Pacers in NBA Finals, Worried about the Fever, and Reasons for Living in LA and Boone, NC

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. On this episode we’re talking about the Pacers in the NBA Finals, deciding if we should worry about the Indiana Fever, and explaining why we live where we live: Boone and Los Angeles.

We are also a video podcast. See window below:

Indiana Pacers Notes and Discussion Prompts:

From Game 1:

1. I’ve been harping on how bad team’s sideline out of bounds plays have been. There was no timeout on Haliburton’s game winner. (same with Cleveland game winner)
2. I texted you 19 turnovers in the first half but I was still hopeful because the game was still somewhat close. Ended with 24 to Thunder 6. Thunder ended with 16 more shots.
3. With this team, you just keep watching if they are within 20.
4. Pacers hit 18 threes to Thunder’s 11.
5. Think these two teams are more even than thought before. Pacers probably won’t shoot that well but they also might not turn the ball over that much. Great chance Dort from OKC won’t hit 5 threes.

We read Ramona Shelburne’s ESPN article titled “Why Tyrese Haliburton’s superstar ascension actually began three years ago.” Click here for article.

1. We have listeners who will say, I don’t watch the NBA. What would you tell them about Haliburton?
2. There’s this quote from the article: “This season he has hit an astounding 13-for-15 game-tying or game-winning shots in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime — the best field goal percentage in a single season since play-by-play was first tracked in 1996-97, per ESPN Research.”
3. It’s understood that if you take these shots, you’re going to miss plenty of them. The thing is to have the courage to keep taking them when you’ve missed. That’s not what is going on here.
4. When do you first remember noticing Haliburton as an NBA player? For me, it was his appearance on JJ Reddick’s podcast, “Old Man and the Three.”
5. From trainer Drew Hanlon: “The big quote that we always say is, ‘Sometimes being too unselfish is actually being selfish,'” Hanlen told ESPN Thursday night, as he waited for Haliburton by the Pacers family room in Oklahoma City. “When he’s unselfish, it actually negatively impacts his teammates’ success and negatively impacts his team’s success.The more aggressive he is, the more his team wins.”
6. I’ve never given a player a goal of shots to take but it makes me think of a couple of high percentage – low volume shooters that maybe I could have done this for.
7. Haliburton certainly doesn’t sound entitled. It sounds like he is self critical and needs to be pumped up occasionally.
8. Think this is a good sign that Haliburton would say this after hitting the game winner: I know I was terrible. I made the shot and everything, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. I can be better.”

Haliburton is 13-15 from the field with a chance to tie or take the lead with 2 mins or less to go. From @pitlessball on X. Click here for video.

1. Reminds me of this quote about LeBron from Rotella’s book How Champions Think:

“I did tell him that I thought he could benefit from one of the standard methods of sports psychology, visualization. I wanted him to see himself making three-point shots. I suggested that he ask the Cavaliers’ staff to make a highlight video for him, about eight to twelve minutes long. This video would be a LeBron James long-range shooting montage. It would have LeBron making threes off the dribble. It would show LeBron catching the ball and making threes spotting up. It could have some of LeBron’s favorite music in the background, helping him to attach the good feelings associated with that music to the act of shooting threes. He would watch it every night. As he fell asleep, he could conjure up images of himself making three-point shots against tall, quick, tenacious defenders. He could let them fill his dreams.”

Are we worried about the Indiana Fever?

1. Can Clark get and stay healthy? The team was constructed really well around Clark but she hasn’t been able to play. She’s like Curry and Jokic to the Fever. Just not very good without her.

Fever vs. Chicago Skye Notes:

• (1st ever prime time national network game)
• Anne, you said no stars. Angel Reese isn’t a star? Reese leading rebounder in W.
• Lexie, what is she from 3 in league?
• Vandersloot injured.
• Fever are a team without a point guard.
• Up 21-13 at the quarter. Chicago doesn’t have basket makers including Reese and Cardoso.
• Lexie Hull so much better than she used to be. Playmaking. Creating opportunities beyond stand and shoot.
• Game in United Center.
• Jordan Kent (play-by-play), Isis Young (analyst), and Tiffany Blackmon (sideline reporter).
• So much traveling!
• 41-28 at half. Ball popping better for the Fever. Seeing some of those extra passes that we’re used to with the Pacers.
• Ball goes from being in someone’s hands most of the time to moving from player to player more quickly.
• Team chemistry looks good.
• McDonald, Clark’s replacement, will be gone.
• Skye playing with two offensively unskilled bigs. Reese is Rodman, Gordan

Living on Purpose

I like to say I live in Boone, NC on purpose. You wanted to live in LA so much that you moved there without a job. Here are five reasons I live in Boone:

1. Green Mountains Water: Something inside me that is moved the most when I see green, water, and mountains. It doesn’t something to me that wide open landscape of corn fields, the Rocky Mountains, or the Grand Canyon doesn’t do. I think sitting next to the ocean is a close second. Mountain River Water: I think Stackhouse Access and The Ledges on the French Broad River are the two places that first evoked that feeling. Now I regularly am regularly standing in the shallow water of the Watauga River at the Valle Crucis Park.
2. College Town of Appalachian State
3. Place other people come on vacation.
4. The way 50 minutes in the woods can unwind tension.
5. People are friendly, chill, and helpful. That was not my experience driving the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, NY.

Other notes:

1. Anne went to see Phoenician Scheme.
2. I bought Landman from Amazon.
3. Anne was moved by the TikTok of the elephant rescuing the antelope. Click here to see video.
4. Anne thought one of these pens looked a lot better than the other and the one she liked the best didn’t work.

Thanks for checking out this episode of the Torg Stories Podcast!