NBA IN-SEASON TOURNAMENT

December 9, 2023

Rick Carlisle

Indiana Pacers

Championship Postgame

Lakers 123, Pacers 109

RICK CARLISLE: It was a tough game. We knew it was going to be a tough game coming in. We did a lot of good things to hang around in the fourth quarter. Getting over the hump was hard.

But really, I just want to express such a high level of pride for our guys. The stats don't matter because this game really didn't happen. The result happened and they won the Cup, so congratulations to them. Darvin did a great job with their team.

But our guys had an amazing run over whatever this was, five or six weeks, starting with Cleveland and then right on through. Brought a lot of attention to Pacer Nation. Brought a lot of attention to an exciting group of young players.

Obviously, Tyrese Haliburton is now a name that everyone knows, and he's going to be in the conversation for a lot of things from All-Star to All-NBA to MVP, based on not just this tournament but what he's been doing in every single game this year.

The other really important thing was that our guys got a real taste of what the elevated stage is all about. It's so important to have this experience, to feel the intensity, to feel the glare and the glow, and to find out what it means to be totally together in an effort to conquer it.

We conquered a lot of challenges along the way. This one tonight was a little too steep. Fouls were a problem again.

But I'm disappointed with the result but not the effort. The effort was great throughout.

Just very, very proud.

Q. Their size, both via the points in the paint and how much length they were able to put on Tyrese throughout the game, how much do you think that changed what you could do and how do you think you could have adjusted to that better throughout the game?

RICK CARLISLE: Yeah, I don't know. I don't even know if I'm going to look at this game because really it didn't even happen. I'm not going to get caught up in the stats.

As Bobby Knight used to say, I don't need to watch that s--- more than once. This guy didn't watch a whole lot of film is the stories I heard about him.

I will remember the togetherness, the pride that they took in what they were accomplishing along the way, and the excitement.

The feeling that you get this morning and this afternoon leading up to this game is something that every athlete, every coach should feel. There's just a change. There's a physiological change.

When you get into the Playoffs and then you advance in the Playoffs, then you get to the Finals, it goes to a whole other level. Feeling what that feeling is about and how to make it your friend is something that you don't learn unless you go through this.

It's an amazing experience, and we're thankful. We're disappointed but proud.

Q. To keep going on that, most of the time you get an event like this, your season is over after that. You move on, now you have to go play Monday, and it's back to a four-game road trip. How do you come off this and make sure that you still take all of the good lessons from that, all the positive vibes and be able to turn it around as quickly as you have to turn it around in what's going to be a totally different environment?

RICK CARLISLE: Yeah, we talked a little bit about the schedule this week after the game. It was mostly just I congratulated our group. Kevin Pritchard congratulated them, let them know how proud Pacer Nation is. We had 16 and a half thousand people at a watch party at Gainbridge Fieldhouse today.

This is a glorious time. But as you say, we have to move on from it.

We're going to need our young guys to be ready. The emotions of this thing are real.

We go to Detroit and a team that's been on a horrific stretch of lost games, and we're going to more than have our hands full. I realize that.

But it's interesting, I could expound on the schedule makers and some of the teams that aren't playing on Monday, and you look at that and you say, well, there was an expectation that they were going to be here and not elsewhere.

But to this point in the season, this has been the favorable stretch. Now, we earned our way to three more extremely difficult games. We won the Boston game. We won the Milwaukee game. This game doesn't go on our record.

But yeah, we've got to turn the page quickly. At the same time, we've got to remember how this felt and things that we've got to do a little better next time.

Q. You've been singing Tyrese's praises, Adam Silver spoke highly of him earlier, but in the last four days, how have you seen him grow and mature just taking over -- well, he is the leader, but being here in the semis and then yesterday and then today? Has he grown? Is there anything that's stood out to you?

RICK CARLISLE: The one thing that stands out to me is that he was completely unfazed by the limelight, and it brought his game to a higher level. Now, they committed two to him for the majority of the game, so he had to get off the ball, so his stats aren't as gaudy as they've been in other games.

But he's unfazed. Like Reggie Miller, a guy that is very similar to him in body type, stature, personality, and just overall character, he wants the responsibility for winning and losing. He wants it unconditionally, and that's special.

He works very hard at his craft. He works hard on his body. The future is amazingly bright for him.

I run out of cliches. The sky's the limit. Come up with another one. Make one up and write it and say I said it. It doesn't matter. It's all the same stuff over and over again.