Before you read this – I start this post with a brief description of this year’s NBA playoffs. After this introduction I get into personal stories and what basketball this year has taught me. If you don’t care about the NBA, Just get through this brief introduction to get to some life lessons learned.
If you’ve been watching any of the 2025 NBA playoffs then you’ve watched some AWESOME basketball. You’ve also heard about or seen the miraculous Indiana Pacers.
For the record, I love this team. Tyrese Haliburton has been my second favorite player for some time but he might have taken the top spot.
I watch all my basketball on a delay (DON’T TEXT ME ABOUT THE SCORE). I put my phone away and don’t look at it to the best of my ability until a game is over.
The Indiana Pacers have had multiple games this playoffs that I’ve fast forwarded to the end, thinking the game was over, only to get to the end and say, “WHAT HAPPENED!?!” loud enough for my wife to get irritated with me. MULTIPLE TIMES. That happens once and it’s an out of this world comeback. The Pacers have had four of those occurences in one postseason.
Here is something posted by a guy on Twitter about the Pacers comebacks:
That is four times the Pacers have basically done the impossible. These Pacers have been so extraordinary they’ve made me stop and think more about resilience, will to win, heart, fight, belief, faith, and all the other never-give-up attitudes and character traits.
I’ve been thinking about momentum. I’ve been thinking about when the energy in a room changes.
Here’s my personal glory days basketball story I must now share.
When I was a junior in high school my team was one game behind the fourth seed for the last playoff spot in our division. We played Centennial High School the final game of the season. If we won, we would be exactly tied with them in record. This would mean we would then need to do a one game playoff to determine who got that last playoff spot.
We beat Centennial handily in the first game on a Friday night. No contest. We were feeling great. We just beat this team easily. Surely we’d do the same the very next morning, right?
Wrong.
Centennial switched up their game plan. They actually ran a triangle and 2 to keep the ball out of mine and another player’s hands. Things were not going well. We were down big. Something had to change. I didn’t expect that something being a 3 inch gash to my left eye.
With things going so badly, our coach called a timeout. He gave us that classic, “You need to fight and be more aggressive” speech. So I went out there and got right on top of the person I was guarding. They swung an elbow down across my face. I went down in a heap. There was blood everywhere. I was taken off the court. I believe we were down 13 when I left the game. I thought everything was over.
I went into the back and the trainer tried to butterfly stich my face so I could go back out. It was too close to my eye. He couldn’t stop the bleeding. So I was given a white rag to hold over my face and went to watch the rest of the game. To my surprise, as I walked back out to watch the game, I checked the score. We were up! We had gone on a huge run after that hit to my face.
I was later told that our coach gave another classic speech, something like, “You’re going to let them do that to your teammate? To Quack? That’s your brother! They just busted his head open! What are you going to do about it!?!?!?!” Apparently my team went crazy. Playing with a new force, energy, and purpose.
My team decided they weren’t going to lose this game while I bled in the back.
We did win that game.
Back to the Pacers.
If you listen to quotes from Pacers players postgame from some of these miraculous comebacks, it’s all, “We never stopped believing”, “We always knew we would win”, “We never give up”. Usually these statements are just cliches, things players have to say as they can think of nothing else to say to a reporter postgame. Things that have to be said after a comeback. But with these Pacers I BELIEVE IT. I believe they never stop believing. I believe they always thought they were going to win. I know they never give up.
From glory days 17 years ago to more recent, weekend warrior glory days.
In a recent pickup basketball game my team was up 13-3. We needed to score one more time to win the game. The other team scored. 13-5. No big deal. The other team hit a three. 13-8. Okay. The other team hit another 3. 13-11. Uhm. The other team hit a three. 13-14. It was now next to score wins. At this point all 10 players on the court had watched the Pacers comeback just two days prior. We were all thinking about it. Those on my team felt like the Thunder. It actually crossed my mind, ‘This is how the Thunder felt, oh man, we’re going to lose this game.’ The 5 players on the other team were thinking, ‘This is how the Pacers felt. We’re going to win this game.’
I took a moment in the middle of that pickup game and looked around at my team. I knew what they were thinking. I looked at the other team. I knew what they were thinking. Before you say, ‘How did you know what people were thinking?’ Well, when the game ended, we discussed it openly. All 10 of us were talking about the Thunder Pacers game and how we felt as a 13-3 lead turned into a deficit.
I know you’re wondering how that game ended. I don’t want to brag but… you know… I finally decided enough was enough. Used a pick and roll, got a switch, pivoted into the paint, pivoted around a big player, and finished a left hand scoop layup. It was as cool as it sounds.
But really. There was a moment when I decided, “We’re not going to lose this game.”
I could have easily stayed in the mindset that hit me for a brief second, “We ARE going to lose this game.” I had to fight that thought. I fought it. And we won. If I stayed in that thought, there’s no chance we win.
I know I know, pickup basketball at my church building pales in comparison to the NBA Finals.
So think about the pressure felt by 5 players on a court surrounded by 18,203 watching fans all thinking the same thing: the Pacers are going to do it again. Think about that energy. Think about what that does to your psyche. If I felt it with 10 players on a church basketball court, what did the Oklahoma City Thunder players feel?
Pressure. Weight.
What is resilience? What is fight? What is the will to win?
This is why I love sports. It teaches us about life.
I tell the girls I coach all the time – “Yes, this is a game. You will win or you will lose. Things will go well or things will go bad. But how do you handle it? This is a game. What happens when life gets hard? What happens when life is easy? How do you handle it? Basketball teaches you about life. It teaches you about who you are. It teaches you how to handle adversity.” Every player I’ve coached has heard some version of this speech.
So if life has been hitting you in the face lately and you feel like you’re on the other end of an 11-0 run. If you feel like nothing is going your way and you just can’t win. This is my reminder to you that the Indiana Pacers have done the impossible FOUR times in a month.
Faith. Belief. Hope. Positivity. Fight. Never give up. This is what makes you a winner, in life and in sports.
No Coincidences 