(Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images)
After watching the Indiana Pacers defeat the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday night, it led me to realize why teams like Indiana are irrelevant in the NBA. Last season in the playoffs, the Pacers played well, making most of the games close against the Bulls, but the Bulls won the series 4-1. You can stress the value of a “morale victory” as much as you want, but keeping games close in the playoffs mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. There is no such thing as a “Cinderella” team in the NBA, there are no flukes or upsets in a 7-game series. The best team wins, no questions asked.
That being said, the Pacers have no chance to win a playoff series against teams like Miami or Chicago. Essentially they are a practice team for true championship contenders, the Appalachian State of the NBA. The way that the Pacers celebrated after beating the Bulls on Wednesday night was shockingly childish. It looked like a team who either just won a championship or who snapped a 100 game losing streak. If the Pacers could take one thing out of the Bulls book, it would be to act like you’ve been there before. We’re talking about the regular season here Granger, Hibbert , Vogel.
(Associated Press)
The Pacers remind me a lot of the Detroit Lions, they have been terrible for awhile, but after winning a few games in the beginning of the season suddenly they think they are world beaters. The coaches are exactly the same in style as well. Both Jim Schwartz and Frank Vogel are young, new coaches who haven’t seen much success in their careers. They are both very immature, in being sore winners and sore losers.
The thing to look out for however is the quote from Derrick Rose after the game, “I’ll never forget how they celebrated just from winning this game. I can’t wait to play them again.”
LezBeHonest 
You are a clueless idiot. If the Bulls were so good, they should have STOMPED the Pacers in the Playoffs last year, but they didn’t. They had to comeback and win in all their wins except the last game. You won’t make it anywhere in journalism if you keep writing this crap. You Bulls fans are the whinest fans in the whole NBA. Were you there when the Pacers were “reported” celebrating? It was in the locker room not the court idiot. You have to be the worst journalist I have ever come across. Have you ever met Frank vogel and actually talked to him or any of the Pacers? I have and they are arguably the classiest team in the NBA.
Also you’re telling me there are no “upsets” in the NBA playoffs? In 1998-1999, the 8th seeded Knicks made it to the NBA finals. They were clearly not the best team.
Tyler,
For starters I have never said that I am a journalist, rather I said that I am a journalism major. Secondly it doesn’t really matter how a team wins a game. If a team wins four out of five games in a series, that team is clearly better. I was not in the Pacers locker room and I do not know Frank Vogel personally, but in this situation I was taking the reports of multiple news sources regarding the celebration.
Obviously the Pacers do not suck. In fact they are having one of their best seasons in awhile so far. They have a solid core of players and Vogel seems to be leading them well. That being said, I don’t think that they can beat the Heat or the Bulls in a seven game series and if you don’t agree we will simply have to agree to disagree on that one.
Lastly, I really just wrote this post about the Pacers because I was pissed about them outplaying my favorite team last week. I’m not really expecting to use this website as any form of documentation for any journalism work in the future or anything, but more as something fun to do in my free time.