Season Wrap: The 2024-25 Indiana Pacers

  • By Mike Passador

    Last Updated on June 23, 2025 10:33 am by Mike Passador | Published: June 23, 2025

    So we’ve all agreed not to underestimate the Pacers again, right?

    How’d It Go?

    It was a season to remember for the Pacers and their fans. After a surprising run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2023-24, Indiana got off to a so-so start and took a while to get back into gear. It was not a run of play that suggested that their postseason success was more than a fluke as the Pacers sunk to 10-15 and were below .500 at the end of December. Tyrese Haliburton got off to a slow start and the team dealt with a major injury to an unheralded starter in Aaron Nesmith. Pascal Siakam was playing great ball but the team was somewhat lost as Haliburton was on uneven ground.

    Everything clicked in January as the Pacers went 10-2 in the month and put themselves back on track. Haliburton continued to round into form and the Pacers improved on both ends of the floor. With Nesmith back the team started to hit its stride and they finished 18 games over .500, earning home court in the first round of the playoffs.

    Just like the year prior, the Pacers took down a paper-thin Bucks team, keyed by a couple big late-game performances. They pulled off the same trick on a bigger stage against the mighty Cavs, stunning the top seed in the East with some furious comebacks that saw Haliburton deliver clutch play after clutch play. Indiana was able to eliminate the Knicks in the Conference Finals, outlasting a deep and talented New York squad with help from up and down the roster.

    After those three series performances you would think that the Pacers would get a little more love, but they were deep underdogs against a vicious Thunder squad in the Finals. They put everyone on notice with yet another comeback win in Game 1, overcoming a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter on the road to shock OKC. Despite the disparity in regular season performance, we had a series on our hands. The Pacers and Thunder went toe to toe for six games and a quarter before Haliburton suffered an Achilles injury in the first frame of Game 7. It was an awful, unfair ending to what had been a fantastic series up to that point. The Pacers, to their credit, kept grinding and took the lead into halftime before the Thunder pulled away in the second half. It was a gutting end to the season for a team that could have easily won the championship.

    Despite that end, it was the kind of season that no Pacers fan will ever forget. The team’s journey is the sort that creates new fans and puts the entire league on notice. Indiana’s well-coached roster is full of guys that play hard, never quit and work for one another. It’s an admirable collection of attributes that 28 other teams would love to copy.

    Coaching

    Not to harp on the lack of respect extended to the Pacers, but when all the teams in their wake seem shellshocked that they lost to the Pacers, it’s typically a sign of being outcoached.

    Rick Carlisle has an impressive resume to begin with and this season may go down as his best work yet. He got the Pacers playing at an extremely high level defensively while trusting his depth players to a degree you rarely see in the postseason. Everyone on the roster had a role to play and was engaged with one another, even if not everyone was asked to play every given night. There was a connectedness that makes the Pacers easy to root for, and Carlisle’s calmness on the bench likely played a part in their furious comebacks too.

    Carlisle’s work can’t be copied — culture never can — but it gives a model to teams aiming to compete without a clear true superstar on the roster, though your mileage may vary with that one given how Haliburton performed in the playoffs. Ultimately, Carlisle kept the team on the rails after some early struggles and was able to empower everyone in the rotation to contribute in high-stakes moments. There’s no doubting that he got the most of what he had on this roster.

    The Players

    Tyrese Haliburton
    PG, Indiana Pacers
    SeasonTeamGPGSMPG FGMFGAFG% FTMFTAFT% 3PTM3PTA3PT% PTSREBAST STLBLKTO
    24-25 IND 73 73 33.6 6.5 13.8 47.3 2.6 3.0 85.1 3.0 7.7 38.8 18.6 3.5 9.2 1.4 0.7 1.6
    23-24 IND 69 68 32.2 7.2 15.2 47.7 2.8 3.3 85.5 2.8 7.8 36.4 20.1 3.9 10.9 1.2 0.7 2.3
    22-23 IND 56 56 33.6 7.4 15.0 49.0 3.1 3.6 87.1 2.9 7.2 40.0 20.7 3.7 10.4 1.6 0.4 2.5

