The Pacers got closer to an NBA championship in 2024-25 than they have since moving over from the ABA in 1976, but they had some trying times and frustrating games in the regular season. One of those frustrating games apparently inspired Pacers coach Rick Carlisle to attempt violence on a television.
But the TV apparently, in Carlisle’s words, “survived.”
Carlisle was interviewed on the Zach Lowe Show on the Ringer Podcast Network last week. Lowe told Carlisle he’d heard a story that Carlisle had “tried to fight a TV” at halftime of a game against the Wizards in Washington and “the TV won.” Carlisle confirmed the story mostly, though he wouldn’t concede victory.
Carlisle said the Pacers coaching staff knew when the season started that their Feb. 12 road game against the Wizards could be trouble. The young Wizards were becoming more dangerous as they added talented young pieces even though they finished the 2024-25 season with the worst record in the Eastern Conference and the second-worst in the NBA. It was also a road game right before the All-Star break and right after a nationally-televised home game against the Knicks — a rematch of the 2023-24 Eastern Conference semifinals and a preview of the 2024-25 Eastern Conference Finals.
Making matters even more trap-gameish was the fact that the Pacers just returned from a four-game West Coast road trip and the fact that they were playing without center Myles Turner, who’d suffered a neck strain when he took an inadvertent hit to the head from teammate Bennedict Mathurin when they were going for a rebound during a win over the Clippers in Los Angeles. The Pacers were very much running on fumes at that point and were in desperate need of some time off.
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All of those elements did in fact cause Indiana problems and the exhausted Pacers trailed the Wizards 60-47 at halftime and had made just 19 of 48 field goals at the break.
“We came in at halftime, I don’t know what we were down, 15 or something like that,” Carlisle said. “I went a little bit nuts. I can’t remember exactly what I did with the TV, hit it or did something else. I wouldn’t say the TV won. I would say the TV survived.”
Carlisle went back to the story after Lowe asked another question to clarify that he didn’t punch the TV.
“I’ve learned never to punch anything,” Carlisle said. “That’s a broken hand. I think I went flat hand into the TV. I may have even done it with two hands. The TV survived. Luckily, I survived as well.”
The Pacers eventually won the game 134-130 in overtime.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers coach Rick Carlisle fought a TV during a February halftime
