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Dan Campbell is heading into his fifth year as the head coach of the Lions, and he has revitalized a franchise that was in bad shape before he arrived. But there are also questions about his team, which lost its offensive and defensive coordinators, had a rash of injuries on defense, and has a difficult schedule with a preseason that starts early.

Campbell was asked about any concerns he might have and dismissed the idea that he would be worried about anything at all.

“I’m not worried that we don’t have pass rush, I’m not worried that we lost two coordinators, I’m not worried about injuries, I’m not worried about the Hall of Fame Game, I’m not worried about the schedule,” Campbell said. “I think it’s perfect. I think it lines up perfect. I think it’s gonna be what’s best for us with where we’re at going into 2025, my fifth year, the corps of the team’s fifth year. I really think it’s exactly what we’re going to need. The timing is perfect.”

For most of last season, the Lions looked like the best team in the NFL, but they fell short in the postseason thanks in large part to a brutal slate of injuries on defense. Again, Campbell isn’t worried about that.

“There’s not a damn thing we could do about injuries. Nobody can,” Campbell said. “I’m not worried, and the things you would worry about are the things every team would worry about, injuries. If we have another 20 injuries, yeah, that’s an issue, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

The Israeli military said it was “unaware of injuries caused by IDF fire within the humanitarian aid distribution site,” adding that “the matter is still under review.”

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which began distributing aid in the enclave last week as part of a new U.S. and Israel-backed plan, said that it delivered 16 trucks of food “without incident,” and denied reports of “deaths, mass injuries and chaos” at its distribution sites.

GHF was tasked with distributing aid in Gaza after Israel earlier this month lifted an almost three-month-long blockade barring the entry of food, medicine and other vital supplies following warnings of rising starvation in the enclave.

But its first week in operations has been marred by controversy and chaos.

Last week, thousands of hungry Palestinians flooded one of their distribution centers and Israeli soldiers fired live rounds into the air to disperse crowds.

The GHF rejected statements by Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office that three Palestinians were killed, 46 others injured and seven people were missing after the incident. The foundation said that no one was killed while trying to access its distribution site.

GHF’s former executive director, Jake Wood, also quit the organization ahead of its operations in Gaza, saying it was impossible to implement the plan while also adhering to the “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence,” according to a statement published by Reuters.

The United Nations, which has refused to participate in the plan, has condemned the GHF initiative as a “distraction” that undermines a long-standing humanitarian framework in Gaza. The U.N. says the effort poses a threat to the independence of aid operations, while simultaneously displacing Palestinians en masse to Gaza’s south.

Israel has maintained that a new aid distribution system was necessary, alleging that Hamas was diverting supplies.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict.

Since then, more than 54,000 people, including thousands of children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the enclave, which has been run by Hamas since 2007.

WASHINGTON — Back in Donald Trump’s first term, his staff decided they’d tuck into his briefing book a few letters from ordinary Americans who’d written to the White House.

Only certain letters made the cut, though.

Aides made a point of sending Trump the flattering mail while holding back the letters panning his work, a White House official in the last term said.

“Someone quite rightly thought that if we wanted to have any chance of him reading them consistently, it would be good if they were positive and praise-worthy,” the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

All presidents say they want to keep in touch with typical Americans; few succeed. Everything about the job conspires against unscripted encounters that can enlighten a president about what’s truly on peoples’ minds.

Armed guards shadow him while protective aides may shield him from bad reviews. Even the few souls who pierce the bubblewrap and get an audience with the president may find themselves too intimidated by the trappings of power to blurt out an unvarnished truth.

“When you are president, you are in a space where everyone comes to you, and most of them are people you’ve selected to come to you,” said Fred Ryan, who oversaw appointments and scheduling in Ronald Reagan’s White House. “And most people want to bring you good news rather than bad news.”

This time around, Trump is looking and sounding insulated from the voters who put him back in the White House. That’s a problem even for a second-term president who may have run his last campaign. Trump’s political strength flows from an emotional connection to a loyal base. If he’s perceived as oblivious to people’s day-to-day concerns, he’s at risk of losing a vital grassroots connection that is a source of Republican fealty.