    ADP: 8.2/8.8 (Yahoo/ESPN) | Total Value: 7/3 (8/9-cat) | Per-Game Value: 14/5 (8/9-cat)

    Haliburton gave fantasy managers a bit of a scare early on but when the dust settled he was worth the price on draft day, and then he delivered an all-time playoff run. The first couple of weeks saw Haliburton posting just top-50 value as dreadful shooting percentages were dragging his scoring down. The Pacers as a whole were in a bit of a funk, no doubt fueled by Haliburton being less than his best. It led to plenty of panic out there and Haliburton was one of the most obvious buy-low candidates we’ve ever seen. As he heated up, the doubts melted away. Haliburton shot .409 from the floor through his first 20 games; by game No. 30 he was up to .432 and the race was on. He ended up chipping away at things, up to top-30 value by Christmas and top-15 value by the All-Star break.

    After the break is when Haliburton really earned his money. He was No. 3 in the fantasy rankings from the All-Star break through the end of the season, averaging 20.6 points, 3.5 rebounds, 11.0 assists, 1.8 steals, 0.7 blocks and 3.2 3-pointers per game while shooting .532 from the field and committing just 1.2 turnovers over his final 21 outings. That’s elite stuff and anyone who was able to acquire Haliburton for something less than a certified first-rounder made out like a bandit.

    Haliburton’s legend grew throughout the playoffs, as he was constantly able to deliver in crunch time as the Pacers stormed back for a handful of ridiculous comeback victories on their march to the Finals. Those rocky first few weeks feel like multiple lifetimes ago.

    Unfortunately, Haliburton’s incredible run of play was ended by an Achilles injury in Game 7 of the Finals that figures to take him out for all of the 2025-26 season. It’s a horrific end to a true star turn from one of the game’s bright young stars.

    Myles Turner
    C, Indiana Pacers
    SeasonTeamGPGSMPG FGMFGAFG% FTMFTAFT% 3PTM3PTA3PT% PTSREBAST STLBLKTO
    24-25 IND 72 72 30.2 5.4 11.3 48.1 2.6 3.3 77.3 2.2 5.5 39.6 15.6 6.5 1.5 0.8 2.0 1.7
    23-24 IND 77 77 27.0 6.2 11.8 52.4 3.2 4.1 77.3 1.5 4.2 35.8 17.1 6.9 1.3 0.5 1.9 1.4
    22-23 IND 62 62 29.4 6.5 11.8 54.8 3.5 4.5 78.3 1.5 4.0 37.3 18.0 7.5 1.4 0.6 2.3 1.7

    ADP: 45.0/62.5 (Yahoo/ESPN) | Total Value: 37/37 (8/9-cat) | Per-Game Value: 62/49 (8/9-cat)

    There were a couple fluctuations in Turner’s stat line compared to 2023-24 but at the end of the day he brought back over four combined blocks and 3-pointers per game, and that’s the backbone of his fantasy appeal. He was able to limit his absences to a reasonable amount and while his FG% took a bit of a tumble, it was actually Turner’s work inside the arc that suffered — he improved from deep on higher volume. That weird wrinkle is the only thing keeping Turner from a legitimate top-40 season, but otherwise it was more of the same.

    The fact that he’s now taking about half of his shots from the 3-point line does open Turner up to more volatility, but he’s got a great floor as long as the blocks continue to roll in. He fits like a glove with the rest of the Pacers roster and is in a great spot career-wise after trade rumors nearly caught up to him for a few seasons. Turner is one of fantasy’s more reliable centers outside the elite tier. You don’t know exactly what you’ll get, but you can bank on the combination putting him somewhere near the top-50 mark even if he isn’t at his peak.

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    June 23, 2025, 10:33 am