The Pacers are basketball's great survivors — a franchise Indiana refused to let die. Born in 1967 in the ABA, they were that league's signature franchise: three championships in 1970, 1972, and 1973 behind Mel Daniels, Roger Brown, and George McGinnis. When the ABA folded, the Pacers barely made the NBA merger, saved by a 1977 telethon in which fans literally pledged money to keep the team in Indianapolis.
The Reggie Miller era made them nationally beloved. Miller — all trash talk and daggers — spent 18 seasons in Indiana, hit the most famous shots in franchise history (the 8 points in 9 seconds against the Knicks in 1995, the choke-sign game at the Garden), and carried the Pacers to the 2000 Finals. They lost to the Lakers, because everyone lost to the Lakers then, but those Pacers-Knicks wars remain the gold standard of nineties playoff hatred.
The 2025 Finals run was the franchise's full-circle moment: a young, fast, fearless team that set a postseason record with five 15-point comebacks and pushed the champion Thunder to seven games before Tyrese Haliburton's devastating Achilles injury in Game 7. It was heartbreak, but it was also proof — Indiana belongs on the biggest stage, and the basketball-mad state finally had its team back in the Finals after 25 years.
The Haliburton Pacers (2022-present) play the league's most joyful basketball: the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals run (the Brunson-era Knicks upset) and the 2025 Finals run (the seven-game classic against Oklahoma City) announced Indiana as a contender — the pace, the passing, the Haliburton magic (the 2025 playoff buzzer-beaters, the Olympic gold). The 2025 Finals (the Game 7 heartbreak, the Haliburton Achilles injury) was the cruelest twist: the franchise's first Finals, one win from the title, the star lost. The Siakam addition (2024) gave the Pacers the two-way forward; the Mathurin-Nembhard youth the depth. Gainbridge Fieldhouse's Indiana crowd brings the ABA memory: the three titles, the 2000 Finals, the belief that the next run is coming. The East arms race defines every season. What the Pacers are now is a contender in waiting — the Haliburton recovery the question, the 2025 run the proof, and the franchise's first title the goal. In Indiana, the 2025 heartbreak fuels the next chapter.
What defines the Pacers is stubborn Indiana pride: ABA royalty, saved by a telethon, carried by Reggie's nerve, and still chasing the first NBA title. In the state where basketball is religion, the Pacers are the hometown church — and the congregation never left.
