CLEVELAND – It wasn’t long ago that the Indiana Pacers were simply happy to be in this position.

Last May – May 19, 2024, specifically – the Pacers beat the New York Knicks in Game 7 to advance to the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals. It was, and is, a big deal that Indiana won that game. Any trip to the final conference round is significant. But the Pacers had more of a happy-to-be-there vibe last season, and in hindsight they’ll admit it.

“Last year was more new for us. So we were all kind of just excited, and maybe too complacent, to be here,” Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard said of that 2024 run on Tuesday. Then, he looked forward. “I think now we want to push the limit and see what we can do.”

The now that Nembhard is referring to is the upcoming challenge for the Pacers. They are headed to the Eastern Conference Finals again – they dispatched the Cleveland Cavaliers in a five-game series that ended on Tuesday, and they’ll play either the Knicks or Boston Celtics next. Those are two formidable foes, but Indiana is far more experienced than they were at this time last season.

“I think last year, we were just satisfied with being in the playoffs. Everything from there was kind of playing with house money, to be honest with you,” Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton said in April. “This year, I think we have real expectations to do something special as a group. And when I say something special, I mean a championship.”

About one month passed between Haliburton and Nembhard saying essentially the same thing. Indiana has trumpeted the same message top-to-bottom since the regular season ended – they feel like they can make a run this season, and their dismantling of the Cavaliers shows that they could be right.

Cleveland won 64 games in the regular season. Most analysts picked them to win the series. The Cavs swept the Miami Heat in the first round with wonderful offense and appeared to be riding a high heading into the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

That’s where they met the Pacers, a 50-win team that combines physicality and pace in a way that few others can. The Cavs knew, and stated, that preparing for that style is difficult. It can’t be simulated in a practice setting. But the East’s top-seeded squad still carried around confidence that they could beat the Pacers in a seven-game set. After winning 64 times out of 82, then four in a row to open the postseason, their attitude was justifiable.

But they weren’t ready for Indiana. The Pacers physicality became a story early in the series, something Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson addressed on multiple occasions. Meanwhile, Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle, meanwhile, smiled that his team was described as physical by an opponent. It hasn’t always been what the blue and gold are known for, but they are gaining a reputation.

In Game 1, the Pacers did what they do best and generated wide-open jump shots. They made a ton of them in a key win, setting the tone for the best-of-seven set. The Cavs needed to respond, but they weren’t able to in Game 2 as Haliburton pulled off perhaps the best sequence of his playoff career.

It was clear by that point that a gap between the Pacers and Cavs didn’t really exist. If there was one, it favored Indiana. Cleveland was dealing with some injuries and missing jumpers, but the fourth-seeded Pacers were forcing them into tougher-than-usual shots and playing a demanding style to perfection. The East’s top team was often the group responding and making tweaks.

That isn’t how a second-round series is supposed to go. The Pacers aren’t the typical 50-32 team – they are 42-16 since January 1 (playoffs included) – but 64-win rosters almost never get eliminated before the Conference Finals. There’s a reason few experts picked Indiana to win despite their strong run of form in 2025: the Cavaliers had been excellent.

In fact, prior to this year’s NBA playoffs, only three teams that won 64+ games in a season didn’t make it to the conference finals at all – the 2021-22 Phoenix Suns, the 2015-16 San Antonio Spurs, and the 2006-07 Dallas Mavericks. It’s possible that the Oklahoma City Thunder join this group on Sunday, but it’s still a small collection.

Yet the Pacers won the series. And it wasn’t close. They rolled right through the Cavaliers in five games, taking the series 4-1 to advance to their second-consecutive Eastern Conference Finals. Game 3 was a struggle for the Pacers, but they met the needed level in the quartet of other outings.

“We’re a close team. Every time everybody doubts us, we just clash together and just figure out a way,” Pacers center Thomas Bryant said. “You’ve got to show real love around here and this team has real love between each other.”

Why do the Pacers have so much belief they can make a run?

It wasn’t just that Indiana beat Cleveland, it’s also the ease at which they did it. Game 3 was rough for the Pacers, as was the first quarter of Game 5 and the third quarter of Game 1. Basically every other moment in the series tipped toward the Pacers. The tempo and strategies all favored the blue and gold, and they never let up.

That’s why Indiana’s offense was so effective for the second-straight series. Their style is tough to deal with. The blue and gold have the best postseason offensive rating of the team’s still alive in the playoffs and scored with ease against the Cavs after doing the same to the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round.

That’s why the best-of-seven set ended in five games, and the road team came away with the series victory. The previous three teams that were eliminated before the conference finals despite winning at least 64 games lasted until at least Game 6 in their final series. The Cavs couldn’t even get that far against the Pacers.

The combination of great results and added experience has the Pacers buzzing about their chances going forward. They have over a week off before their next series begins, and they’re confident they can win it. After beating the Cavs in Game 5, the team was amped in the locker room. They could be heard celebrating from far down the hallway in Rocket Arena. Later, music blasted as they smiled through their one night of celebration before getting ready for the next round.

Fittingly, though, one of the songs played in the locker room was “On to the Next One” by Jay-Z. The Pacers are on to the next round, and there is internal belief they can keep going even beyond that.

“We’re talking about eight more wins for an NBA championship. The league is wide open this year,” Carlisle said after this team won Game 5. “There are a lot of great teams, but it’s wide open. And we’ve just got to keep believing.”

That belief was obvious in the final win against Cleveland. The Cavaliers took a 44-25 lead in the second quarter and were on track to roll over the Pacers in Game 5. It would have been easy for Indiana to give up and use their upcoming home game in the series as a crutch.

Instead, they battled back. Haliburton hit five huge threes in the second quarter, and other role players found the bottom of the net. As shots went in, the energy level grew. Suddenly, the Pacers defense was better, too, and they were down by just four points at halftime.

Early in the third frame, the Pacers took a 65-64 lead and never looked back on their way to a 114-105 win. Everyone filled a key role in the second half as the blue and gold won in Cleveland for the third time of the series.

They believed, even at the low point of a 19-point deficit, that they could come back and win. Haliburton led the way, but it was a total team effort. And that team is knocking on the door of a Finals appearance and wondering, “why not us?”

“We’re different than every other team in the NBA. We don’t just have one guy who scores all the points. We defeat teams in different ways,” Haliburton said after the win.

The Celtics are without superstar Jayson Tatum for the rest of the playoffs. The Knicks are great but only finished with one more win than the Pacers this season – and Indiana beat New York in the second-round last year.

The Knicks are a new-look team, and the Celtics have other stars. But after crushing the Cavs and gaining a ton of experience last year, the Pacers see a path to getting eight more wins. So far, they’ve backed up all their talk. Doing so on the next stage, a larger one, will be their biggest test yet. But they’ve met every single one with victories so far in the playoffs and can do it again.