Between ruling Tyrese Haliburton out and eulogizing his friend and NBA legend Bill Walton, Rick Carlisle gave due credit to someone he overlooked Saturday night.
Remember that crazy football play the Pacers ran at the end of Game 3 that almost worked? The inbounds play where three, four Pacer players lined up like wide receivers, ran crossing routes downhill, confusing the Celtics? Aaron Nesmith broke free in the corner, had an open look at a game-tying 3 and nearly made it?
OK. After the game, I asked Carlisle about the play, and he said assistant coach Mike Weiner came up with it.
“I mean, we’ve had (the play) for a while…do you want me to just hand you our playbook,” Carlisle said Saturday. “It’s a play that was conceived by (Pacers assistant coach) Mike Weinar, who came up with it. We’ve used it a couple times over the last couple of years and gotten pretty good looks on it. If the same situation happens next game, we’ll use something a little bit different and hope we get the same kind of look.”
To Carlisle’s credit, he corrected the record Monday. It was actually assistant Jenny Boucek, one of the handful of female assistant coaches in the NBA, who introduced the play to the Pacers.
“I misspoke…and Mike came to me after the game and insisted that I correct that,” Carlisle said, in telling assembled reporters it was Boucek’s play.
“It’s an interesting story, it was born of the experience she had playing flag football,” Carlisle said. “Her and Sue Bird had talked about that concept of the play, using some football-type concepts to try and get a good look late in the game.”
Boucek, 50, is the former coach of the Seattle Storm in the WNBA and a close friend to Bird, the women’s basketball legend. She also played flag football when she worked as an assistant coach for the Miami Sol two decades ago, and from there she developed the concept of the play the Pacers ran.
To her credit, she said Weiner suggested the Pacers run the play against Boston.