Pacers' playoff success dates back to before training camp at Pascal Siakam's house

The story of the Pacers being just two games away from their first NBA Finals appearance since 2000 started with a goal after last year's Eastern Conference Finals.

The Pacers had a very competitive fight in the 2024 ECF despite being swept and came together this offseason to put themselves back in a position to go further than they did that year.

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They've already done that, winning two more playoff games than last postseason, and it hasn't been easy.

Pacers's forward Pascal Siakam took the team under his belt last summer to make a big stride towards their goal.

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Pascal Siakam's leadership

Before training camp for the 24-25 NBA season, Pascal Siakam decided to invite his Pacers teammates down to his Orlando house to get a head start on working together before the season.

Clips surfaced on X and social media of the star player talking to his teammates, and emphasizing the importance, especially to the younger players, of taking advantage of every opportunity they were given.

Siakam can relate to almost any player, as he's already won a championship, but had to work his way up to have a large role on that title winning team.

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Siakam was drafted 27th overall in the 2016 NBA Draft and found himself playing a chunk of his rookie season in the G-League.

Siakam made the jump in his third season in the league, winning the Most Improved Player award, and being a starter on the Raptors' first franchise title team.

Siakam struggled to make it back to the Eastern Conference Finals after the championship.

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He used this experience in this pre-training camp to motivate his teammates and show them that it's not easy to repeat success just because it was done in the past.

It takes a lot of grit, resilience, and perspective to be done.

Siakam knew the Pacers had a special group, and wanted them to realize they could do even better than their postseason run in 2024, but they would have to have this mindset to get the job done.

Siakam had a career playoff performance in Game 2 to lead the Pacers to a 2-0 series lead, as they have an opportunity to close out the Knicks on their homecourt.

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