A "Groundhog Day" finish for the Pacers against the Celtics, but man, what a post-season ride

There's a lot to do this summer, but Job 1 is this: Sign Pascal Siakam.

At this point, it doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense to break down the Pacers’ Game 4 105-102 loss to the Boston Celtics, who swept the inspiring Pacers from the playoffs in the Eastern Conference Finals. I mean, we’ve seen this movie before and honestly, it’s like “Groundhog Day.” With the Celtics sticking around all evening, even falling behind by as many as eight points late in the fourth quarter, an existential dread suffused Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the sellout crowd virtually knowing what was about to take place.

The Pacers self-destructed, with a lot of help from Boston’s highly ranked defense. They didn’t score a point in the final 3:33. That’s a problem. They got outscored 10-2 down the stretch. That’s a problem. Late turnovers, which doomed them in the winnable Games 1 and 3, well, it happened again. A problem, again. It was as predictable as the sunrise. Consider, the Pacers led this series for over 79 minutes and didn’t earn a single victory. Frustrating and mind-boggling.

It was a noble effort by the short-handed Pacers, who were missing one of their two best players (Tyrese Haliburton), and they were playing with a clearly diminished Myles Turner, who was dealing with back spasms all game that made it difficult to bend or do anything basketball-related. This whole thing has been a revelatory joyride, and even though it ended badly with a “competitive sweep,” the playoff run has been an inspiration, a sign the Pacers are close to something special. True, as Pascal Siakam said later, nothing is guaranteed and it’ll be even harder to return to this rarefied spot next season, but it seems reasonable to think the Pacers will be a 50-plus win team and will return to the playoffs next year and the years beyond. (Assuming they re-sign Siakam; more on that later.)

Something very good and very special happened this season, the Pacers taking the whole town for a wild ride, beating the Bucks in six, beating the Knicks in seven (and winning Game 7 in Madison Square Garden) before falling in excruciating fashion to the mighty, 64-win Celtics. This town fell back in love with its local NBA team, selling out more than half their home games, the fans turning Gainbridge into the kind of homecourt cauldron where visitors go to be vanquished. Before Monday night, the Pacers hadn’t lost a home game since March 18; that’s a testament to the team, of course, but to the fans as well. They were spectacular throughout the run, the Pacers first deep run in 10 years.

“I really don’t know where to start but I first want to just tell you we thanked our players a few moments ago for an amazing season, a magical season,” Rick Carlisle said. “The level of fight was just tremendous all the way through this. Circumstance never fazed them one way or the other. They were in this to win every possession they could in any game that they could.”

The one thing the Pacers learned in this latest series – actually, it was something they learned in the run-up to the Boston series – was that every possession counts. And not just late in the fourth quarter, when the Pacers routinely fell to pieces in the face of the Celtics’ daunting defense. T.J. McConnell was great all year and in this series, but missed a routine layup early. Andrew Nembhard, who came of age in this post-season, coming to life after the 31-foot bomb to beat the Knicks in Game 3, well, he, too, missed an early layup. And the Pacers were denied points when the officials somehow deemed Brown’s Kurt Rambis/Kevin McHale-style clothesline a common foul rather than a flagrant (huh?). Those are points, or should have been points, but alas, they weren’t. You see the margins of loss. They were infinitesimal. Then, at the end, there was Holiday, making every massive play down the stretch, breaking the Pacers’ hearts with his defense and his offense. And Derrick White, hitting that corner three that made all the difference in the waning seconds. Boston, an old hand at this playoff stuff, had the closers. Indiana didn’t.