CNN
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When the 2025 NBA playoffs began, the Indiana Pacers were given 50-to-1 odds to win the title. Ten teams had better chances and most analysts didn’t even mention them in championship conversations.
But sometimes in the NBA, fate doesn’t care about odds. Sometimes, it’s just your time.
We’ve seen it before. In 2011, the Dallas Mavericks stunned the world, sweeping Kobe Bryant and the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, outlasting the young and hungry Oklahoma City Thunder led by Kevin Durant, and then conquering the seemingly unbeatable Miami Heat trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
I covered that team. I saw it unfold in real time – and no one saw it coming.
Then came 2019. Kawhi Leonard’s Toronto Raptors embarked on a similarly improbable journey. They survived a Game 7 thriller against the Philadelphia 76ers thanks to Leonard’s four-bounce buzzer-beater, outmuscled Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks, and capitalized on key injuries to Durant and Klay Thompson in the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors.
The result: a championship no one predicted, but one they absolutely earned.
Now, in 2025, the Pacers are building a case that they might be next even if their dominant lead in the Eastern Conference Finals was shrunk to 3-2 by the New York Knicks on Thursday night. They go home to Indianapolis on Saturday night for Game 6 with a chance to clinch a trip to the NBA Finals.
You can’t call a team a “team of destiny” without at least one miracle. The Pacers have had three.
Since 1997, NBA teams trailing by seven or more points in the final 50 seconds of regulation or overtime are a combined 4-1,702. The Pacers account for three of those wins, and they’ve all come during this playoff run:
Game 5 vs. the Bucks in the first round
Game 2 vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round
Game 1 vs. the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals
That last one, against New York, will go down in Garden infamy. With just 2:50 left, the Knicks held a 14-point lead. Before that game, teams leading by 14 or more in the final 2:50 of a playoff game were 977-0.
They’re now 977-1 thanks to an epic three-point barrage by Aaron Nesmith that stunned the Madison Square Garden crowd into silence.
Every team of destiny has one thing in common: a superstar who raises his game to an all-time level.
Dirk Nowitzki did it in 2011. Kawhi did it in 2019.
Now, it’s Tyrese Haliburton taking on that role.
The 25-year-old from Oshkosh, Wisconsin – already an All-Star and Olympic gold medalist – has taken his game into the stratosphere. He’s been at the center of every improbable comeback, orchestrating the chaos with poise, vision and confidence.
In Game 4 against the Knicks, Haliburton delivered one of the greatest playoff performances ever by a point guard: 32 points, 15 assists, 12 rebounds – and zero turnovers.
Read that again.
A 30-point triple-double with 15 assists and no turnovers had never been done in the playoffs. Not by Magic Johnson. Not by LeBron James. Not by Chris Paul. Not by anyone – until now.
Pacers forward Pascal Siakam said it best: “He makes our team go. Playing with him and knowing that he cares about putting us all in position to be successful is what makes him special.” That was certainly true on Thursday; when Haliburton had a down night, the Pacers were dominated by the Knicks in a 111-94 defeat.
Head coach Rick Carlisle – who led Nowitzki’s Mavs during their 2011 miracle run – put it in historic perspective.
“To not turn it over in any of those situations is remarkable. That’s become his thing. There might be a stat category named after him someday – him and Chris Paul, guys like that,” Carlisle said. “Stockton didn’t turn it over much. LeBron didn’t either. Tyrese takes pride in that. It’s a motivating factor.”
Haliburton, ever steady, simply said: “I take pride in taking care of the ball. The more we take care of the ball as a team, the more shots we get, and the better our chances to win. … I’d rather do really anything else on a basketball court than turn the ball over.”
If the Pacers truly are a team of destiny and clinch a Finals berth, then their final exam may come in the form of the league’s most dominant team: the Oklahoma City Thunder.
OKC has been historically great this season, going 68-14 in the regular season. They haven’t lost four in a seven game span all year – and that, of course, is what it would take to lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy. They clinched an opportunity to play for the championship on Wednesday with a 124-94 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, ending the Western Conference Finals in five games.
But that’s the thing about destiny: it doesn’t care what’s supposed to happen.
The Pacers have already done the improbable. Three times. They’ve got a superstar playing perfect basketball. They’re tough, unselfish, fearless – and they never think they’re out of a game, even when everyone else does.
So, are the Indiana Pacers a team of destiny?
We’ll find out soon enough.
