NBA Finals
The Athletic has live coverage of Pacers vs. Thunder Game 1 from the 2025 NBA Finals.
INDIANAPOLIS — The scene spoke to this team’s hard luck history, all the way back to the night it nearly died.
The Indiana Pacers were on the verge of collapse in July 1977, broke and bereft of hope, desperate enough to host a 16-hour telethon on local TV in hopes of selling a preposterous number of tickets — 8,000 of them — just to climb out of debt and live to see another season.
Nancy Leonard wasn’t just there that night; along with her husband, coach Bobby “Slick” Leonard, she was the reason the Pacers survived. They sold 8,028.
