Aaron Nesmith’s high school coach, John “JP” Pearson, learned years ago that his star player didn’t always stop at three baskets in a row.
Looking for ways to motivate Nesmith when he played at Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, S.C., Pearson would urge him to string together three straight 3-point makes within a game. Most high school players would struggle to achieve such streaks with any sort of consistency. But for Nesmith, Pearson found the number was not high enough.
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“He did it with ease,” Pearson said by phone Thursday.
The practice was intended to keep Nesmith from growing bored in games he would dominate. So when Nesmith completed the race too many times, Pearson pushed back the finish line. Instead of three straight makes, he asked for four. Then, once Nesmith started hitting that mark too regularly, Pearson demanded four straight makes in each half. Even with the bar higher, Pearson recalled, Nesmith continued to clear it.
“He just kept doing it,” Pearson said.
Pearson noted how hot Nesmith would get. How laser-focused he would be during his longer 3-point shooting streaks. So when Nesmith drilled his third straight 3-pointer on Wednesday night, Pearson perked up inside the “man cave” at his Charleston home. The Indiana Pacers trailed the New York Knicks by eight points with 2:04 left in Game 1, but they had already overcome similar deficits twice earlier in the playoffs. Plus, as Pearson could tell, Nesmith was ignited.
“This is feeling special,” Pearson thought.
How special? Nesmith became the first player ever to make six 3-pointers in the fourth quarter of an NBA playoff game, and he did it all in the final 4:46 without a single miss. After Indiana fell behind 113-98, Nesmith scored 20 points in less than five minutes. By draining three 3-pointers over the final 51 seconds of regulation, he dragged the Pacers out of a nine-point deficit even as the Knicks scored on four of their final five possessions. His unprecedented shooting flurry positioned Tyrese Haliburton to force overtime at the buzzer and allowed the Pacers to escape the series opener with a 138-135 win.
“It’s probably the best feeling in the world for me,” Nesmith said of his hot hand. “I love it when that basket feels like an ocean, and anything you toss up, you feel like it’s gonna go in. It’s just so much fun.”
a masterclass in efficiency from Aaron Nesmith in Game 1 of the @NBA Eastern Conference Finals 💯 pic.twitter.com/My54g8hcxL
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) May 22, 2025
This time, Nesmith didn’t get a hot hand against a high school rival. He did it against the Knicks. In Madison Square Garden. In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.
“I was stunned,” Pearson said. “I was not sure what I was looking at. He’s doing it in New York, in the NBA. And I was like, this might be history book stuff.”
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After Haliburton’s tying shot at the end of regulation dropped through the net, Pearson said it could have been the highest he had jumped in his life. By finishing off the win in overtime, the Pacers cemented Nesmith’s performance in franchise lore. Pearson believed Nesmith led the comeback not just with his remarkable shot making, but with an indomitable spirit that has turned him into one of Indiana’s most important players.
“His brain was supposed to shut it down and say, ‘Oh, let’s get ready for the next one,’” Pearson said. “He doesn’t. He is a different breed.”
In this year’s playoffs, the 25-year-old Nesmith is averaging 16 points and 6.1 rebounds, however, his teammates said his impact is greater than statistics. The Pacers are a team composed of guys who play for one another, but Nesmith is willing to put his body on the line to win. In Game 4 of Indiana’s second-round matchup against Milwaukee, Nesmith launched himself into the air for a block on Bobby Portis late in the third quarter. He made contact with Portis under the basket, lost his footing and fell flat on his back.
“I think what he brings doesn’t always show up on the score sheet,” Haliburton said. “Some people will say they’re willing to die for this. Double A (Nesmith’s nickname) is willing to die for this. He gives it his all every night. I think every team in the NBA wants a guy like Aaron Nesmith. Every team who wins big, and ultimately wins it all, always has a guy like Aaron Nesmith. Love having a guy like that in our group who will give it all for us.”
Nesmith himself said Haliburton is right about the sacrifices he’s willing to make to win. He flies up and down the court, looking for ways to help. Nesmith’s teammates praise his work ethic and his ability to step up in clutch situations.
“It’s pretty accurate,” Nesmith said. “This game is my life. I work so hard just to be able to do what I can do on a daily basis. I really would. I would go out there and give my life for this game. I want to win a championship. I think everybody in this room wants to win a championship. You have to sacrifice a lot to be able to do that.”