Surrounded by wealth

Trump’s travels suggest a homebody on a gilded perch.

By the end of May, he had spent 14 of his 18 weekends at one of his golf clubs or other properties. Over and over, he has returned to his Mar-a-Lago residence, a private club in Palm Beach where the membership fee is $1 million and guests applaud when he enters the restaurant.

Rallies have long been a way for Trump to connect with the “Front Row Joes” and other hardcore voters who travel hundreds of miles and camp out overnight to see him speak live and maybe grab a selfie with him on the rope line. Not having to worry about reelection, he’s cut back on rallies, holding just one since the day he was sworn in, versus four in the opening months of his last term.

“He needs to talk to more regular people and listen to them,” said Christopher Malick, 28, who works at a roofing company in Cleveland, Ohio and said he voted for Trump in the last three elections. “He needs to be talking to people who aren’t just his inner circle.”

Billionaires run major parts of Trump’s government, and the well-connected get access.

Last month found the president at his golf club outside Washington, D.C. hosting a dinner for 220 crypto investors who’d bought into his meme coin, $TRUMP. The event was advertised as “the most exclusive invitation in the world.”

With some of the guests clutching their phones to trade on any market-moving news Trump might make, the audience dined on filet mignon and pan-seared halibut as protesters stood outside.

The coin was launched just a few days before Trump was sworn in. One of the guests at the event, Morten Christensen, who lives in Mexico, came away feeling the demonstrators had a point.

“If I was in his [Trump’s] position, I personally would not have done that,” Christensen, founder of the crypto company Airdrop Alert, said of the coin’s timing. “It’s just a bad look — right before you become the most powerful man in the world.”

Asked how he reaches the working people who elected him, Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” last month: “I think I get out quite a bit.”

He mentioned a commencement speech he had given at the University of Alabama, hastening to add that he won the state handily in 2024.

“The president since entering politics has showcased a unique way of having his finger on the pulse of the American public,” Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said in an interview. “He stays connected through multiple public appearances in middle America, reading correspondence, being a consumer of the news, and inviting everyday Americans to the White House and to campaign events.”

“While most presidents are driven by staged and stuffy political events, this president has preferred a more organic and authentic approach to connecting with the American people,” Fields added.

Still, Trump is surrounded by wealth.

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, carried out Trump’s plan to slash the the government workforce. A billionaire Wall Street executive, Howard Lutnick, is negotiating Trumps’ trade deals; a billionaire hedge fund manager, Scott Bessent, is presiding over the U.S. economy; a billionaire real estate magnate, Steven Witkoff, is conducting high-level diplomacy.

Economic policies coming out of the Trump administration skew in favor of the rich, budget analysts say. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” that Trump is trying to push through Congress mixes tax and spending cuts in ways that would shave income for the bottom tenth of the U.S. population by 2% in 2027, and raise it for the top tenth by 4% that year, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

At the same time, retailers like Walmart have cautioned that Trump’s tariffs will drive up prices, squeezing some of the low-and middle-class voters he peeled away from Democrats. Exit polls showed that in the 2024 election, those with family incomes under $50,000 favored Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris by 50%-48%.

Trump’s speaking style — raw and unrestrained — has proved a reliable political asset over the years. In this moment, his language may be widening the gulf between the nation and its leader. Defending his tariffs, Trump said that children may have to make do with “two dolls instead of 30,” a remark that some saw as insensitive.

In a focus group, a Wisconsin swing voter who supported Trump in the last election told the research company Engagious that Trump’s comment about dolls reminded him of Marie Antoinette, the 18^th century French queen associated with the comment, “Let them eat cake.”

“It rubbed me the wrong way when he said that,” the 49-year-old Wisconsin man said. “It just seemed like a disconnect with the average American person.”

Trump’s fascination with the word “groceries” may be another disconnect. “It’s such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term: groceries,” he said at his Rose Garden event at which he announced a series of steep foreign tariffs, later postponed. “It sort of says a bag with different things in it.”

