The Indiana Pacers head coach is one win away.
Rick Carlisle is on the verge of history.
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He has the Pacers one win away from the franchise’s first ever NBA championship.
All that’s standing in their way is Game 7 against the Oklahoma City Thunder in their building.
Before the game, Carlisle spoke to the media and couldn’t shake the image of what he had just seen.
“I just saw a video that’s probably going to go viral,” Carlisle said.
“With open-top busses, presumably for the parade, already painted with them as champions.
“So that’s what I’m thinking about right now.”
“Rick Carlisle says he saw some open top busses in Oklahoma City that have already been painted for a championship parade and that’s all he’s thinking about right now,” Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star reported on X.
“Carlisle said he saw video of this, I should state,” Dopirak made clear.
Could Carlisle use this as motivation before the biggest game in franchise history?
Sure, why not?
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“The ol’ THEY’RE ALREADY PLANNING THE PARADE card,” Albert Breer wrote on X.
This isn’t the first time that Carlisle has had his team on the verge of a championship.
He won the Dallas Mavericks their first and only title when they took down LeBron James and the Miami Heat back in 2011.
It is highly regarded as James’ most disappointing postseason loss and biggest stain on his Hall of Fame resume.
14 years later and he is trying to slay another giant on the sport’s biggest stage.
The vaunted Thunder, who finished the regular season at 68-14, have had one of the best seasons of all-time.
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Yet the Pacers are going toe for toe with them.
Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and the rest of the team haven’t blinked.
They entered the Finals as overwhelming favorites, but Carlisle wasn’t just going to roll over. He had other plans.
And now, the two greatest words in all of sports: Game Seven.
Carlisle will be going for the jugular on Sunday evening in front of a raucous crowd.
He knows someone will be throwing a parade, and he’s hoping it will be in Indiana.