Christmas with the Indiana Pacers.
Unfortunately for Indiana fans, they have precious few memories of Christmas games to choose from – and even fewer that were worth celebrating.
The Pacers have played just five Christmas Day games in their history. Once during the franchise’s ABA days. Four times since joining the NBA in 1976.
That’s the fewest for any franchise that’s been in the league every year since the NBA-ABA merger.
Even when the Christmas slate expanded to five-game extravaganzas in 2008, the Pacers found themselves at home for the holidays.
Here’s a history of Indiana’s December 25 contests, ranked in order from the most horrible of holidays to the merriest of Christmases.
#5 – Detroit 98, Indiana 93 (2004)
Remember the year when your least-favorite relative was the center of a huge argument at Thanksgiving dinner and then showed up at Christmas to make everything incredibly unpleasant and awkward for everyone?
From the Pacers’ perspective, that’s what happened here.
On paper, this was supposed to be a holiday showcase between the reigning NBA champions (Detroit) and the team that finished with the league’s best record the previous season (Indiana).
Then the Malice at the Palace happened.
This Christmas Day contest was the first meeting between the Pacers and Pistons in the aftermath of the infamous brawl in Detroit that altered the trajectory of the Indiana franchise.
Let’s just say things were a little tense when Detroit came to the Fieldhouse on December 25.
By then, the Pacers were feeling the effects of the lengthy post-brawl suspensions to key players Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, and Jermaine O’Neal. Indiana lost nine of 11 games leading up to Christmas.
The Pacers did get top scorer O’Neal back for the Detroit game. It wasn’t enough. The Pistons prevailed 98-93 in a relatively incident-free contest before a frustrated sellout crowd that knew a potential championship season had been derailed.
For Pacer fans, it was like the Grinch stole Christmas (and never gave it back).
Indiana hasn’t played on Christmas since.
#4 – Washington 115, Indiana 98 (1981)
If you’re wondering why the networks chose to highlight an Indiana team that was on its way to 35 wins and a Washington team that was coming off a 39-victory season: Don’t worry, they didn’t.
This was the NBA’s television dark ages. There was a Christmas Day telecast of the Los Angeles Lakers against the Phoenix Suns. The three other games that day were played to local audiences only, and less than 9,000 fans bothered to show up in Washington.
In retrospect, this Christmas Day loss marked the beginning of an Indiana tailspin that lasted several years. These Pacers were actually coming off a 44-38 season that included the franchise’s first NBA playoff berth. They were off to a solid 15-11 start in 1981-82. Starting with this Christmas Day game, Indiana dropped 15 of its next 19. The Pacers tailed off to a 35-47 record to conclude 1981-82. Then things got really bad, with four consecutive seasons with victory totals in the 20s.
Maybe it’s a good thing Indiana doesn’t play more often on Christmas.
#3 – Utah 150, Indiana 129 (1971)
This was Indiana’s only Christmas game during the franchise’s ABA years. And, according to a recent article by Mark Monteith, Pacer coach Slick Leonard’s then-15-year-old daughter was so unhappy about it that she wrote a letter to the ABA commissioner requesting the game be rescheduled.
The matchup itself was worthy of a holiday showcase. Utah won the ABA title the previous season. Indiana was on its way to its second ABA title in 1971-72. Game logs show attendance of more than 10,000 fans in Utah, which would have been an enormous crowd by ABA standards.
This one was close for three quarters, but the Stars pulled away in the fourth. George McGinnis, coming off the bench at that stage in his rookie season, led Indiana with 29 points.
#2 – Indiana 103, Orlando 93 (2000)
When NBC scheduled this matchup for Christmas Day, it thought it was getting a meeting between the reigning Eastern Conference champions (Indiana) and an up-and-coming Orlando team headlined by splashy free-agent signees Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill.
Instead, they got a meeting between an Indiana team that bore little resemblance to its NBA Finals roster just a few months before, and an Orlando team that was learning Hill, sadly, would be spending more time on the injury list than on the court.
The Pacers had embarked on a youth movement in the aftermath of the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance. Isiah Thomas had replaced Larry Bird as coach. Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose were the only Indiana starters on Christmas Day 2000 who started regularly the previous season.
McGrady scored a then-career-high 43 points in his Christmas debut as Hill was unavailable – a script Orlando fans would see too often in the coming years - but Indiana got 31 from Rose and controlled the game from start to finish en route to the 10-point win.
Pacer fans also thought they were getting a Christmas gift in the form of a long-awaited breakout performance from Jonathan Bender, the team’s top draft choice directly out of high school in 1999, when the preps-to-pros jump was rare. Bender scored 20 points in the Christmas win. Little did Indiana fans know that Bender would approach that point total just a few more times in his injury-abbreviated career.
It's the last time Indiana won a game on Christmas.
#1 – Indiana 101, New York 90 (1999)
This was a Pacers Christmas story with a happy ending.
The nation got its first look at the building now known as Gainbridge Fieldhouse, which opened just a few weeks before Christmas.
And the nation saw Indiana beat New York, partially avenging the Pacers’ painful loss against the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals the previous summer. The Christmas contest also proved to be a preview of the 1999-00 Eastern Conference Finals, when Indiana would prevail.
Like many holiday gatherings, there was a disagreement. A third-quarter dustup between Jalen Rose and New York’s Kurt Thomas changed the mood in the building – a shift that favored the Pacers. Indiana boosted a four-point advantage to double digits in the immediate aftermath of the Rose-Thomas confrontation and maintained the lead the rest of the way.
Knick fans might argue the Pacers got a gift in the form of 40 trips to the free-throw line. Reggie Miller made 12 of 14 free throws to finish with a game-high 26 points on a night he made just 6 of 16 attempts from the field.
A nationally televised victory against a bitter rival on the first Christmas in a brand-new home. Christmas doesn’t get any better!