{"id":70540,"date":"2025-06-01T19:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T19:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/70540\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T19:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T19:03:10","slug":"uva-basketball-alum-rick-carlisle-leads-indiana-to-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/70540\/","title":{"rendered":"UVA Basketball alum Rick Carlisle leads Indiana to NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/p>\n

\"rick<\/p>\n

<\/a>Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle. Photo: Ric Tapia\/Icon Sportswire<\/p>\n

So many people emailed me in the fall and winter asking why I wasn\u2019t writing about how Rick Carlisle should be the next UVA Basketball<\/a> coach.<\/p>\n

People legit expected Carlisle, the coach of the Indiana Pacers, who punched their ticket to the NBA Finals last night with a 125-108 win over the New York Knicks, to take a job where the main focus is on navigating the NIL landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the sixth time that I have been to an NBA Finals. Three as a player, one as an assistant coach, second time as a head coach. This is no time to be popping champagne,\u201d Carlisle, a 1984 UVA alum, told reporters after the Pacers\u2019 Game 6 win.<\/p>\n

His Dallas Mavericks won the NBA title in 2011. He\u2019s also taken three teams to conference finals in his 24 seasons as an NBA head coach, with a career 993-860 won-loss record.<\/p>\n

The 993 wins places him 11th on the all-time list, ahead of such luminaries as Red Auerbach (938) and Jack Ramsay (864), and within shouting distance of Pat Riley (1,210), Phil Jackson (1,155) and Larry Brown (1,098).<\/p>\n

A guy with a Hall of Fame resume gets paid well, and Carlisle is working on a $9 million-a-year deal right now in Indiana.<\/p>\n

For reference, UVA Athletics is paying the new head coach, Ryan Odom, $3.25 million a year.<\/p>\n

Carlisle, good alum that he is, did pitch in and help with the search committee that eventually recommended the Odom hire.<\/p>\n

But he was never a candidate for the job, because a guy in his mid-60s at the top of the NBA coaching pool doesn\u2019t go back to college after 40 years as a player and coach in the NBA.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how many times I had to respond with that line to people who emailed me castigating me and the people in charge of the search process for not throwing Carlisle\u2019s name out there.<\/p>\n

As the search process was playing out, Carlisle\u2019s Pacers team closed out the regular season on a 15-4 run to earn the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, finished off the 2021 NBA champs, the Milwaukee Bucks, in five games the first round, then surprised the top seed Cleveland, with 2019 UVA alums De\u2019Andre Hunter and Ty Jerome playing key roles for the Cavs, in five games in Round 2.<\/p>\n

Indiana seized control of the Eastern Conference Finals with a pair of wins in Madison Square Garden, then finished off the Knicks in Game 6 last night in Indianapolis with a dominant second half, shooting 56.8 percent from the floor and connecting on 9-of-18 from three in the final 24 minutes.<\/p>\n

Next up for Carlisle\u2019s Pacers: the Oklahoma City Thunder, which was 68-14 in the regular season, led by 2025 MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.<\/p>\n

OKC, which defeated Minnesota in five games to win the West, is the betting favorite, with the expectation being that the Thunder will close things out in five.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand the magnitude of the opponent,\u201d Carlisle said last night. \u201cOklahoma City has been dominant all year long, with capital letters in the word dominant. Defensively, they\u2019re historically great and they have all kinds of guys who can score.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is two teams that have similar structures, slightly different styles. I think it has the makings of a great series. From a coaching perspective, it is two teams that are fun to watch and fun to watch compete. So, we are looking forward to the challenge,\u201d Carlisle said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle. Photo: Ric Tapia\/Icon Sportswire So many people emailed me in the fall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,1714,5476],"class_list":{"0":"post-70540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-rick-carlisle","10":"tag-uva-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114609665039622146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}