This was a far cry from the dismay caused by their 120-118 overtime loss Wednesday night. Everybody paying any attention at all to the NBA Finals knows the Los Angeles Lakers held a commanding 3-1 lead in the series entering Friday's game.

But Jackson, buoyed by Rose and Reggie Miller, was into slapping some skin even before the Pacers closed out the 120-87 shellacking of the Lakers to force Game 6 in L.A. on Monday.

And it was Jackson at the point guard helm as the Pacers blew them out, just two days after sat on the bench as teammate Travis Best failed to get the job done down the stretch of Game 5.

"It was great, it was fun, it was very important," Jackson said. "We've been in a position time and time again where we were up 3-1, playing in another team's building realizing that if we come out in the beginning of the game and make a run, that this team does not want to travel back to Indiana. And we realize that was probably their mindset. But we had to make a statement from the beginning and we did."

Jackson had 10 points, seven assists and six rebounds to run the team while Rose poured in 32 and Miller 25. The Pacers played with extreme confidence and sharpness before their adoring 18,345 fans in Conseco Fieldhouse. It was the last game here for coach Larry Bird, who is retiring, and any combination of Jackson, Rose, Miller, Rik Smits, Austin Croshere and Sam Perkins (all of whom are free agents July 1).

They rallied together under the guise of any number of reasons to win this game and essentially knocked out the Lakers before they knew what hit them. It started with Rose and Miller hitting their first six 3-pointers and the team shooting 15-of-20 in the first quarter. But there was more to it than that.

"We feed off of (their shooting), but we also feed of the reality that if we didn't win tonight, that would be it," Jackson said. "We wanted to give ourselves a chance to go back to California and win this thing and the only way to do that was to give total effort tonight. I think the thing that sparked us was just the energy level 1-12."

Jackson and his mates know full well this Lakers team has not lost three in a row all season. And the odds of beating them twice in L.A. aren't good. On the other hand, the Pacers beat the Knicks in New York to win the Eastern Conference finals after knocking out the Sixers in Philadelphia in the semis.

So the motivation was more than just preventing the Lakers from celebrating on the Conseco floor Friday night.

"It's important to us not to allow them to celebrate winning the championship no matter where they do it," Jackson said. "Our goal is to win the championship. So many people got ready for a celebration tonight, which was disrespectful to us and the character that we have on this basketball team. We wanted to give ourselves a chance to go back and see what we can do."

They got their wish.

Shaq's first mentor

The ready hand shake and exuberant staccato speech of Dale Brown was an unexpected added color to Friday's game.

As Shaquille O'Neal's coach at Louisiana State and now retired and making motivational speeches for a living, he'll be the first to say the Big Guy has earned the right to be considered one of the greatest centers of all time. And he can't win a championship soon enough.

"His last day at LSU before he was going home to his parents in San Antonio, I gave him two bits of wisdom," Brown said. "Don't let all the fun and money get the best of you was the first thing. The second was that he'd be the modern day Wilt Chamberlain and that people always like to slay the giant. So I warned him to be prepared for all of that."

"But you know what? I knew he could handle it because of the type of person I know Shaquille is. I've known him since was a 13-year-old in Germany and later when he was cut by his high school coach because they said he was too clumsy and slow and ought be a soccer goalie."

Obviously, Brown never lost track of him and recruited him as the top center in the country. And there was a lot more to him than the 7-foot-1 frame that filled out from 230 pounds to his present day 330 pounds.

"People don't appreciate what a bright and caring guy Shaquille is," Brown said. "He has the highest grade-point average on our team both years he was in school. But the thing I like most is how tired I am of all these guys who buy 1,000 turkeys and hold press conferences to tell everybody about it. But Shaquille goes places and gives people things and doesn't tell anybody about it. He does it because he wants to do it for them and he doesn't care about whether anybody knows about it.

"That tells you what kind of person he is and why he'll be a special champion too."

Shots from the perimeter

• Keep in mind no team has every come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA title. There have been six teams to come back from 3-1 deficits to win a seven-game series. Boston defeated Philadelphia (1968 Eastern Division finals); the Lakers defeated the Suns (1970 Western Division semifinals); Washington defeated San Antonio (1979 Eastern Conference finals); Boston defeated Philadelphia (1981 Eastern Conference finals); Houston defeated Phoenix (1995 Western Conference semifinals); and Miami defeated New York (1997 Eastern Conference semifinals).
• O'Neal was just 1-of-6 from the free throw line and now is 33-of-81 from the free throw line (.407) in the series, while Reggie Miller is the Pacers leading scorer and 38-of-39 (.974) from the line. The Lakers were 11-of-21 from the line Friday, making them 82-of-146 for the series (.561) compared to the Pacers, who were 32-of-36 and now are 128-of-150 (.853).
• The blowout game gave the Pacers a scoring advantage -- 105.8-102.6 -- in the series.
• Should the Pacers win Game 6, Game 7 would be Wednesday, June 21, which would be the third-latest game in NBA history.