For most Americans who shop for the stuff, there’s nothing old-fashioned or particularly beautiful about groceries; they’re a necessity.

Same with a stroller. But Trump failed to summon the word when talking about prices last month on Air Force One: “The thing that you carry the babies around in,” he called it.

How the most powerful man in the world tries to appear the everyman

Various presidents used different methods to avoid being cocooned.

Joe Biden’s religious faith proved a blessing in every sense. A practicing Catholic, Biden regularly attended Mass, sitting in the pews and patiently waiting his turn for communion with fellow parishioners.

Barack Obama routinely read letters culled by his White House staff.

“Some of them are funny; some of them are angry,” Obama said during his first term. “A lot of them are sad or frustrated about their current situation.”

“These letters, I think, do more to keep me in touch with what’s happening around the country than just about anything else.”

Jimmy Carter once invited Americans to call in to him with questions as he sat in the White House with the moderator of the radio show, CBS’s Walter Cronkite.

At the end, Carter told the famed network anchor that he appreciated fielding questions that the White House press corps would never have asked, Barry Jagoda, a Carter White House aide who helped arrange the forum, said in an interview.

Technology has changed the game. Phone in hand, a president can now scroll through social media and soak in all the candid commentary he can stomach.

Trump posts regularly on his own site, Truth Social and often amplifies other users who’ve applauded his efforts. He reposted one person with fewer than 900 followers who questioned why former FBI director and Trump nemesis James Comey hasn’t been arrested.

Trump signals in various ways that despite his personal wealth, he sees and identifies with people of ordinary means. He gives off an accessible vibe.

“The American media loves to downplay or outright ignore how much President Trump enjoys being around normal, everyday people, and he listens to them,” Vice President JD Vance said in a prepared statement.

In February, Trump attended the Daytona 500 race and took laps around the track in his limousine, “The Beast.” The following month he went to see the college wrestling championship in Philadelphia and in April, he was on hand for a UFC fight in Miami.

“For all the Mar-a-Lago posh and polish, he also shows that he’s more of a regular guy than Biden was,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian.

Or, perhaps, George H.W. Bush. Running for president in 1988, Bush was ridiculed for telling a waitress at a New Hampshire truck stop he wanted “a splash” more coffee, feeding perceptions that he was an out-of-touch patrician.

Some voters may recoil at Trump’s intemperate language, by contrast, but his epithets may come off as human and relatable, allies say.

“He’s one of the most in-touch modern presidents,” said Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary for President George W. Bush. “He has an amazing intuitive feel of what working people think and want. It’s one of the reasons he can be so rude. He uses [the word] ‘scum’ in his Truth Social statements, which I find to be inappropriate but for a huge swath of the country it reinforces he’s not a politician.”

“He doesn’t do the things that everyone else in Washington who has lost touch with the country does,” Fleischer added. “He doesn’t pretend — he lets it rip.”

When he does escape the bubble and meet everyday Americans, he shows he’s willing to listen, some who’ve met him say.

Brian Pannebecker is a retired auto worker from Michigan who’s become a campaign surrogate, bringing fellow blue-collar workers to Trump campaign events.

Pannebecker, 65, recalled a moment during the 2024 campaign when he was invited to meet Trump backstage at a rally. Trump asked his opinion of Biden’s electric vehicle mandates and after hearing his critique, Trump shared it with the audience when he gave his speech, the former autoworker recalled.

“He’ll ask a question and then actually stand back and listen to you while you’re talking, even if you go on for a minute or two,” Pannebecker said in an interview. “He’s listening to you and trying to understand what your concerns are.”

Try as he might, a president’s best-intentioned efforts to get honest feedback from the public can fall flat. Take Ronald Reagan.

In 1982, he read a letter from an Arkansas woman who told him that her family’s excavation business was foundering and she and her husband were “starving slowly to death.”

Reagan drafted a handwritten reply saying he had kept her letter on his desk and “read it more than once.”

“I know no words of mine can make you feel any better about the situation in which you find yourselves,” Reagan wrote. He added that he had asked the Small Business Administration (SBA) to “check out your situation.”

