Behind the numbers of Rick Carlisle's 1,000 wins as Pacers beat Hornets
Rick Carlisle finally has 1,000 NBA wins as a coach, and he can thank his veterans for that.
MY OFFICE, Ind. – Finally, the losing streak is over. The Pacers beat the Hornets with a fantastic finish on Thursday night to snap a 13-game skid. The veterans were great, and we will get to them. The story, though, is Rick Carlisle getting win number 1,000.
It took a month between victory number 999 and this one, but Carlisle has officially done what only 10 other coaches have before him and reached four digits. He did it before his 900th loss and is now one of seven coaches to win 1,000 times and own a championship ring.
Postgame, as Carlisle does, he downplayed the accomplishment and made it about his relationships. "I’m just very blessed," he said. "I just talked to our owner, Herb Simon, him and his son Sean. They landed back in California today, they were home for a while. And they’ve been living and dying during this streak as well. This whole thing's never been about me and getting a milestone win. It’s about our organization, our franchise. And as it’s gotten tougher and tougher, I’ve just leaned
into thinking more about gratitude for the things that we have."
Carlisle shows his emotions in games and shares them well. He's a winner through and through and very perceptive. That's how he's able to connect with his players and with others yet still command respect, one of his powers as a coach. You don't reach 1,000 wins without a strong ability to manage relationships, tweak basketball philosophy, and develop players.
Tony East
It is an incredible story. To me, not enough is being made about how gargantuan 1,000 NBA victories actually are. I've tried in a number of ways to put it in perspective and want to spend more time doing so.
Reggie Miller had an 18-year NBA career, all with the Pacers. He wasn't close to 1,000 wins, going 767-622 in his just-under 1,400 regular season games. Including the postseason, Miller still isn't close to 1,000 wins.
LeBron James just crossed 1k wins last season. He is barely at the threshold and it took him 23 seasons of all-time great basketball. The list of players with 1,000 wins: James, Tim Duncan, Robert Parish, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
It's "easier" as a coach given that being a player comes with a physical shelf life. But it's not "easy" for anyone. Longevity is underrated. You have to be able to adapt yet still be elite. Carlisle has clearly done that.
20 seasons of .500 basketball would net a coach 820 wins. Four more seasons? Still just 984. So a quarter century of, bare minimum, competent play is required to win 1,000 games. Not participate in. Win.
I have covered the Pacers since 2017-18. I have attended maybe 400 games in my life. Tyrese Haliburton is one-third of the way to 1,000 (333) games played. Not won, played.
I jokingly asked Jarace Walker, who is in his third season, about this. "Do people play 1,000 games?" he said with a smile. Some do. Not many.
The next milestone for Carlisle will come when he wins 43 more games. He will (assuming Erik Spoelstra does not win 235 times in the interim) move into the top-10 for all-time coaching wins, ahead of Rick Adelman. Adelman is one of the three coaches with 1,000 wins to not have a title to their name, a stat I found fascinating. So many want to judge everything using just the NBA Finals – well, the second winningest coach in NBA history, Don Nelson, never even made the NBA Finals as a head coach.
Of the 11 coaches with 1,000 wins, only Larry Brown, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, and Gregg Popovich won their conference more than Carlisle has. I enjoyed this stat that Chris Denari relayed on the Pacers broadcast after they beat Charlotte – Carlisle is now the third coach with 1,000 wins as well as an NBA championship both as a player and as a coach. Carlisle played for the title-winning Boston Celtics in 1986 and guided the Dallas Mavericks to a ring in 2011. The other two? Phil Jackson (NBA title with the New York Knicks in 1970 [injured] and 1973 plus a gazillion coaching titles with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers) and Pat Riley (NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1972 plus coaching rings with the Lakers and Miami Heat).
(I would be remiss to not add that Larry Brown won an ABA title as a player with the Oakland Oaks in 1969, then an NBA title with the Detroit Pistons in 2004).
There are dozens of references to show just how impressive winning 1,000 games is as an NBA head coach. Every display feels impressive. That's because it is – Carlisle has done what few others could, and he finally put a comma in his win total on Thursday night.
Players, assistants, and staffers all one-by-one gave Carlisle a high five or hug just after the final buzzer. McConnell said the team would celebrate their coach appropriately, and they did so in the locker room postgame. Tyrese Haliburton handed him the game ball. Lloyd Pierce addressed the team so he could celebrate Carlisle.
"It's special for him. Being a part of this team, he's been a big help, always communicating with me," Pascal Siakam said of Carlisle's 1,000th win postgame, per a video Jeremiah Johnson shared. "I think it's rare to have that open kind of communication... he's been so helpful."
That's one of his better traits, and a key one that made 1,000 victories possible. The Pacers will now hope that 1,001 doesn't come after 13 more losses.
So, what happened in the game?
How, exactly, did the Pacers finally win? Their veterans, and more specifically their experienced talents, were sublime.
Siakam had 30 points and 14 rebounds, including the go-ahead bucket in the final 15 seconds. T.J. McConnell, playing more often due to Andrew Nembhard's absence, had a season-high 23 points and a massive steal after Siakam's aforementioned basket. Aaron Nesmith had 16 points. Jay Huff didn't miss a shot, neither did Tony Bradley. Ben Sheppard showed real fervor defending LaMelo Ball, particularly in the second half and down the stretch.
The Pacers led by as much as 12 and held a double-digit lead in both halves of the game. They almost blew it late, as they have been known to do recently. But down three without the ball, they broke up an alley-oop before a string of great possessions closed out the game.
"A lot of fight," Pacers assistant coach Jim Boylen noted during a halftime interview on the FanDuel Sports Indiana broadcast when asked what he liked in the first half. He wanted the team to clean up their turnovers in the second half and they did, coughing up just six in the last two quarters after 13 in the first half. "We'll do better with that," Boylen said.
Every little thing matters in what was a two-point win at 114-112. This was the final sequence that gave the Pacers the lead, and the ball, late:
It wasn't pretty. But the Pacers don't care about pretty right now. They care about results and finding at least some successes that can translate to next season when Tyrese Haliburton is back. Is the Huff-McConnell pairing a thing? What is this version of Ben Sheppard? Who knows, but it's valuable information to gain. And the Pacers still have the top lottery odds.
They host the Miami Heat later today. That will be the Pacers first chance to start a streak in the other direction, and at a minimum it's another chance to learn more about the team. Now, they can do it without the weight of a losing streak. And they'll do it with a sideline general that has won 1,000 NBA games.
Thank you for reading. Quite a lot is going on in the land of the Pacers despite a 7-31 record. Subscribe so you don't miss anything.
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