Indiana opens eyes with blowout of LeBron, Cavs

They've spent the entire season on the fringe, virtually ignored by all but the most savvy fans and NBA insiders.

They don't have any household names or any superstars on their roster, just one All-Star and a role player best known for foolish on-court antics.

Indiana Pacers' Thaddeus Young, right, drives to the basket against Cleveland Cavaliers' Cedi Osman, from Turkey, in the second half of Game 1 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series, Sunday, April 15, 2018, in Cleveland. Osman was called for a foul. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Indiana Pacers' Victor Oladipo, left, passes against Cleveland Cavaliers' Kevin Love in the second half of Game 1 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series, Sunday, April 15, 2018, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

But as the Indiana Pacers strolled quietly into practice on Monday at Quicken Loans Arena, a building they silenced less than 24 hours earlier with an eye-catching playoff win in Game 1 over the Cavaliers, there was something unmistakable about them.

They're confident — and they're no longer a secret.

"People didn't expect us to do this well," Pacers forward Thaddeus Young said, leaning back in a cushioned chair at the end of Indiana's bench. "We like that. That's what kind of drives our motor a little bit, being overlooked and no one expecting us to do what we're currently doing."

The Pacers were the better team — by far — on Sunday, leading from tip to final horn in a 98-80 victory over Cleveland that snapped a 21-game winning streak in the first round for LeBron James, who had never opened the playoffs before with a loss and figures to be more aggressive in Game 2 on Wednesday.

Indiana Pacers' Victor Oladipo (4) shoots against Cleveland Cavaliers' Rodney Hood (1) in the second half of Game 1 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series, Sunday, April 15, 2018, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Cleveland Cavaliers' JR Smith, left, looks to pass against Indiana Pacers' Cory Joseph in the second half of Game 1 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series, Sunday, April 15, 2018, in Cleveland. The Pacers won 98-80. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Led by Victor Oladipo's 32-point, tough-shot-after-tough-shot performance, Indiana outplayed, outhustled and outlasted Cleveland, giving the Pacers a 4-1 record this season against the three-time defending conference champions.

This may have been a surprise to outsiders, but it was just another day on the office hardwood for the Pacers, who won 48 games during the regular season and were the only team to beat Golden State twice.

Didn't know that, did you?

Well, most of Indiana's accomplishments have been woefully under-publicized. That's what happens when only one of your games is shown on national TV, you're playing in a mid-market city and you appeared to throw away the future by trading away your biggest star, Paul George, last summer.

But the lack of attention doesn't faze Pacers. It fuels them.

"They underestimate us," Lance Stephenson said, referring to everyone, not just those Cleveland fans taunting the Pacers on Sunday. "They didn't think we would get this far and they didn't think we was going to win that many games. But if you look at our team, I guess you could say we don't have that one player or the type of players that stand out, and that's why they underestimate us."

Stephenson, the Pacers' instigator, spark and arch-enemy to James, set the tone for Indiana's impressive win in Game 1 with a thunderous first-quarter dunk he celebrated by bashing his head into the padded basket stanchion.

"I'm a little dizzy right now," he joked before Monday's workout.

His teammates' heads aren't spinning after the series-opening win over the Cavs, who swept the Pacers in the first round a year ago. They expected to play well, and they did. The Pacers aren't flashy, but fundamental. They do the little things: boxing out, diving for loose balls, taking charges.

They've been successful by following coach Nate McMillan's simple formula: share the ball, stop your man and stay connected.

"We've been playing like this all year," said Oladipo, the team's rising star who has been on a mission since coming over from Oklahoma City in the deal for George. "Been playing hard on both ends all year. It just hasn't been magnified. So it's the playoffs now, we've been doing this all year. Now everybody sees."

Young, who along with Myles Turner are the only starters from last year's playoff squad, said Indiana's success is rooted in the team's togetherness. A year ago, the Pacers were going in different directions.

"We had a lot of guys with egos that we really couldn't push aside" he said. "And there was a lot of miscommunication and a lot of different things that were going on. We didn't know if Paul was going to be here. We didn't know if Jeff (Teague) was going to stick around. There was a lot of uncertainty and no clarity from Day One and that hurt us from being a better team than we could've been.

Indiana Pacers head coach Nate McMillan yells instructions to players in the second half of Game 1 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Sunday, April 15, 2018, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Indiana Pacers' Darren Collison (2) passes around Cleveland Cavaliers' Rodney Hood (1) in the first half of Game 1 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series, Sunday, April 15, 2018, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

"But this team here, we're all in. We take each and every step together. We try to work in unison each and every day. We come to work and put our hard hats on and we all believe in each other."

The Pacers took Sunday's win in stride, like a team that has won bigger games before. There was no chest-thumping, no bragging, nothing but talk of doing it again.

"There ain't nothing to celebrate about," Stephenson said. "We won the game, but we got more to accomplish."

ISTANBUL (AP) — A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders.