The agency followed through. That’s when the story took an odd twist. A SBA official drove more than 100 miles and found the woman’s husband, who said the family was in fact financially stable and that his wife “gets needlessly excited from time to time.” He had no idea she had written to Reagan and he didn’t want a loan.

The government official later drove by the family’s home to see it for himself. He concluded it was “fairly expensive” with a boat in the yard worth about $6,000.

At that, the agency closed the file.

WARSAW, Poland — Poles began voting Sunday in a decisive presidential runoff that could set the course for the nation’s political future and its relations with the European Union.

The contest pits Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, a liberal pro-EU figure, against Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party.

The outcome will determine whether Poland continues along a nationalist path or pivots more decisively toward liberal democratic norms. With conservative President Andrzej Duda completing his second and final term, the new president will have significant influence over whether Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government can fulfill its centrist agenda, given the presidential power to veto laws.

Voting began at 7 a.m. local time and will end at 9 p.m., when an Ipsos exit poll is expected. Final results are likely to be announced Monday. The runoff follows a tightly contested first round on May 18, in which Trzaskowski won just over 31% and Nawrocki nearly 30%, eliminating 11 other candidates.

The campaign has highlighted stark ideological divides. Trzaskowski, 53, has promised to restore judicial independence, ease abortion restrictions, and promote constructive ties with European partners. Nawrocki, 42, has positioned himself as a defender of traditional Polish values, skeptical of the EU, and aligned with U.S. conservatives, including President Donald Trump.

Nawrocki’s candidacy has been clouded by allegations of past connections to criminal figures and participation in a violent street battle. He denies the criminal links but acknowledges having taken part in “noble” fights. The revelations have not appeared to dent his support among right-wing voters, many of whom see the allegations as politically motivated.

Amid rising security fears over Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine, both candidates support aid to Kyiv, though Nawrocki opposes NATO membership for Ukraine, while Trzaskowski supports it in the future.

Nawrocki’s campaign has echoed themes popular on the American right, including an emphasis on traditional values. His supporters feel that Trzaskowski, with his pro-EU views, would hand over control of key Polish affairs to larger European powers like France and Germany.

Many European centrists are rooting for Trzaskowski, seeing in him someone who would defend democratic values under pressure from authoritarian forces across the globe.

PARIS — The French Open isn’t the only sports event in Europe drawing attention from tennis players: The Champions League final will decide the continent’s best soccer club, and one of the two teams involved Saturday night is Paris Saint-Germain, whose stadium is a couple of blocks from Roland-Garros.

Count Novak Djokovic among those rooting for PSG against Italy’s Inter Milan, and he hoped to be able to tune in on TV to watch the big clash that’ll be held in Munich, Germany. So Djokovic made that preference known to the people in charge of arranging the program at the clay-court Grand Slam tournament he’s won three times — a common practice, especially among the sport’s elite.

They often ask to be scheduled at a certain time. Or to avoid a certain time.

“I will definitely watch it if I’m not playing (in the) night session. Yeah, that will be nice,” Djokovic said with a big smile. “FYI, Roland-Garros schedule.”

Hint, hint. Except his plea went unheeded: When Saturday’s order of play was released Friday, 24-time major champion Djokovic’s third-round match against Filip Misolic was the one picked for under the lights at Court Philippe-Chatrier due to begin at 8:15 p.m. local time, 45 minutes before Inter Milan vs. PSG starts.

Others who begged off from competing at that hour got their wish. Although one, Arthur Fils, the 14th-seeded Frenchman who grew up near Paris and is a big PSG fan, wound up pulling out of the tournament because of a stress fracture in his back after being placed in an afternoon match against No. 17 Andrey Rublev.

“We have many requests from players” every day, tournament director Amélie Mauresmo said. “There’s no fixed rule. We try to accommodate everyone as much as possible. That includes requests from players, broadcasters and spectators. … It’s a real puzzle, I won’t lie.”

Coco Gauff said she doesn’t often ask for a certain time slot, but when she does, it’s usually related to competing in singles and doubles on the same day (the American won the French Open doubles title last year but isn’t playing doubles this time).

