The Celtics and Pacers' approach to a season marred by injury - ESPN

THERE ARE THREE new banners hanging above the main court inside the Indiana Paces training facility, across the street from the team's arena, Gainbridge Fieldhouse. On one end there are retired jersey numbers, Reggie Miller's 31 and Mel Daniels' 34, and a banner each for Herb Simon, the team's governor since 1983 who was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year, as well as Jim Morris, a pivotal member of the Indianapolis community who held leadership roles in the organization up until his passing in 2024.

On the other end, a new banner for the 2024-25 Eastern Conference championship quietly hangs. It went up last week — a few days after the team had already begun training camp — without a collective acknowledgement from the players and coaches as they prepare for the upcoming season.

«It was not here one day, up here the next,» Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith told ESPN.

The Pacers do plan to commemorate the banner at the arena before their regular season opener against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Oct. 23, but Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said there's no plans to dwell on it for long.

«There's not going to be a big thing about it,» Carlisle told ESPN after practice last week. «It was a great run and really a lot of amazing things happened during that stretch. But you got to turn the page.»

Such was the vibe at Pacers training camp, a team still fresh off the glow of one of the most improbable playoff runs to the Finals in NBA history, while also wrestling with the disappointment of coming up short in Game 7 and the consequences of a season-changing injury to Tyrese Haliburton in the first quarter of that game.

Haliburton's torn Achilles was the latest such injury during the playoffs that has altered the trajectory of the