NBA IN-SEASON TOURNAMENT

December 7, 2023

Rick Carlisle

Indiana Pacers

Semifinal Postgame

Pacers 128, Bucks 119

Q. Just wanted to get your impressions of Las Vegas and what you think about it being a possible NBA city and just NBA town.

RICK CARLISLE: Well, this is like the worst-kept secret in the world, isn't it, that this is eventually going to be an NBA city? We've been coming here for so many years for Summer League. Warren LeGarie has done such an amazing job getting the Summer League to where it is now. It's an absolute happening here in the summer.

I think the turnout today shows that there's certainly interest in the NBA game.

I've been around this a long time. I believe that the NBA can make just about anything happen. The In-Season Tournament is something that there were many, many skeptics about for many years, and right now it's all the buzz.

Q. You had five guys in double figures, but Bennedict and T.J. provided quite a spark off the bench today. Talk about their play and what it meant. I believe it was in the third quarter they accounted for a good portion of the points to make that run.

RICK CARLISLE: Yeah, our bench really was the difference in today's game. If you look at the plus-minus, it's pretty obvious that those guys played a major role.

T.J. just inspires me, he inspires his teammates with the way he plays, his passion. He's a little unconventional with his style of play, but he's very difficult to deal with. He was great in the first half and made huge plays in the second half. I thought his tip-in was one of the highlights of the season.

Q. You said before the game that you guys are going to need to do this as a group, to beat the Bucks again. What did you make of the way your team was able to respond from the punch they threw at you guys in the third quarter to fight back the way you did down the stretch, and how much did that tweak you guys made halfway through the third against the zone settle things down?

RICK CARLISLE: Well, Andrew Nembhard gave us a big lift in the third quarter when we were reeling. Their zone was a problem. We just didn't get a very good rhythm against it right away. He helped us get the ball in the basket three or four straight times.

Unfortunately, he was injured on the fast break play. The hope is that it's not anything serious. It looks like a hyperextension or something like that, but we'll see.

In this tournament, what we've seen is that the team that's up at halftime gets hit with some kind of a blitz in the third quarter. Boston was up on us; we hit them with a big third. The same thing happened tonight; Milwaukee hit us. It's to be expected.

This time of the year, games don't have this kind of exposure, attention, interest, so it's really a fascinating time in the history of the league. Milwaukee threw 43 points at us, and I was really proud of the way our guys held the line, stuck together. Bruce Brown has a tough third and he came back and he was a big difference maker in the fourth. He was one of the reasons we were able to win.

Q. You also talked a lot as a group about what this tournament can do for you guys in terms of getting you on a national stage. What did you make of Tyrese's performance and what does it mean to you as a group to get a chance to play here on Saturday?

RICK CARLISLE: Yeah, it's why we came here. We're not coming here to just make it look good and try to get there or anything like that. It's all about getting to the finish line.

Now, that said, we talked this morning to our guys about the process that works for us, and the process is a team process. It's a collective effort. It's a collective will. It's a collective speed in the game. It's a collective effort to get each other good looks, those kind of things.

Tyrese is certainly our leader, no question about that. I thought he was spectacular. 27 and 15 these days are kind of like average numbers for him. But he drove the bus when the game counted, particularly down the stretch. He's a great closer. He's becoming an even better closer.

Q. Is there something about the In-Season Tournament that you think brings out the best in this group that you have?

RICK CARLISLE: It's pretty obvious that it helps. It's something that -- our first game was against Cleveland at home. No one was really sure exactly where the whole thing was going. We walked out for our walk-through at 4:00 in the afternoon on a court that looked like a skating rink, and it was like, wow, this has a different feel.

Cleveland is a divisional rival. Hard-fought game back and forth. A lot of lead changes. Found a way to win that one. Then it led to the next and then the next and then the next.

I think it's important not to look backward and feel good about how you got here. The important thing is what's happening now and what's happening next. That's part of the process of playing NBA games and playing NBA tournaments.

If we were to worry about things that just happened, our fourth quarter would have been a disaster after what they did to us in the third. But we circled the wagons. The guys held the line. They stood tough. We got key stops and were able to hold them under 120, which is a pretty good number for us.

Q. It starts with Tyrese, obviously, but was there a moment with this group overall, maybe in training camp or the beginning of the second half of last season where you saw they're not afraid of going up against Milwaukee or Boston or going into Philly and beating them, that they're not really intimidated at all? Was there a moment when you saw that in this group?

RICK CARLISLE: Well, with guys like Tyrese -- Myles Turner has been around nine years, but he's still 27 years old. He's still a young player. They both have different experience. Myles was here when some of the veteran teams were in the Playoffs. He got a taste of it. He's really longed for this kind of feeling, this kind of meaningful games. The fact that they're coming in November and December is good for us.

Tyrese is just one of those transcendent players that with him on the court, anything is possible.

Look, we're a disruptor. A lot of people didn't want us here. We don't care about that. We earned our way here. We earned our way to three additional national TV games, so people are going to find out about the Pacers and who we are and how we play.

We're just looking to get better. We're looking to get better. We have a goal. We have a dream as an organization to be an NBA championship organization. They won three ABA titles, and that's a big deal. Winning an NBA title is a dream that's reachable, but it's got to be a dream where people can focus on how it's reachable, and we're showing signs of that. We're not there yet. We're showing signs, and we're a dangerous team.

Q. You've had some players that had a lot of scoring ability, clutch ability, and then also some personalities. Is it safe to say Tyrese has all that?

RICK CARLISLE: Yes, he does. Tyrese is a great young player that has all the tools, has the personality and has the desire. The month, seven weeks that he's put together so far in this season, people are talking about him for MVP, and rightly so. All-Star is in Indy this year, so we're super excited about that, and we feel obviously that he'll represent us there.

We just want to keep winning, and he wants to keep winning. When you talk to him and hear him talk about what's going on with our group, the thing that you keep hearing him say is that he wants to win, he wants to win, he wants to find out what it takes to win in the NBA. He wants to experience it, and he wants to do it more and more, and he wants to repeat it.

From a coaching perspective, you can't ask for more than that. He's a guy that makes it a joy to come in every day and do our jobs and work with him and work with the rest of our guys.

Q. You had talked before the game about Giannis and Damian Lillard and the challenges that they posed. How did you feel about the combination of Tyrese and Myles and putting it back on Milwaukee to have to cope with those two?

RICK CARLISLE: Well, if we're going to beat teams like this, these high-level teams that have advanced to the quarter and semifinal round of this thing, our best players are going to have to play at a high level. They know that.

The thing we talked about this morning as a team is just how in these situations you've got to really focus on process and to trust what they've trained their whole lives in terms of their skill set, and then it really comes down to what are we able to do collectively as a competitive group. Are we going to be able to get enough rebounds? Are we going to be able to get enough key stops at key times?

So far, we've been able to find a way to do that.

We've got a chance now to take a deep breath, get ready for Saturday. It's an exciting time, and we look forward to it.