Grassroots counterattack and vicious evolution How do Pacers tear up the "overrated" label into a championship puzzle?

When the ESPN expert team rated the Pacers as the "most overrated team" and called Halliburton a "glorious data brush", I'm afraid no one would have expected that this fourth seed in the East District could step on the ruins of questioning and draw the Thunder 2-2 in the finals. What's even more ironic is that they replicated the Rockets' "Dog Counterattack" script in 1995, becoming the third team in the NBA to win the G3 of the Finals as the fourth seed in 30 years.

From "Data Brush" to "Tactical Core": the misread Indiana theory of evolution. When Turner gave away nine big hats in the finals G3 and surpassed O'Neal Jr. to be the team's playoff block king, the labels of "trading shelf regulars" and "defensive brushes" that had been entangled in him for four years collapsed. But the transformation of the walker is far more than one person.

Halliburton's "deprecision-down Growth": Carlisle took the initiative to slow down and sacrificed his assist data, forcing him to practice pick-and-roll hard-solving ability. result? At the critical moment of the playoffs, 24 points (third in the league), the G1 tied the throat-locking attack in the Eastern Conference Finals, completely scrubbing the image of a soft-footed shrimp that made 3 of 15 shots last year.

Turner's path to redemption: He was criticized for "poor cover quality" and "breakthrough blocks", and in the 2025 playoffs he turned into a monster with offense and defense - 43.2% three-point shooting percentage + frame protection suppressed the opponent's shooting percentage at the basket to 40%, and jumped from a top-notch transaction to a non-sale product that the management promised to renew the contract without paying luxury taxes."

Carlisle's ruthlessness lies in that he sees through the upper limit of the single-core driver of the star, deliberately dismantles Halliburton's superstar aura, distributes power to Sika, Nemhard and even the bench, creating a starting matrix with a three-point shooting percentage of over 40%.

When the Knicks died and the main player was in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pacers' substitute showed cold fangs, and the second team averaged 41.2 points per game. McConaughey G3 became the first player in history in the finals (10 points, 5 assists and 5 breaks the substitute data). Mathering scored 8.7 free throw charges every 36 minutes; 11 playoff games completed 4 17-point reversals, and G1 of the Eastern Conference Finals fell by 14 points in the last 2 minutes and 50 seconds and still turned around, breaking the 970-win curse of the NBA's 77 years of 0 wins. The terrifying thing about this "pack of wolves tactic" is that when the Thunder star was panting in the fourth quarter, the Pacers' substitute forward group was tearing the defense with fresh legs - the case of 7 players in the team's double-clicking on the scores and 10 players dragging the Knicks down has long proved Carlisle's forward-looking nature of "for depth to intensity". The rise of the Pacers is essentially a reactionary to the era of superstars gathering together. "The Heat Big Three? It's just a mercenary carnival! We prefer to believe in the power of draft genes + tactical discipline." - A slogan for a certain Indiana fan. Survival template for small and medium-sized teams: Refusing to spend money to buy superstars, relying on accurate drafts (no top picks) + cultivating cohesion (full core selection) to build a system, and the highest starting pick is only 27th in Xika. Victory of the reverse algorithm in the data era: the regular season was criticized for "strong offense and weak offense" but the playoffs used defensive efficiency to jump to the top three (lost 106.3 points in a hundred rounds), which completely broke the "regular season team" theory.

When Pacers fans shouted "Believe the Process", they mocked not only Embiid, but also the quick-winning championship science pursued by the league. This team has proved with ten years of precipitation Turner, three years of polishing Halliburton, and one year of integration of Sika that basketball is never a simple superposition of superstars, but a precision-biting gear art. The finals have not yet ended, but the Pacers have torn apart the verdict of "overrated". If they really reach the top as the fourth seed, the famous Rockets coach Tom Janovic's famous saying in 1995 will be reinterpreted: "Never underestimate a heart that is underestimated and vicious." The data will lie, but the result will not. When the Indiana people hold the cup, how should those experts who have ridiculed them for "only playing the regular season" swallow their vicious tongues?