INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Pacers have come up with a counter to Toronto's "We the North" campaign.
The Raptors are unimpressed.
The Pacers' T-shirts for Game 6 in Indianapolis read "UNITED STATE OF BASKETBALL," over the hashtag "We The Gold."
"Who the gold?"' DeMar DeRozan said with a head shake Friday morning. "I don't care, I'm not going to wear it."
Patrick Patterson was far more vocal about the Pacers' tactics after practice Thursday.
"Just because we do 'We The North,' they just trying to find some thing to get at us," he said. "I have different feelings toward that ... Flattering? No, not at all."
Patterson praised Raptors fans, saying "The Canadian fans, they sing the national anthem with pride. They've done it for a long time and they do it every single opportunity they get, whether it's regular season, whether it's pre-season, whether it's playoffs, whether the singer allows them to sing it and holds the mic up in the air, they're constantly singing it.
"In Indiana, or when we go on the road, the Canadian fans are there in the crowd, they're singing along to the national anthem, they're proud. And then I feel like the Pacer fans ... they just do it because we did it. They try to do it to be loud or be obnoxious."
Hundreds of Raptors fans were expected at Friday night's game. Hours before tipoff they could be seen wandering the downtown mall, in restaurants, or riding rental bikes along the canal.
An estimated 1,700 fans made the trip from Toronto for Game 4 in Indianapolis -- an ugly 100-83 Raptors loss.
Indianapolis Star columnist Gregg Doyel wrote about the Raptors' fans in his Friday column.
"They are loud, and they are coming. Those basketball fans in Toronto, they're not normal," Doyel wrote. "They are NFL fans with an NBA team. They travel. They drink. They scream."
The Raptors' "We the North" campaign is in its third season.
Game 7 of the series, if necessary, will go Sunday in Toronto.
