Defying many of the projections ahead of the NBA Playoffs, the Indiana Pacers recently won the Eastern Conference and subsequently advanced to the NBA Finals where the team will take on the Oklahoma City Thunder in a best-of-seven series. The two teams emanate from designated market areas ranked No. 25 and No. 47, respectively, and while both teams have plenty of star power and appeal on the court, the lack of a major-market team competing in the series is raising some concerns surrounding potential ratings. Even so, ESPN SportsCenter anchor and Monday Night Countdown host Scott Van Pelt placed the onus on himself for not granting the team more attention throughout the year.
During a recent episode of the SVPod, Van Pelt spoke about how the team was effectively flying under the radar throughout the year but possessed all of the ingredients to win the Eastern Conference. With an experienced head coach in Rick Carlisle and star forward in Pascal Siakam, both of whom have won NBA championships, combined with star guard Tyrese Haliburton and significant depth, the team will now be aiming to win its first NBA championship. Within his remarks, Van Pelt referenced a script he wrote for SportsCenter in the event the team defeated the New York Knicks, which ended up being the case.
“The point in the script that I’ve written is I’ll bet money that First Take hasn’t done segments on them during the regular season,” Van Pelt said. “I’ll bet money they haven’t, but that’s not knocking them because I know having done our show, we didn’t lead SportsCenter with the Pacers like ever unless they were playing another star-laden team. They were the other team opposite the Lakers, the Bucks or whomever, so it’s on all of us to have missed it.”
As Van Pelt’s employer prepares to commence these proceedings, he wondered if a team with the components to win a championship constructed similarly in the NFL would also be ignored. Looking back on how he went about covering the Pacers this season, he held himself accountable for not being better in this regard and is glad to see the team will now get attention being in the NBA Finals.
“I’ll just give myself a failing grade as it relates to acknowledging the Pacers as potentially being what they were,” Van Pelt said. “When we talked East, we were like, ‘Look, it’s going to be Cleveland and Boston. We draw the line under them,’ and the question was, ‘If anyone, who might it be?’ Well, maybe the Knicks and then the Pacers. Yeah, they score the crap out of the ball, Carlisle’s done it before. It was just they were hiding in plain sight, so I just feel like collectively hand up, bad job from me to not acknowledge what they were or not acknowledge that they could have been this when they’ve already shown to a degree they could.”
ESPN will be broadcasting the NBA Finals on ABC for the 23rd consecutive year and feature the broadcast team of play-by-play announcer Mike Breen, analysts Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson and reporter Lisa Salters. Coverage will be preceded by NBA Countdown with Malika Andrews, Stephen A. Smith, Bob Myers, Kendrick Perkins and Shams Charania. The first game of the NBA Finals from Paycor Center in Oklahoma City, Okla. will begin at 8:30 p.m. EST on ABC.
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