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Nesmith has also persevered through setbacks to earn his current role. On the night the Boston Celtics drafted him 14th overall in 2020, he labeled himself “an absolute sniper.” Danny Ainge, then Boston’s president of basketball operations, said Nesmith could outshoot most guys on the team already. Following a season in which Nesmith shot 52 percent from behind the arc at Vanderbilt, the claim didn’t seem preposterous. Ainge often drafted physically gifted players who needed to develop their outside shooting, but he believed in Nesmith’s outside stroke from the start.
It didn’t translate right away. While playing sporadic minutes over two seasons with the Celtics, Nesmith shot 31.8 percent on 3-point attempts, including a lowly 27 percent during his second season. Behind Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, on a roster that also included several veterans on the perimeter, Nesmith struggled to earn playing time. When he did play, his hustle often made more of an impact than his outside shot. He competed hard enough — and, perhaps, recklessly enough — that teammate Marcus Smart nicknamed him “Crash.” Jaylen Brown shared a meme in 2021 comparing Nesmith to “The Simpsons” character Ralph Wiggum diving through a window.
https://t.co/bEcn2Zh328 pic.twitter.com/rAnNqbqUGM
— Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) October 7, 2021
Though they joked about Nesmith’s style, the Celtics respected the way he embraced any challenge. His two years in Boston were trying. Unlike many lottery picks, he didn’t land on a team that could afford to let a young prospect play through mistakes. He didn’t receive more freedom on the court until the Celtics traded him in a package for Malcolm Brogdon after losing to the Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals. The Pacers needed everything Nesmith could do.
“He’s a hard worker. He’s done it the hard way. He got drafted by Boston. He was in a situation where he was behind a lot of great players that were more established, and he got some minutes (but) not a whole lot,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “But every day he was battling with (Jayson) Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and he got better and better.
“And when his opportunity came, he was traded to us. Early July of ’22, he flew to Vegas on his own and asked if he could play on the summer league team. And he was going into his third year, becoming a veteran, and he just wanted to be a part of something, to have an opportunity to grow and get better. And he’s worked and worked and worked, and now he’s obviously a very important part of our team.”
More than a shooter, Nesmith is one of the Pacers’ best defenders. He’s trusted with guarding opposing teams’ best players on a nightly basis. Nesmith has stepped up in these playoffs to defend Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.
“He does everything. (Wednesday) he made all these 3s. Then before that he’s guarding Brunson full court. And then even KAT, he’s guarding him,” Pacers All-Star Pascal Siakam said. “It doesn’t matter who’s out there, he’s gonna put his body on the line. He literally does everything, and is just selfless. He’s tough, tough. I watched him a little bit when he was in Boston. Just seeing his growth and how he’s able to play … just every single night, whatever we need from him, he’s doing that. I don’t think we asked him for those 3s, but he knocked them down. That was incredible to watch him get hot like that and doing that while also guarding their best player.”
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Backup point guard T.J. McConnell said Nesmith “basically willed” the Pacers back into Game 1. They trailed by 17 points with 6:26 left, by 14 points with 2:54 left and by nine points inside of the final minute, but his surge gave them a chance.
Travis Smith, an assistant on Pearson’s staff during Nesmith’s time in high school, could see Nesmith wasn’t ready to let go of the game yet. Though Nesmith’s first fourth-quarter 3-pointer only cut the deficit to 113-101 with 4:46 left, Smith felt hope after seeing the basket.
“One thing I know — and you saw it happen in the Cleveland series and the Milwaukee series — is he never quits,” Smith said. “A lot of guys, especially early in a series, they would have been like, ‘Yeah, you can have that one.’ That is not a part of his DNA. He’s gonna fight ’til the end. So once he hit the first one, I kind of sat up in my chair and I was like, ‘Uh oh.’ And then he started hitting, he caught fire, and you could see that desire in his eyes that he wasn’t gonna go out lightly. He was going to do everything that he could to try to salvage that game.”
Though it was Haliburton who revived Reggie Miller’s choke gesture, it was Nesmith who started bringing back old memories for Pacers fans. He rescued the team from an impossible situation against the Knicks, much like Miller did in Game 1 of a second-round series in 1995.
Late Wednesday night, after finishing his postgame interviews and physical treatment, Nesmith called Pearson to chat about the Indiana win. Though his high school coach had not yet calmed down from the excitement of the comeback, Nesmith sounded unfazed by the emotions of the moment.
“I’m over there telling him, ‘I’m not quite sure what I just saw, Aaron,’” Pearson said. “And Aaron was like, ‘Yeah, we won the game.’ And I told him, ‘No, Aaron, I was living when Reggie Miller did all that and it’s being compared right now.’ And he goes, ‘I don’t think I was born.’”
(Photo: Jason Miller/Getty Images)
