"I'm sorry that their season had to end like this," Rick Carlisle said after his fourth-seeded Pacers eliminated Cleveland despite the Cavs' 64 wins and Coach of the Year honors.

Tyrese Haliburton scored 31 points, Pascal Siakam added 21 and the Indiana Pacers advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals with a 114-105 victory over Cleveland, eliminating the top-seeded Cavaliers in five games.

Indiana closed out a dominant series against the top-seeded Cavaliers in Game 5. "It’s a special feeling," Tyrese Haliburton said.

On Tuesday night, the Indiana Pacers closed out the No. 1 seeded Cleveland Cavaliers. In Game 5, the Pacers faced adversity, but were able to pull off another comeback and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight season.

The Pacers are back in the Eastern Conference finals, finishing off the Cavaliers with a 114-105 Game 5 win. Indiana is the only team to make the conference finals as a No. 4 seed or worse in consecutive years since the 1984 playoffs expansion.

Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle put it best in summing up his team’s finishing punch in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. “The winning team writes the script,” he said. The Pacers’ 114-105 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 5 on Tuesday night was similar to the first two games of the series.

As D-West highlighted, the Pacers were a much bigger team than the Heat, who used to play without a natural center during their title runs. "The 17-foot Assassin" and 7'2 Roy Hibbert outweighed everyone by at least 20 pounds, so they had to do what they had to do.

The East's top seed has been eliminated. With their 114-105 win in Game 5 on Tuesday night, the Indiana Pacers knocked out the No. 1 seed Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round of the 2025 NBA playoffs and clinched a spot in the Eastern Conference finals for the second consecutive season.