The most compelling series of the NBA's opening round is being decided on one side of the floor. It was their defense that enabled the No. 7 Pacers to win Game 1 at Toronto last weekend. The response by the No. 2 Raptors will determine whether they can reclaim the homecourt advantage in Game 3 on Thursday (7:30 ET, NBA TV).
All-Star scorers have come and gone through Indiana -- from Reggie Miller toJermaine O'Neal to Danny Granger and now Paul George -- and yet the foundation linking all of them has been the Pacers' devotion to the defensive end. That identity, according to team president Larry Bird, has been maintained by assistant coach Dan Burke dating back to his arrival in 1997.
"He's one of our most important guys," Bird says. "We've always been strong on the defensive end, and it's because of Dan. He's one of those guys; they don't get credit for what they do. He runs our defense and nobody knows about it."
Today's coaches, most of them are scared to death of the players. But Dan's not. Dan tells them the right thing. He never tells them any bull.
– Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird, on Dan Burke
Burke's influence on the East's most consistent franchise -- the Pacers' 21 playoff appearances rank No. 1 in the conference since 1990 -- is all the more remarkable considering his background. He was working for UPS and coaching high school football in Portland when his uncle Rick Adelman, an assistant in 1985-86 to coach Jack Ramsay, asked Burke to help the Trail Blazers part-time by breaking down video using VHS cassettes, which were cutting-edge in those days.
Eventually Burke was editing video of potential Draft picks for owner Paul Allen. By 1997, he was being hired to accompany Blazers' assistants Rick Carlisle and Dick Harter to Indiana for Bird's rookie year as coach.
"He was very instrumental in a lot of things we did," says Bird of Burke. "He had a big say in a lot of things. He knew the opposing players, he knew their tendencies, he knew what they were going to run at the end of the game. He was a big part of it from day one, and that's probably why he's still here."
The ultimate proof of Burke's importance is that he has survived as an assistant in spite of four coaching changes -- Bird, Isiah Thomas, Carlisle, Jim O'Brien and Frank Vogel have all valued him.
"Be really good at what you do: That's the simplest way to put it," says Vogel of Burke's secret to longevity. "I know how good he is."
A frank (yet fair) assessor of team, players
Burke did not envision a long-term stay when he moved his young family to Indianapolis: "I told my wife, 'We are in it now -- we're going to be moving every three years. Are you ready for that?' " Instead they've been able to take on challenges from a secure foundation. The younger of his two daughters was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes before she enrolled in school. His wife survived breast cancer, which was diagnosed on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Those kinds of things make you more entrenched in where you are," says Burke, 57, whose family is healthy, his children all grown up. "We've become Hoosiers."
"He survived through Isiah and the other guys also," says Bird. "He's a mainstay, he's done his job well -- why change? Now if we ever change coaches and they want somebody else, that's a different story. But all you got to do is look at what he's done over the last 19 years."
"So the most I can do is ask them their opinion. That doesn't mean we have to agree. But that is part of growth too. Sometimes you have disagreements. If they come to the bench and say, 'DB, can we try this?' Yeah, we will try it once, and we will do it that way if it works. And then you see a little more pep in their step, you see a little more resolve to get it done. It is a players' league, and you've really got to listen to them and ask them."
When to change and when to hold true to your identity -- this is the question that Burke and other defensive coordinators have been juggling in this small-ball era.
"Even in Game 1, there were a couple of times we could've switched," Burke says. "But we were so hell-bent defensively. Do you want to break that aggressiveness? It's something I've been struggling with all year."
The Pacers had been inconsistent offensively this season as they transitioned to a smaller, more mobile lineup.
"Our regular season was defined by us losing a lot of games in the last few minutes," Bird says. "We had a lot of leads we let go. We weren't closing games. We could have easily won 48 to 50 games this year. We were in a position to win that -- we didn't win it, and you are who you are. But in saying that, we had the year I thought we would have. Now it's playoff time and we feel like we can compete against anyone if we guard people, and that's what's going on. We hope we can keep them down to 35-40 percent shooting, run them off the 3-point line and get a lot of help (on defense). If we can do that, we'll be fine."
It's asking a lot. And yet, as the playoffs began last weekend, Burke saw -- and more importantly heard -- teamwork that reminded him of their recent years of title contention.
"You're begging them to talk more out there and be more of a player-coached team again," says Burke. "These guys just don't talk. They talk back here," he says, gesturing to the locker room, "and they talk on the bus, and I'm sure everyone in the league has the same problem. But it was good to see some form of that, and some pride out there.
"It was the first game I can honestly say that we wore a team down this year. We used to pride ourselves on that. And (the Raptors) will probably dispute it. They're waiting for us to kind of crack and go on a 0-8 run. But we went the other way. And that was the first game all year I saw that much grit and resolve from our guys."
But the questions in a playoff series continue to pop up faster than leaks in a lifeboat. As successful as the Pacers have been defensively against DeRozan, they were hopeless against center Jonas Valanciunas (23 points and 15 rebounds) in Toronto's Game 2 win. Adding to Burke's misery was the increasing aggression of Lowry (10 free throws and nine assists) and the news that a lower-back strain was raising doubts of Mahinmi's availability for Game 3. And so it will be interesting to see what Burke has to say coming out of the locker room at halftime on Thursday.
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