The comments by Khalil al-Hayya in an interview Wednesday came amid a stalemate in months of talks for a cease-fire in Gaza. The suggestion that Hamas would disarm appeared to be a significant concession by the militant group officially committed to Israel’s destruction.

But it's unlikely Israel would consider such a scenario. It has vowed to crush Hamas following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks that triggered the war, and its current leadership is adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas official who has represented the Palestinian militants in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage exchange, struck a sometimes defiant and other times conciliatory tone.

Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, Al-Hayya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the rival Fatah faction, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank. He said Hamas would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions,” along Israel’s pre-1967 borders.

If that happens, he said, the group's military wing would dissolve.

“All the experiences of people who fought against occupiers, when they became independent and obtained their rights and their state, what have these forces done? They have turned into political parties and their defending fighting forces have turned into the national army,” he said.

Over the years, Hamas has sometimes moderated its public position with respect to the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But its political program still officially “rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea" — referring to the area reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes lands that now make up Israel.

Al-Hayya did not say whether his apparent embrace of a two-state solution would amount to an end to the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an interim step toward the group’s stated goal of destroying Israel.

There was no immediate reaction from Israel or the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognized self-ruled government that Hamas drove out when it seized Gaza in 2007, a year after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections. After the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the Palestinian Authority was left with administering semi-autonomous pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority hopes to establish an independent state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. While the international community overwhelmingly supports such a two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government rejects it.

The war in Gaza has dragged on for nearly seven months and cease-fire negotiations have stalled. The war began with the deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Militants dragged some 250 hostages into the enclave. The ensuing Israeli bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to local health authorities, and displaced some 80% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million.

Israel is now preparing for an offensive in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have fled to.

Israel says it has dismantled most of the initial two dozen Hamas battalions since the start of the war, but that the four remaining ones are holed up in Rafah. Israel argues that a Rafah offensive is necessary to achieve victory over Hamas.

Al-Hayya said such an offensive would not succeed in destroying Hamas. He said contacts between the political leadership outside and military leadership inside Gaza are “uninterrupted” by the war and “contacts, decisions and directions are made in consultation" between the two groups.

Israeli forces "have not destroyed more than 20% of (Hamas’) capabilities, neither human nor in the field,” he asserted. “If they can’t finish (Hamas) off, what is the solution? The solution is to go to consensus.”

In November, a weeklong cease-fire saw the release of more than 100 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. But talks for a longer-term truce and release of the remaining hostages are now frozen, with each side accusing the other of intransigence. Key interlocutor Qatar has said in recent days that it is undertaking a “reassessment” of its role as mediator.

Most of Hamas’ top political officials, previously based in Qatar, have left the Gulf country in the past week and traveled to Turkey, where Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday. Al-Hayya denied a permanent move of the group’s main political office is in the works and said Hamas wants to see Qatar continue in its capacity as mediator in the talks.

Israeli and U.S. officials have accused Hamas of not being serious about a deal.

Al-Hayya denied this, saying Hamas has made concessions regarding the number of Palestinian prisoners it wants released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages. He said the group does not know exactly how many hostages remain in Gaza and are still alive.

But he said Hamas will not back down from its demands for a permanent cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, both of which Israel has balked at. Israel says it will continue military operations until Hamas is definitively defeated and will retain a security presence in Gaza afterwards.

“If we are not assured the war will end, why would I hand over the prisoners?” the Hamas leader said of the remaining hostages.

Al-Hayya also implicitly threatened that Hamas would attack Israeli or other forces who might be stationed around a floating pier the U.S. is scrambling to build along Gaza's coastline to deliver aid by sea.

“We categorically reject any non-Palestinian presence in Gaza, whether at sea or on land, and we will deal with any military force present in these places, Israeli or otherwise … as an occupying power,” he said.

Al-Hayya said Hamas does not regret the Oct. 7 attacks, despite the destruction it has brought down on Gaza and its people. He denied that Hamas militants had targeted civilians during the attacks — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — and said the operation succeeded in its goal of bringing the Palestinian issue back to the world’s attention.

And, he said, Israeli attempts to eradicate Hamas would ultimately fail to prevent future Palestinian armed uprisings.

"Let’s say that they have destroyed Hamas. Are the Palestinian people gone?” he asked.

This story has been updated to correct the number of Palestinian prisoners freed during a cease-fire in November.

AP reporter Khalil Hamra in Istanbul contributed to this report.

Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking official with the Palestinian militant group, who has represented it in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, speaks during an interview for The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking official with the Palestinian militant group, who has represented it in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, speaks during an interview for The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking official with the Palestinian militant group, who has represented it in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, sits in front of a backdropped with a photograph of the old city of Jerusalem during an interview for The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking official with the Palestinian militant group, who has represented it in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, speaks during an interview for The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking official with the Palestinian militant group, who has represented it in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, speaks during an interview for The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking official with the Palestinian militant group, who has represented it in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, speaks during an interview for The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Khalil al-Hayya, a high-ranking official with the Palestinian militant group, who has represented it in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, speaks during an interview for The Associated Press, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)