Pacers have 1 last shot to give Reggie Miller a championship

INDIANAPOLIS -- Reggie Miller still has some unfinished business before he leaves basketball for good.\nThe Indiana Pacers threw a raucous, emotional retirement party for their all-everything player after his final regular-season game. But he still has the playoffs, starting Saturday at Boston, and one last chance to win a championship ring that has eluded him for 18 years.\nIt won't be easy.\nA season that began with high expectations and a realistic chance for an NBA title crumbled that night in November when a Detroit fan hurled a cup of beer that landed on Ron Artest, who charged into the stands at The Palace and triggered a wild free-for-all. The Pacers won the game but lost Artest for the rest of the season.\nJermaine O'Neal and Stephen Jackson also drew lengthy suspensions for their roles in the brawl, and injuries began piling up as everyone else had to log more playing time. Still, with a seemingly rejuvenated Miller leading a late surge, the Pacers won 11 of their final 16 games and finished at 44-38 with Wednesday night's 85-83 victory over Chicago.\nThe 39-year-old Miller had 12 points, winding up with 25,279 for 12th place in NBA career scoring.\nNow it's on to the playoffs.\n"We've got a chance. Obviously, we won't be at full strength, but who really cares?" Miller said after the game. "Everyone starts 0-0. Maybe we can get on another little hot streak like we were two weeks ago or \nsomething. We've got to find ways to win ball games."\nO'Neal, who played only 43 games because of the suspension and a shoulder injury late in the season, averaged 24 points a game; Jackson, who played in just 50 games because of his suspension, averaged 18.7. Guard Jamaal Tinsley averaged 15.4 but played in just 40 games with a variety of ailments. He missed the final 27 games because of a bruised foot but was added to the 12-man playoff roster Thursday in place of rookie center John Edwards.\nInjuries, illnesses and suspensions cost Indiana a combined 436 player-games, including 195 games by the five who were projected at the beginning of the season to be the starters -- but ended up not playing a single game together.\n"We needed to regroup," Jackson said. "I think we can go out there and play basketball."\nThis will be the third straight year the Pacers and Celtics have played in the opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.\nTwo years ago, Boston won the series 4 games to 2. Last year, Indiana swept the Celtics in the first round, beat Miami 4-2 in the second round and lost to Detroit 4-2 in the conference finals.\n"We'll have to piece it together. Boston, to me, has been one of the surprise teams this year," said Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, a former Celtics teammate of Pacers president Larry Bird.\nBoston, which finished 45-37, lost the season series with Indiana 2-1, but all those games were played before the Celtics acquired forward Antoine Walker from Atlanta on Feb. 24. The Celtics earned the third playoff seed by finishing first in the conference's Atlantic Division. The Pacers, third in the Central Division, got the sixth seed in the East.\n"It's been a great team effort, getting guys to step up every night," Jackson said. "We've got to go out from Game 1 of this series and play with a sense of urgency. We've got to go out there and play like it's the NBA Finals."\nFor Miller, who reached the Finals only once, losing in six games to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000, each game, each playoff series might well be his last.\n"I was born in California, raised in Indiana," he said. "Donnie Walsh (Pacers CEO) gave me the opportunity to stay here for 18 years and I tried to give him back what I could. We want the championship that's still missing"