Derek Schultz: Rivals and villains

Entering Friday night’s critical Game 6, the Pacers once again find themselves locked in a back-and-forth battle with a familiar foe in the New York Knicks. This is the eighth postseason matchup between the two franchises and the latest chapter in an epic rivalry that spans three decades.

While any deep Pacers postseason run was going to come with attention and drama—heck, this is the first time Indiana has advanced in the NBA Playoffs in 10 years—there is added vitriol when it comes to the Knicks, who fans here view as having not only the national media talking heads, but even the referees, in their pocket. While the thought of a league-wide conspiracy favoring a team that hasn’t won a championship in over a half-century is absurd, that belief, however misguided, has added fuel to the fire of this rivalry, which has burned for three generations.

Indy sports fan hatred is not limited to the Knicks, though, as several other teams and individual players have emerged as villains in the Indianapolis sports landscape over the years, many of whom still inspire revulsion to this day.

New England Patriots

This list couldn’t possibly begin with anyone else. From Willie McGinest’s infamous “injury” delay turning into a goal-line stand at the RCA Dome in 2003 to DeflateGate spiraling into a nationwide controversy in early 2015, Colts-Patriots had everything you could’ve wanted in a rivalry. Two of the biggest stars in football history—Peyton Manning and Tom Brady—were the faces of this matchup, along with perhaps the sport’s greatest coach, Bill Belichick, playing the role of the emperor overseeing these battles between Indy’s Luke Skywalker (Manning) and New England’s Darth Vader (Brady).

Following back-to-back AFC Championship Game losses in the 2003 and 2004 seasons, the Colts briefly seized the upper hand, winning five of the next six matchups, including the greatest victory (2006 AFC Championship Game) and one of the greatest comebacks (2009 regular-season win) in their Indianapolis history. However, a pivotal December regular-season game between the two in 2021, clinched by Jonathan Taylor’s memorable 67-yard touchdown run, has been one of the few highlights since as the rivalry has largely been dormant in the decade since the last time the Colts were a serious NFL contender.

Biggest villain: Brady—you can make an argument here for Belichick, but Brady is easily the most reviled individual figure in Indiana sports history. He’s number one with a bullet.

Detroit Pistons

While they never quite reached Knicks-level hatred, the Pistons are to blame for halting Reggie Miller’s last chances for an elusive NBA Championship ring and for leading the Pacers into one of the darkest incidents and periods in their NBA history.

Although the two teams shared the same division and over the years many of the same figures—Larry Brown, George Irvine and Rick Carlisle coached for both franchises, not to mention Detroit legend Isiah Thomas getting his first head coaching job in Indiana—the Pacers and Pistons largely have had a nondescript history outside of that two-season window.

But, man, what a two years it was! After winning a franchise-record 61 games during the 2003-2004 season, the Pacers entered the 2004 playoffs as the top seed in the East. Marching to the Eastern Conference Finals, Indiana was stymied by the Pistons’ suffocating defense, averaging just 72 points per game (the Pacers scored over double that amount in three separate games against the Hawks this season) in a six-game series loss. That series included Tayshaun Prince’s chase-down block of Reggie Miller in Game 2, one of the most heartbreaking plays of Indiana sports lore, which swung the series in eventual champ Detroit’s favor.

Entering the following fall as a title contender, the Pacers’ season was upended by The Brawl, an incident that was largely precipitated by Pistons star Ben Wallace and an unruly fan in Detroit yet blamed almost entirely on Indiana.

I don’t think I really need to rehash the details here, but the franchise took years to recover from the fallout. Despite rallying late in the year for a playoff berth and first-round series win, the Pacers were eliminated by the Pistons again to officially end Miller’s Hall of Fame career.

Biggest villain: Wallace—unlike the Patriots, there isn’t a clear go-to here, but I’m choosing the person who goaded Ron Artest (who didn’t exactly cloak himself in glory that night, either) into the reaction that sparked The Brawl.

