The Pacers are now down 0-3 in this conference final, but they could very well lead 2-1, after losing Games 1 and 3 in money time. And if Rick Carlisle blamed himself during the first meeting, he obviously had other culprits in mind for the third…
“We will not be discouraged. We'll be back here Monday night, to extend the series, and we'll attack them even harder.”he declared, very angry, at a press conference. “I just watched the end of the match, you don’t need to remind me, I saw everything that happened…”
Obviously, the Pacers coach considers that the referees let the Celtics miss a lot in the last minute, notably on Jrue Holiday's final interception on Andrew Nembhard.
“There were a lot of things I didn't agree with, and I think any Indiana fan would disagree.”. What exactly is he talking about? “Of everything, of everything that happened.”
“We have the best fans in the NBA, the best room on the planet and we still have one more game in front of our fans, to knock these guys out. And believe me, we're going to run into them.”
Rick Carlisle could perhaps question his own choices, including his refusal to call a timeout when Andrew Nembhard recovered the ball with ten seconds remaining, leading to Jrue Holiday's interception.
“When there are eight or nine seconds to play, and we are on the counterattack after a miss, I trust our players to create a better shot than the one we could get after a timeout, facing a placed defense. It was a situation where we had to play, and we did a good job this season trusting our players. »
The coach also trusts his players to hit even harder during Game 4, in order to extend the series. Even if Tyrese Haliburton still can't play…
“We have the best fans in the NBA, the best room on the planet and we still have one more game in front of our fans, to take down these guys (the Celtics). And believe me, we're going to run into them.” he promises to conclude.
