Rick Carlisle: A coach who continues to improve!

Rick Carlisle, 65 years old this year, is still looking for ways to improve himself and still looking for opportunities to gain an advantage in the world's highest-level and strongest opponents. Just like the Pacers under their rule, they are the offensive team in the regular season, and instead suppress the East District leader Cavaliers on the defensive end of the playoffs.

Over time, Carlisle is on his second journey to coach the Pacers, pursuing Halliburton as the core, chasing the second NBA championship trophy in his coaching career. His first championship was in 2011 to lead the Mavericks. After eliminating the 64-win Cavaliers in 5 games, the Pacers entered the Eastern Conference Finals for two consecutive years with a stance that fell below everyone's glasses, and currently only 8 wins are left to his second championship goal.

"If your lifelong ambition is leadership and teaching, then becoming an NBA coach is the ultimate test field. Everything is at an extremely high level. It is a fanatical game. You have to learn from the mistakes you make, and you have to learn from other excellent coaches. For example, Popovich, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley. I worked under Chuck Daly for two years and Bill Fitch for three years. They are all top and Hall of Fame coaches. You have to try to draw on the vision you get from working with these people and build friendships with them."

This is the perfect first half of Carlisle's fourth game against the Cavaliers, cracking the answer given after he put the team in a tough battle of 32 zone defense two days ago.

And the coaches he mentioned have won NBA championships, and everyone except Bill Fitch has won at least two championships. Carlisle is now trying to become the 15th coach in history to hold two championships.

Phil Jackson led the Bulls to win 6 championships, Los Angeles Lakers to 5 championships, Riley led the Lakers to 4 championships, and won another championship in Miami in 2005. Alex Hannum led the St. Louis Hawks (1957-58) and the Philadelphia 76ers (1966-67) to win the championships. They are the only three coaches in history to win the championship on two different teams.

After defeating the Cavaliers, Carlisle won the 79th playoff victory in his coaching career, tied with Rick Adelman to tie for 13th in history, only one game behind Lanny Wilkens and George Carl, only two games away from 10th KC Jones (81 wins). In addition, Carlisle also won 993 in the regular season, and is expected to become the 11th coach in history to reach a 1,000-win milestone at the beginning of next season. If the Pacers can win 50 wins next season, he will surpass Adelman (1,042 wins) to rise to 10th in history.

Recently when he first took office at the Detroit Pistons, Carlisle had a tough attitude towards players and management. The coaching Pistons and early Pacers both preferred slow-paced play, and even called out each tactic one by one on the sidelines. He was a veritable control freak.

Nowadays, although he is still strict and has high requirements for players, Carlisle is now learning to seek opinions from the outside world, so that the coaching team can be more autonomous, just as Larry Bird gave him the freedom to take charge of the Pacers' offense in the late 1990s. At that time, he was one of Bird's two assistant coaches. Carlisle is responsible for the offense and the defense is responsible for the late Dick Hart.

Now, Carlisle still likes to make decisions at critical moments and most of the time lets the players go. But when it is necessary to crack the Cavaliers' three-and-two-zone defense, Carlisle will still come off the field in person. This is the game battlefield for top NBA coaches. They face the league's top stars and teams, as well as the sharpest tactical arrangements of the opponent's coaches. The competition is fierce off-court, and the ability to adjust instantly on the court is more critical.

In the late 2000s, Carlisle had already stopped frequent control of the game from the sidelines in his first season when the team started the season slowly, but Jason Kidd was one of the smartest point guards in history. Carlisle realized that Kidd could analyze the situation on the field with the same understanding as he did, and finally decided to let Kidd go and let Kidd command the situation on the field independently. In the end, Dallas won 50 games that season and reached the Western Conference semifinals. Two years later, they won the championship, and Carlisle made a major adjustment in the series, allowing Barria to enter the starting lineup to improve the team's offensive rhythm. He even let Cardinal, who rarely plays, replace Peja, and the Mavericks finally defeated the then-promising Miami Heat in six games.

In 2005, Carlisle was nominated and elected as president of the National Basketball Coaches Association (NBCA), in which he will officially end his 20-year term as president of the NBCA in December 2026; he has vigorously promoted the establishment of the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 to recognize outstanding contributions in the field of coaching, named after Chuck Daly, the late coach who led the Pistons to win twice and also served as the head coach of the 1992 American Dream Team, and was eventually elected to the Naismith Hall of Fame.

During his second coaching at the Pacers, Carlisle faced a completely different team than the one he had faced in the Auburn Hills incident in 2004. The Pacers were full of potential and were led by Jermaine O'Neal, Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson, but this violence ruined everything.

And for today's Pacers, they still have conflicts, still have the habit of players, and are good at fighting at fast pace, but they will not have devastating fights. Although they rely on offense to sweep the league, if you can't get back to defense when converting offense, they will still beat you up. Carlisle found the most suitable way to liberate Halliburton, Nembhard, Turner and others.

During this time with the Pacers, Turner was involved in transaction rumors almost every year. Although he has been here for the 11th year, the journey has not been smooth, and it is difficult for him to find a suitable position when he partnered with Xiao Sa. Carlisle did not give him any promises when he came to the team, but made Turner believe that he could get support.

"He is the first head coach since I joined the league who has truly trusted my abilities, and he is the one who allows me to play freely. I think on a psychological level, I am in sync with him."

This is Miles Turner's direct evaluation of this mentor.