San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers

If we’re talking pure heartbreaking defeats for Indianapolis/Indiana teams, the Chargers trail only the Knicks and Patriots. Weirdly, the Chargers were a thorn in the side of the Colts during their apex in the mid-to-late 2000s, ending the Colts’ quest for an undefeated season in the 14th game of the 2005 season, and eliminating Indianapolis from the playoffs in back-to-back years in 2007 and 2008.

Speaking of weird, this rivalry had its share of outlier performances and outlier players. In 2007, Peyton Manning tossed a career-high six interceptions in a “Sunday Night Football” game in San Diego, a game that was lost on a missed 29-yard field goal by Adam Vinatieri (he also missed three kicks in an overtime loss to the Chargers in 2019). Later that season, Chargers backup quarterback Billy Volek led the game-winning touchdown drive in the Divisional Playoffs to oust the 13-win Colts and close the doors on the RCA Dome forever.

The Colts went on to lose to San Diego the next January, too, this time to the 8-8 Chargers, led by a punter in Mike Scifres, who pinned all six of his punts inside the Colts’ 20-yard line (a mind-numbing 52.7 yards per punt average) and utility man extraordinaire Darren Sproles, who accounted for 328 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns. The Colts have defeated the Chargers just twice overall since the 2004 season, which is their worst winning percentage (2-8, .200) against any AFC opponent.

Biggest villain: Sproles—besides the aforementioned playoff loss in the 2008 season, he had a kick and punt return touchdown in the same game against the Colts in 2007, had 107 total yards and two touchdowns in a 55-point win over the Colts as a member of the Saints in 2011, and ran up a career-high 152 yards receiving and another score in a 2014 “Monday Night Football” game in Indy for Philadelphia. A return man and second running back for a large majority of his career, Sproles demoralized the Colts with multiple NFL teams.

Kentucky Colonels

Going in the Wayback Machine for this one, but how can you have an Indianapolis pro sports rivalry list without the first rival? Both flagship franchises of the ABA beginning in 1967, the Pacers got the best of Kentucky in each of their first two runs to the ABA Finals, knocking out their neighbors to the south in the division semifinals in 1969 and again in 1970, en route to the franchise’s first-ever championship.

After the Pacers were shifted to the ABA’s Western Division, the teams met again in the postseason, this time in an epic, seven-game ABA Finals battle in 1973, which secured the Pacers’ third championship. Kentucky finally got the better end of a postseason duel with their rivals in the league’s final two seasons, winning their first and only ABA title by bouncing Indiana in the 1975 finals. Some of the greatest basketball players of the era participated in this rivalry, with George McGinnis, Roger Brown and Mel Daniels on the Indiana side, and Dan Issel, Artis Gilmore and Louie Dampier leading the Colonels.

Of the six remaining ABA franchises at the end of the 1976 season, the Pacers and three others were merged into the NBA, but the Colonels, despite being the winningest team in ABA history, were left out. Had some of those early playoff matchups gone the other way, perhaps we would be having a different conversation today. Regardless, Louisville has been a minor-league sports town ever since, while Indianapolis has enjoyed nearly a half-century of NBA basketball with the Pacers and 40 seasons of the Colts as an NFL franchise.

Biggest villain: Dampier—a native Hoosier, he spurned his home state to wear Kentucky blue for nearly the rest of his basketball career. He’s a member of both the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame (as well as the Naismith), but most of his major accomplishments came in the Bluegrass State, where he was a two-time All-American at UK and a seven-time ABA All-Star as a Colonel.•

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From Peyton Manning’s peak with the Colts to the Pacers’ most recent roster makeover, Schultz has talked about it all as a sports personality in Indianapolis for more than 15 years. Besides his written work with IBJ, he’s active in podcasting and show hosting. You can follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @Schultz975.

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to reflect that this is the eighth post-season meeting between the Pacers and the Knicks.