It looks like many are counting out the Indiana Pacers for next season.
According to FanDuel, Indiana is tied for the ninth-best odds to win the conference (+1600, Atlanta Hawks), and nobody is even talking about them as possible title contenders. They are barely even considering them a potential postseason team.
Yes, there are concerns (or at least questions) about what Tyrese Haliburton will look like in his return to the court. He missed all of last season due to an Achilles injury, and the Pacers looked more like a G League team without him (19-63 record, finished 14th in the East). Plus, T.J. McConnell took a step back last season (though this could be attributed to him taking on a bigger role during a gap year); their bench scoring isn't nearly as dangerous without Bennedict Mathurin; and they are in the same now-loaded conference the Boston Celtics are in.
But the Pacers are not a team to count out, and the Celtics learned that firsthand.
The Celtics know exactly how resilient the Pacers can be
It wasn't all that long ago that Indiana gave the Celtics their toughest challenge en route to their 18th championship in 2024. The Celtics technically swept the Pacers in the conference finals that year, but everybody in Boston will tell you that series had them on the edge of their seats more than any of the others.
Outside of Game 2, all four games of that series were decided by five or fewer points. And if it weren't for multiple collapses (especially in Game 1), the Pacers very, very, very realistically could've pulled off that upset (their finals appearance the year after is proof of that, and maybe they win it all if Haliburton hadn't torn his Achilles in Game 7).
This isn't exactly the same roster, but much of the core from that Pacers squad (Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Pascal Siakam, and Rick Carlisle as the head coach) remains intact.
Indiana has built a reputation for never giving up so much that it would put John Cena to shame, and it seems like everybody is forgetting how talented the roster still is. Celtics fans were telling everybody in 2025 not to count the Pacers out despite finishing as the No. 4 seed and going up against Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard (for parts of three games, at least), Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but it seemed like nobody was actually listening
The Pacers do their best work when they are counted out, and teams should be wary of them and what they can do next season, and that includes the Celtics.
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