Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey was born in this city, and raised just over the state line in rural Kentucky.
His mother was an Indiana Pacers fan. His brother and sister are Pacers fans. The local paper had him run through his native bona fides, name-checking streets and recalling the creek he used to chuck rocks into.
"The Pacers legacy is still in [my] family," Casey said. "Except when they play [Casey-coached teams] Seattle, Dallas and now Toronto."
As it pertains to basketball, Indiana is close to the main folkloric source. They've got the history. What have the Raptors got? At the moment, everything else.
Led by a resurgent DeMar DeRozan, Toronto came to Indiana and embarrassed the series' pedigree franchise. Unless something changes in a hurry, inertia has gotten on top of the Pacers and is now carrying them downhill at a jarring and accelerating rate.
Looking completely untroubled and on-point at every position and in every phase of the game, the Raptors dismantled the Pacers 101-85. You have to reach back to the turn of the century to locate a Toronto team with a 2-1 series advantage in the post-season.
Exactly how unusual was Thursday's result? It was only the fifth road playoff game won by the Toronto organization. Ever.
Assuming you are rooting for the Raptors, you will know how it feels to be a Pacers fan right now. You lived it for 20 years.
Asked ahead of the game whether he'd yet seen the best from his opponents, Frank Vogel, the irrepressible flibbertigibbet who coaches the Pacers said, "No."
When he realized everyone was hoping to hear something slightly more expansive, he segued into a small soliloquy about DeRozan's as-yet unrealized capabilities.
A couple of hours later, Vogel got what he wasn't wishing for.
His detailed post-contest breakdown? "They outplayed us in most areas."
DeRozan had been miserable in the first two games, neither making his shots nor getting to the line. In the first quarter here, he had 12 points and shot six free throws. By the simple eye test, he seemed to be moving more freely, doing what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. The Pacers have only one discernible X factor – Paul George. When he is operating at his best, DeRozan offsets it. His influence faded as the game went on, but Kyle Lowry only increased his own. That was more than enough.
While DeRozan and friends were going off, the crowd was beginning to lose it. The Bankers Life Fieldhouse is one of the great environments in the NBA. It has that hothouse atmosphere that can only be created in arenas that are built for a single sporting purpose. The residents don't like being shown up, and especially not by visitors flying under foreign flags.
The tone was set in the early going, when the anthem singer flubbed the lyrics to O Canada.
As the Raptors began to dominate the game and the calls started going against them, the crowd got surly. But in a totally Midwestern way.
"These. Refs. Suck," they chanted. These people will allow themselves the luxury of rage, but they want to be crude. There are children to think of.
At one break in play, someone appeared to toss a small, souvenir basketball at Casey. Showing his own Indiana roots, the coach walked out onto the court, retrieved the ball and tried to give it back.
A few more 'bad' calls.
"You're pitiful," one well-exercised gentleman bellowed. "Go back to Canada, ref!"
Since lead official James Capers, Jr. is from Chicago, that will be a refugee hearing worth keeping track of.
The Pacers players seemed overtaken by the emotion of their fans. At one point, Rodney Stuckey tried to kick Patrick Patterson. In keeping with the night's theme, he missed. He got a technical anyway.
As the home crowd stewed, Toronto's travelling support was on its feet, rubbing it in. They were scattered about the arena in small red-and-black pockets, but clearly audible throughout. It is amazing how unsettled any crowd of 20,000 becomes when it realizes it's being out-cheered by a couple of hundred dissenters. It's a sort of de facto heckling that is so rare in North American sports.
Since basketball is a game of runs, you knew the Pacers were going to mount at least one. It came at the start of the second half. Fielding their starting line-up – one that now looks like their weakest (but not exactly weak) alignment – Toronto weathered it. A 17-point half-time advantage was whittled, but never taken under double digits.
It has been a worrying habit of the Raptors over the last couple of seasons to give back big leads. More often than not, they hold on, but they do love to inject some theatre into what should be dreary, one-sided contests. Not on Thursday. This was front-to-back dominance.
When Kyle Lowry picked up a bobbled ball and sank an off-balance three with the shot clock hitting zero, the audience had had enough. Though there were five minutes left in the game, a third of crowd got up and left during the next timeout.
"We still believe!" the arena MC screamed. Well, maybe he did. But he's on the payroll.
The Raptors didn't just look good. They looked calm.
The only person who could find fault was the predictable one – Casey. No coach is ever happy, but where was he on his happiness meter?
"Very low. Very, very low," Casey said. "There's so many things we could do better."
Just imagine how the Pacers must be feeling. There was nothing in their performance to suggest a letdown. Rather, they were simply over-matched.
If you've ever been here, this city has the salt-of-the-earth feel America hopes it projects from sea-to-sea, but sometimes can't. The effect is so genuine; it can sometimes drift charmingly into satire.
Only this state would have small, humble-bragging advertisements papered around their arena, including such superlatives as "Second largest FedEx hub in the world," "AAA credit rating from all 3 agencies" and "Non-stop international freight service to Asia."
Hashtag IN(diana)Works.
I'm sure that's true. It certainly has been in the past when it comes to basketball specifically.
But not in this venue, and not right now.
Follow me on Twitter: @cathalkelly
Cathal Kelly