For some reason, people are surprised the Pacers are in this thing.
Coming into the season, most people thought the Boston Celtics, last year's Eastern Conference runners-up, were the only team that could challenge Miami. Then when the Knicks burst out to a huge start to the season, they became the de facto "Can they beat the Heat?" team.
No one seemed to notice that Indiana was arguably the second-best team in the East last year outside of the Bulls when Derrick Rose was healthy. Likewise, few noticed this year when the Pacers actually held the No. 2 spot in the East during the hard part of the season, between December and March. That's when the Pacers proved themselves.
But the Knicks finished on a hot run in April, as Melo and his team often do, and everyone bought in, even me, as I picked the Knicks over the Pacers.
And now here they are.
After every game in this series, the pendulum seems to swing to the extreme.
Game 1: "The Pacers blew a huge opportunity. Can they possibly recover emotionally?"
Game 2: "Are the Heat rattled?"
Game 3: "Isn't Miami just better and will this thing be over soon?"
Game 4: "Maybe the Pacers just have the Heat's number?"
Game 5: "Well, you can tell how much better Miami is."
And on and on. Back and forth, with every game, with little or no regard for how the entire series has gone. And the worst part is that context gets lost in that pendulum. Should the Heat prevail in Game 6, closing out Indiana to advance to their third consecutive NBA Finals, the Pacers will be forgotten. The concept will be that the Pacers were never good enough, when in reality, the Pacers have been the better team in probably nine of the series' 20 quarters. It's that close.
If the Heat close out the series in Game 6, it's not indicative of the Pacers' flaws, or that their team isn't good enough. The Pacers have proved they're good enough to win the East by forcing this Game 6 and having been competitive in each game. It would simply mean the best team in basketball played to its potential, which is a little bit greater.
Maybe no Pacers player has his reputation swing from game to game more than Roy Hibbert.
Hibbert proved last season he could be a premier center in the league, and he was an All-Star. Still, critics flocked to mock the max contract he earned in restricted free agency last summer. The reality is that Hibbert was dealing with a wrist injury and is still coming into his own as a player. But in a league with so few legit top centers, Hibbert has cemented himself as a force to be reckoned with.
And he has wrecked the Heat. Hibbert is averaging 23 points and 11 rebounds vs. the Heat on 55 percent shooting. Sure, the Heat play small and have no one to throw at Hibbert. But most teams in the NBA don't, and yet centers fail to attack as well as Hibbert has. But really, Hibbert and his teammate Paul George are proof of the emerging concept of defense being treated as being as valuable as offense. It's taken a long time for us to reach this point, but finally defense, not rebounding or blocked shots, but honest-to-goodness defense, is being considered the counterpoint to scoring.
And the Pacers have some of the best on that end of the floor.
The Pacers can win Game 6, and they can win Game 7. I honestly can't tell you whether they will win either. This series is too close. The Western Conference finals showed that the Spurs were definitively better than the Grizzlies. The Eastern Conference finals have shown the opposite. The Heat may wind up winning the series, but the Pacers have done what they needed to in order to prove they're inferior to no team.
As always in the playoffs, everything comes down to a few breaks, a few inches, a few bounces, and we're all just left watching the pendulum swing.