The 2023 U.S. Open champion, who is currently No. 2 in singles, has noticed that events tend to listen more to elite players than others.

“If you’re ranked a little bit higher, they’ll hear more of your input, for sure,” Gauff said. “To be honest, I think it’s rightfully deserved. I feel like if you do well on tour, win so many tournaments, you should have a little bit more priority when it comes to that.”

Except even the very best of the best don’t always have success with these sorts of things.

Madison Keys, who was the U.S. Open runner-up in 2017 and won the Australian Open in January, knows what it’s like to be ignored.

“Sometimes the request goes (in), they write it down, and they say, ‘OK,’” but then don’t do anything about it, Keys said.

“I really think that it’s just kind of up to what the tournament wants, what TV wants, things like that,” she added. “Sometimes you kind of get what you ask for. And other times, you get the complete opposite.”

Just ask Djokovic.

“Whatever they schedule me, I have to accept,” he said earlier this season. “I think I earned my right to … (communicate) with the tournament management, where I can express what I would like, depending on a given day, depending on the opponent.”

Taylor Swift is enjoying her “Reputation” era again after breaking the news that she now owns her master recordings.

Swift announced in a May 30 letter on her website that after re-recording four of her albums — dubbed “Taylor’s Version” — she bought back all of her masters, including her 2006 self-titled debut and 2017’s “Reputation.”

Swift’s longtime friend and producer, Jack Antonoff, shared a video of the duo on X the night of May 30 as they enjoyed a “guilt free” listen of “Reputation” to celebrate the news.

In the clip, Swift and Antonoff sang the album’s ninth track, “Getaway Car” and re-created a viral moment from her 2020 documentary “Miss Americana” where they wrote the song together. Swift was initially carrying her cat Meredith at the start of the video before placing the feline down to finish the tune with Antonoff, who screamed as the clip ended.

“rep forever guilt free listening!” Antonoff captioned the post.

After re-recording four of her albums, including “Fearless,” “Speak Now,” “Red” and “1989,” Swift addressed in her May 30 letter to fans whether she would be re-releasing the rest of her first six albums to complete the project.

“What about Rep TV? Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it,” Swift wrote on her website. “The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it…To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or the photos, or the videos. So I kept putting it off.”

However, Swift shared, “I’ve already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now.”

Whether fans will get to hear “Taylor’s Version” of those two albums — or even just the vault tracks — remains unknown, with the singer writing, “But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”

After working with Swift on several tracks from 2014’s “1989,” Antonoff and Swift kicked off a long partnership of co-writing and producing her subsequent albums, including “Reputation,” “Lover,” “Folklore,” “Evermore,” “Midnights” and several songs on her most recent record, “The Tortured Poets Department.”

During an October 2023 appearance on “Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist,” Antonoff opened up about his friendship and working relationship with Swift over the decades, including why he thinks they work so well together.

“That relationship has gone on and on and on and I think we’ve just pushed each other endlessly,” Antonoff explained. “I could quantify our relationship in very reductive ways about the things we agree on, the sounds we like, but the truth is, we’ve just grown together. She’s put an amazing amount of belief in me.”

Valerie Mahaffey, known for playing Eve in the ‘90s TV series “Northern Exposure,” has died. She was 71.

The Emmy-winning actor died after a battle with cancer, her publicist confirmed in a statement.

In addition to starring in “Northern Exposure,” Mahaffey is known for playing Bitsy in Adam Sandler’s film “Jack and Jill” and Annie in 2003’s “Seabiscuit.” She also made notable appearances in shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives.”

Mahaffey was born in Indonesia in 1953. She went on to live in Nigeria, England, Canada and Texas. She is survived by husband Joseph Kell and her daughter, Alice Richards.

“I have lost the love of my life, and America has lost one of its most endearing actresses,” Kell said in a statement to TODAY.com. “She will be missed.”

