The Pacers’ advance in the NBA final was more than a decade

Oklahoma City – Each answer to what has become the most posed question of the NBA – How the Pacers of Indiana continue to withdraw an improbable after -season return after the other – must include the daring van of Tyrese Haliburton.

Her Winning shot With 0.3 seconds remaining in match 1 of the NBA final on Thursday was the fifth time that Haliburton has made a hit to take the lead or the link in the last five secondsThe largest number of all players in a single qualifying series in 27 years.

Equally notable, but omitted in strengths, was what happened 10.8 seconds earlier.

By dragging by 1 point, the Indiana had seized a defensive rebound and pushed the ball on the field for its final possession. This would have been a logical moment for coach Rick Carlisle to call the team’s latest waiting period and to remind players of their instructions in an atmosphere of detection of decibels which he described as a “madness”.

However, Carlisle did not call a waiting period. He did not barge. He never removed his hands from his hips while Haliburton was passing before before he got up for his jump shot, because Carlisle had already presented the plan a possession earlier, during a break in the game while the officials examined a game out of the limits which finally gave the ball to Oklahoma City with 22 seconds to play.

“If we stop and get the rebound,” he said to the Pacers, “we’re going to go.”

This decision to let his players dictate the last moments, and the winning sequence that followed, helped the Indiana take early control of the championship series. And it can be attributed to more than a decade earlier, when the Pacers coach learned for the first time to give up control of the offensive of his team.

This evolution in the style of coach led to a championship in Dallas in 2011 and now won the Indiana three victories from its first NBA championship.

“If the story was” he controlled, “it couldn’t be more false,” said the pacers safeguard leader TJ McConnell. “Me and ty, what we see there, he lets us go. The empowerment he shows us as a playful has been incredible, and that’s a great reason I think about our success for a lot. ”

When Carlisle became head coach for the first time in 2001, in Detroit, he was a study in contrast: turning forward and flexible enough to keep a step ahead by changing what his team ran according to its staff, but rigid by wanting the property of the offense. He was a “call to each game type game game,” said a former Piston staff member who did not want to be identified in order to preserve relations within the NBA.

The approach followed Carlisle to a first pass of head coaching in Indiana, then in 2008 in Dallas. Carlisle would call a play nicknamed “Four” to obtain the star Dirk Nowitzki Le Ballon, a former member of Dallas staff said: “And you would be Run the game. “

But the list of mavericks featured Jason Kidd, a reputation temple that did not need such helping hand. The turning point of the season occurred halfway when “what I learned … was to give the ball to J-Kidd and to break down,” said Carlisle on Thursday. “Let him run the show. Let him run the team.”

The change finally helped Dallas to upset Miami in the 2011 finals. Kidd and his colleague Mavericks Guard JJ Barea, given the reins of Carlisle to direct the offensive and find Nowitzki, rallied after following the fourth quarter by 15 points in match 2 to win the match and shoot the series.

The long -tail effects of Carlisle’s adaptation are still felt 14 years later in Indianapolis, where his development and his confidence in Haliburton allowed the offensive of the Pacers to prosper in times full of pressure. Of the three teams of all time to win a match in the final after following at least 15 points in the fourth quarter, two of them have now been trained by Carlisle. And the two returns followed scripts which were widely written by the players themselves.

In the modern NBA, and especially the finals, where the defenses have several days to prepare, calling games from the key line regularly “does not work, it is easy to search,” said the center of the Pacers Myles Turner. “But when you have a random movement in attack, guys who are someone like Tyrese who wants to pass the ball, that makes it easier to easier.”

Carlisle described his collaboration with Haliburton as “very similar” to the development of confidence in Kidd more than a decade earlier, and also leading Luka Doncic with the offense in Dallas from 2018-21.

“It is quite clear when you have a player of this kind of greatness, this kind of presence, this kind of knowledge, vision and depth, you must let them do what they do,” said Carlisle.

“They will have ups and downs. They will make mistakes. If they do it consistent with the way they see the game, the lessons learned will be more impactful.”

Large Latitude Carlisle now offers its guards do not automatically come. In 2015, in Dallas, he made a head with Rajon Rondo on the direction of the offense, and Rondo quickly disappeared. (Years later, Rondo said Mavericks Management said Carlisle no longer wanted to train him. During the next game on the ground, added the person, Doncic did it again.

“I think Rick probably discovered shortly after he won this power struggle,” said the former Dallas staff member. “But also give players to be what they are can be beneficial for everyone.”

Even in 2021, during the training of Carlisle, the Indiana coach, “we had a match … where he stopped us and called a game with each possession,” said Turner. When the Tony Bradley center joined Indiana for the first time on a 10 -day contract in early March, it arrived after hearing “mixed criticisms” of the league players to play for Carlisle, said Bradley with a smile. (They did not align with reality, added Bradley, saying that Carlisle “is very open and allows us to read.”)

These criticisms may be due to the fact that Carlisle standards remain as high as ever. But the responsibility of the coach is accompanied by an incentive.

With more confidence comes more freedom.

“He will not let any of the teammates settle, whatever you are from top to bottom, and that makes a difference,” said the great man of the Pacers James Johnson, who also played for the coach in Dallas. “There are always many coaches who are afraid of getting on their best players and they are afraid to show their different errors where they could have different meetings with (superstars). In the case of Rick, it’s not like that. It is in front of everyone and it’s better, and we need you get a better state of mind ”.

“When you get the freedom to execute the show a little, you feel a little more straight and you have the impression that the obligation to do the work is more on your shoulders,” continued Johnson. “It allows us to manage a lot of our own mistakes in our own changing rooms. Leaving power or authority of its position will never be shy here. There are many large coaches for whom I have played, and I have the impression that Rick is certainly one of the few to allow this to happen. ”

This has not occurred in the past six weeks since the start of the playoffs, or the last 11 seconds of match 1. This has occurred years earlier, a decision that has already won a title and put Carlisle on the way to the way to win another.