hate that song. It could literally be used to torture me. Yet I loved it for these intros. It’s a near-perfect showcase of their tight-knit nature that they chose to troll a popular, fiery teammate less than five minutes before the start of every home game. The song just doesn’t match Nembhard at all. At least one, often many, Pacers players started to grin during every “I said maaaaybeee” blaring through the arena.I don’t know if that will continue into future seasons, but the NBA Finals campaign ended up being the Wonderwall year.

Myles Turner is gone. There aren’t many like him in the NBA. The Pacers won Game 6 of the finals in what turned out to be Turner’s final win in Indianapolis with the team, and he came to his locker to get dressed for postgame media with Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose” blaring through his phone. In Turner’s dream world, he wouldn’t have paused the music to field questions. In the past, he literally hasn’t. Pre playoffs, when the media contingent covering the Pacers is… let’s say smaller, Turner has opened his Q&As talking about rock music he likes. One reporter tried to get him into The Clash this year with mixed results.

There are countless things to say about James Johnson. The way he can break tension with lightheartedness is impressive, but falls well short of his ability to do the inverse. If the Pacers are too loose, he’s getting them in line. Game 7 of the Finals ended, and Johnson went around the locker room from person to person offering assurance for each of his teammates.

Who knows if he will be back with the Pacers. Who knows if they will, as a team or franchise, ever again capture the magic they just did for an entire postseason run. But I hope everyone remembers the people just as much as the moments.

My original title of this was “You just had to be there.” for that exact reason. Being present for every Haliburton miracle fling and his lowest sporting moment within weeks was the fitting way to experience the people in their element. Haliburton becoming a deity in the final seconds of basketball games is unforgettable. A team starting 10-15 then reaching the Finals will permanently change Pacers fan’s perspective on a slow start to a season. Only 10 teams since 1982 have won their conference while winning 50 or fewer games (non-lockout season) – the Pacers just became that 10th team. That is to say, there are many reasons the 2024-25 season will be remembered despite them being the second-place finisher.

I think McConnell described the season with completeness in saying, “How it ended was so awful, but the rest? It meant everything.” It really was everything, not just in emotional meaning. It was the totality. The basketball, delightful. The non-basketball, even more so. The humans and their specifics, the constant subtleties that made the Pacers the Pacers were all a part of what made them special. The peculiar habits and the miracles at the buzzer. I hope they are remembered for all of it.