NBA Finals-bound: The Pacers -- yes, the Pacers -- are four victories from their first-ever NBA title, and don't count them out against mighty OKC

Celebrate, Indianapolis. Somewhere, Slick Leonard is smiling.

This is for Slick Leonard, who’s no longer with us, and for his wonderful wife Nancy, the Grande Dame of the Pacers, who shows up at the Fieldhouse every night. This is for all the ABA guys, those pioneers who brought the first championships to Indianapolis. This is for Herb Simon, the longest-tenured owner in the NBA, his team headed back to the NBA Finals for the second time since his stewardship began. This is for Indy, the flyover market everybody said couldn’t compete with its big-city compatriots, the 25^th TV market facing off with Oklahoma City, the 47^th ranked TV market.

Say it: The Pacers, the Little Team That Could, is heading to the NBA Finals.

It’s Indiana-Oklahoma City in the NBA Finals, a matchup of two small markets, and somewhere, Adam Silver and the network major domos are throwing up in their mouths. But if you love incredible, passionate, team-oriented basketball, this is the series for you. But I’m sure we’ll hear a ton about TV numbers and the very likely possibility this Revenge of the Small Markets series will be a ratings clunker, but, seriously, who in the hell cares if it doesn’t play in Des Moines? Or San Bernardino?

Neither team is currently in the luxury tax. That doesn’t happen in the NBA. Except it just did.

“It’s a new blueprint for the league,” Myles Turner said after the Pacers’ Game 6 series-clinching 125-108 victory over the Knicks at Gainbridge. “I think the years of the super teams and stacking, it’s not as effective as it once was. Since I’ve been in the league, the NBA has been very trendy, but the new trend now is just kind of what we’re doing. OKC does the same things – you know, young guys get out and run and defend.”

The beautiful thing about the Pacers is they’re a true team in every sense of the term. This group goes 10, 11 deep, even in the playoffs, where Tony Bradley got some run earlier in the series, and then Thomas Bryant came off the end of the bench to score 11 points and add a blocked shot in 13 enormously important minutes. Even when it came time to name an Eastern Conference Finals MVP, writers could not reach an obvious consensus on who led the Pacers to this massive series victory. Pascal Siakam got five votes; Tyrese Haliburton got four. (I think they got it right with Siakam, who exceeded 30 points three times in this series.)