Pascal Siakam

Even with the prior season’s Eastern Conference Finals results in the distant rearview, Indiana — ahead for 48-and-a-half minutes, and leading by 21 with only nine minutes remaining — couldn’t have helped finding unsettling similarities as overtime somehow arrived on October 30, 2024. Determined to display the many ways Indiana has grown since, Pascal Siakam discovered a way to show the defending-champion Boston Celtics the same thing twice, and somehow, a different result at once. Finding a season-high 132 points to miraculously not be enough for victory, Siakam — in a tie game with under 15 seconds remaining — joins his All-Star point guard in a screen, followed by a re-screen, drifting backwards towards the 3-point arc’s center. Fearless in his fire, and high in his elevation, the Indiana Pacers star connects on a game-clinching triple over Derrick White’s outreach, claiming a confidence-building, arena-igniting victory. Calibrating his game to the big-time moment once more, Siakam’s early-season eruption oversaw 29 points (on 11-of-20 shooting), 11 boards, five assists, and six 3-pointers.