Zombies of Indiana

Good morning. The Pacers unveiled their most improbable comeback yet to steal Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. And then Tyrese Haliburton went farming. Let's basketball.

The Pacers have had enough amazing comebacks in these playoffs to have made the point. There was the time they trailed the Bucks by seven with 40 seconds left and won in regulation to close out their first round series. There was the time they trailed the Cavaliers by seven with less than a minute left and won in regulation. I'm not sure anything prepared us for this, though.

Down 14 with less than four minutes remaining.

Pacers win 138-135 in overtime.

Aaron Nesmith went nuclear. Tyrese Haliburton hit an absolutely wild shot that he thought clinched the win, so he hit an appropriate celebration. The Knicks didn't exactly melt down: Jalen Brunson had one bad turnover, they had a couple of empty possessions, they missed some free throws. But the Pacers took this, and then took it again in overtime.

What is it about the Pacers – or any team – that allows them to feel close enough to win despite the margin? Why do some teams go down double-digits like this and fold? This game was pretty similar to Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals up until the five-minute mark in the fourth (albeit with the ball going through the net a whole lot more in this version). You had the home team take some measure of real control and appear in strong position to glide to a win. In Oklahoma City, the Thunder poured it on from there and the Timberwolves waved the white flag early. In New York, the Pacers hit clutch and went up a gear in a desperate attempt to catch up.

Is it a single shot, or two possessions, that change the tenor enough to open the door? If the Wolves had cut it to nine instead of falling behind by 13 on a particular exchange, would Minnesota's Game 1 belief have swelled enough to squeeze a bit more energy and focused out of that fruit? Think about all of the things that had to go absolutely right for the Pacers to get to overtime. Did Nesmith hitting his first couple of threes during the comeback embue the team with some magical sort of confidence? Or if just one of those things doesn't happen, does the whole belief system fall apart and we get a more pedestrian 8-point win for the Knicks? Is it something natural that springs from Haliburton, or the team's unique chemistry? Does the fact that the Pacers have been involved in some of the weirdest finishes all season long (on both ends of the magic) give them a sense that in the current NBA no game is over until the buzzer sounds? Do they consider themselves a team of destiny and are acting in accordance with that perceived reality?

Having watched these Pacers do things like this before, I didn't think they could actually come back and win until it was a 5-point game. There are certain immutable laws of basketball that the three-point boom era have destroyed, and some of us are a bit slower on realizing that. Beyond that, the psychology of a trailing team and what allows them to make rational decisions – or rationally irrational decisions, some of those Nesmith threes were outside his usual norm, and Haliburton backtracking to the line was probably not the by-the-book decision tree result – in moments of near-crisis is just fascinating. What makes teams capable of things like this over and over again?

Game 2 is Friday.

Aura Farming

Haliburton says he won't doing the choke sign celebration again, and would not have done it had he known he hit a two to tie the game, not a three to win it.

His explanation for retiring the celebration after one use in honor of Reggie Miller is that he doesn't want to be perceived as "aura farming," which is a pretty wonderful reflection of the self-awareness Haliburton has about how he is viewed, which is as a caricature in some ways and yes, an aura farmer.

Haliburton hit the Dame Time celebration against the Bucks and was very quick to drop a Reggie Miller Choke Sign in Madison Square Garden. He is building a persona. He's a huge pro wrestling fan (complimentary) and understands the beats to build a character. Frankly, he's doing this better than Trae Young, who made an enormous mark on New York a few years ago and has ridden that to notoriety. Haliburton may very well be angling for "F– Tyrese" chants! Or t-shirts with his face on it. He's doing a lot out here, maybe just to have fun and maybe to build some fame. He is in some ways an aura farmer, but that's OK. It's sports. It should be fun and emotional and fuel rivalry and dislike and love and EMOTIONS. It's fine.

But you can't do all this and then act like you're too cool to farm aura, too slick to care about the fame. You do care, and that's fine. Embrace it. You can't have it both ways. Damian Lillard, for example, never tried to act like he was above seeking big moments and putting a personal stamp on them via celebration. There is of course his invisible watch. But there was also him waving goodbye to the OKC crowd, or looking into the camera while being mobbed by teammates. He's aware, he never tried to reject the act of acting cool to gain love and legacy. He just was cool and didn't talk about how cool he was trying to be and how we would mete out his coolness to avoid looking uncool. That's something Haliburton needs to learn.

In any case, I'm looking forward to Doris Burke dropping a "there's a reason NBA Twitter calls him an aura farmer" after Haliburton does an MJ shrug in the NBA Finals.

M-V-P

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was unsurprisingly named the NBA MVP on Wednesday. Every voter had Shai and Nikola Jokic 1-2 in some order; SGA ended up with more than twice the first-place votes than Jokic received. Giannis Antetokounmpo received 88 of the 100 third-place votes and was top-5 on every single ballot. Jayson Tatum finished fourth and was left off of a single ballot. So 99 of the 100 ballots had those four players on it. Donovan Mitchell finished a distant fifth. LeBron James got a shocking amount of support (one fourth-place vote and 13 fifth-place votes). I was not aware that folks had LeBron on their MVP shortlists.

As I've written before, Shai would have been my pick but neither option was wrong. Just an absolutely amazing season for SGA, and he just might cap it with a couple more trophies here. He's now in the mix for the second best player in the world, alongside Giannis and ahead of Luka and Tatum. I'm really curious to see how next year's race shakes out: prior to this year, Jokic won MVP easily the year after he placed second.

Schedule

Day 3 of the conference finals feast is upon us. Timberwolves at Thunder, Game 2, 8:30 PM Eastern on ESPN.

Be excellent to each other.