Mahaffey began acting in the ‘70s when she booked the role of Catherine Howard in the Broadway musical “Rex.” While in New York City, she also took the stage for productions including “Dracula” and “Fearless Frank.” In 1977, she secured a small screen role in the TV movie “Tell Me My Name” before she played Ashley Bennett in the soap opera “The Doctors.”

That role earned Mahaffey her a Daytime Emmy nomination in 1980. She took home her first Emmy in 1992, winning outstanding supporting actress in a drama series for her work in “Northern Exposure.”

On X, fans mourned her death and celebrated her past performances.

“Very tragic. So sad. Amazing fun actress. Watch her in French Exit,” one account said.

Another wrote, “O Valerie Mahaffey thank you for giving us good cinematic moments RIP.”

The badly burned body of a young man was found Saturday in Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park, authorities said.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is helping local authorities investigate the discovery, spokesperson Nelly Miles said. Stone Mountain Department of Public Safety spokesperson John Bankhead said an autopsy by the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office was scheduled for Monday.

A hiker came across the body and reported it to authorities at about 8:18 a.m. Saturday, Bankhead said by phone. He described the location of the discovery as the side of the mountain opposite its walking trail and about 100 or more yards from a tower for its Summit Skyride, a Swiss cable car line to the top.

Bankhead said the location is not remote but is rarely hiked. “I hike here all the time and I didn’t know that was there,” he said.

The spokesperson told NBC affiliate WXIA of Atlanta: “It’s very odd, peculiar, no one that I’ve talked to that’s worked out here for years has seen anything like this at the park.”

He said Saturday night that authorities have a prospective identity for the man but have not verified it. Personal belongings, including a vehicle parked in the area, led investigators to the possible name, he said.

Authorities told WXIA that the fire associated with the body was also a focus for DeKalb County Fire Rescue Department arson investigators.

The park includes attractions like a lakeside resort and is run by a state authority and an amusement park management contractor.

It has drawn demonstrations and split opinions over what the park describes as the “largest high relief sculpture in the world” — a depiction of Confederate figures Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The first part of the sculpture was completed in 1924 and the last in 1972.

The mountain is about 20 miles east of Atlanta.

The Indiana Pacers advanced to the NBA Finals on Saturday, defeating the New York Knicks 125-108 in Game 6 of their conference finals matchup.

A year ago, the Pacers fell one round short of the championship series after losing in a four-game sweep to the Boston Celtics. This time, Indiana needed only five games to dispatch the Knicks, a longtime rival of the franchise.

The Pacers will face the Thunder in the finals, with the series starting on June 5 in Oklahoma City. The Thunder were the NBA’s best team during the regular season, winning 68 games.

Oklahoma City will have home-court advantage in the upcoming series.

Indiana was led to the championship round by point guard Tyrese Haliburton. Entering Game 6 against the Knicks, Haliburton was averaging 21.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 10.0 assists in the series.

The Pacers acquired the star guard midway through the 2021-22 season, trading All-Star forward Domantas Sabonis in exchange for Haliburton in a move that shocked the NBA. The ensuing summer, Indiana drafted guard Aaron Nembhard and traded for swingman Aaron Nesmith, both of whom have since played pivotal roles in the team’s starting lineup.

The Pacers also traded last season for forward Pascal Siakam, who was named to his third All-Star team earlier this year.

Indiana is known for its frenetic style of play. During the regular season, the Pacers finished seventh in the NBA in pace. The team has been one of the league’s best since the new year, posting a 34-14 record after January 1, fourth-best in the NBA.

Indiana finished fourth in the East after the hot close to the season, and then knocked off the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round for the second straight year. In the second round, the Pacers upset the 64-win Cleveland Cavaliers in only five games, taking out the conference’s top-seeded team. Then in the third, Indiana defeated New York in another postseason rematch from 2024.

The Pacers’ head coach is Rick Carlisle, who was previously an assistant for Indiana from 1997 to 2000, and then the team’s head coach from 2003 to 2007. Carlisle was the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks from 2008 to 2021, winning a championship with the team in 2011.

The showdown with the Thunder will be the Pacers’ second finals appearance and first since 2000, when they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games.

Indiana is one of 10 NBA franchises to have never won a championship.

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