As the Indiana Pacers prepare for Game 7 of the NBA Finals, the moment is nothing short of surreal. Not just for the franchise, but for everyone who counted them out, including ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins, who flat-out predicted that the team wouldn’t even make the playoffs.
His now-infamous quote came during the first week of the 2024-25 NBA season, when the Pacers had started just 2-4 and looked like anything but a Finals contender.
“First of all, listen, I strongly believe that the Pacers are going to fall off like No Limit. They’re not going to make the playoffs this season. I’m not high on them.”
“The great Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett, he told me this one time, he said, Perk, always look at these young, up-and-coming all-stars, superstars, franchise players, and I want to see how they perform after they get the bag.”
“And to me, I’m watching a guy like Tyrese Halliburton come into this season, I don’t know if he’s necessarily been putting in the work that he needs to put in. When you’re watching the other young guys around the league, from Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren, those guys look like they’ve been working on what they need to work on.”
At the time, Kendrick Perkins wasn’t completely out of line. The Pacers had stumbled out of the gate and even fell to 10–15 by mid-December. They hovered around the play-in for weeks, seemingly on the verge of another wasted season.
But slowly, quietly, something started clicking. By January’s end, they surged to fourth in the East. By February, they were holding firm in the top four. They finished the season 50–32, good for the fourth-best record in the conference, proving every doubter wrong, including Perkins.
No one saw this coming. Not when they beat the Bucks in five games, with Damian Lillard nursing injuries. Then came the top-seeded Cavaliers, the league’s best offensive team and a top-10 defense. Yet even with Darius Garland and Evan Mobley banged up, Cleveland was favored. The Pacers steamrolled them in five.
Then came the Knicks, fresh off a legacy-defining series win over the defending champion Celtics. The Pacers delivered a comeback in Game 1 for the ages, took Game 2, and closed the series in six. Indiana was 3-1 up at one point, stunning the basketball world.
Their latest victim? The 68-win Oklahoma City Thunder, arguably the best team in basketball. Down 3–2, the Pacers blew the doors off OKC in Game 6, setting up an all-or-nothing Game 7.
Tyrese Haliburton has silenced every critic who named him the most overrated player in the league.
Averaging 17.7 points, 9.0 assists, and 5.6 rebounds, he’s been the engine of this playoff run. He has four game-winning shots in the final five seconds of games this postseason alone, already tying Reggie Miller for the second-most in NBA history.
Pascal Siakam has been everything Indiana hoped for when they traded for him, putting up 20.7 points, 6.5 boards, and 3.5 assists per game. Andrew Nembhard, Myles Turner, Aaron Nesmith, Obi Toppin, T.J. McConnell, and Bennedict Mathurin have all stepped up with series-shifting performances.
From 2–4 to the brink of a championship, the Pacers have flipped the script on their season and made Kendrick Perkins eat his words. Game 7 awaits. History is ten hours away.
