During a recent Indiana Pacers practice leading up to Game 6 of the NBA Finals, assistant coach Jenny Boucek was deeply involved in preparations. She collaborated with head coach Rick Carlisle on strategies, led three-point shooting drills with T.J. McConnell, and exchanged high-fives with forward Obi Toppin.

Boucek’s Focus: Coaching the Team

“I don’t think twice about it on a day to day-to-day basis,” Boucek told NBA News after Wednesday’s team practice. “I just want to coach the team, go to war with them, try to help us win a championship.”

The Pacers are currently trailing 3-2 in the series.Their last appearance in the championship was in 2000, when they faced the Los Angeles Lakers led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.

“We’re very aware that this season has been somewhat magical for us,”

Many considered this year’s Pacers’ journey to be unexpected.

Defense a Key Focus

Boucek, who describes herself as a “utility player,” was tasked by Carlisle with enhancing the team’s defense. He also utilized her football-inspired play designs during critical moments.

“this year, it’s been a lot of focus on just bringing the defense together and working with the players and the staff on creating a system that maximizes our skill set,” Boucek said.

WNBA Experience

Boucek joined the NBA as the third female assistant coach in 2017 with the Sacramento Kings, focusing on player development. She brought years of experience from the WNBA, where she played for the Cleveland Rockers during its inaugural season in 1997.

“It was very impactful and made a big impression on my young mind to look up in the stands and see young girls like, almost perplexed, to see women doing something that they’d never seen women do,” she of playing during that season.

“But the thing that really got me was to see the grown women in the stands in tears,” she continued, explaining it was about more than the sport. “This league represents all the no’s that these women have heard their whole lives and assumptions because of their gender, and this represents a massive yes.”

Impact and Responsibility

Since the WNBA’s inception, professional women’s sports leagues have experienced increased enthusiasm and investment. Boucek values the responsibility she holds, especially regarding the impact she has on young girls.

“I don’t like the spotlight being on me,” she cautioned, “but I do understand ‘big picture purpose’ and I do feel a responsibility to represent women a certain way, to represent mothers, a certain way.”

She emphasizes her role as a mother above all else.

Boucek always wanted to be a mother and was candid about her willingness to push basketball aside to become one. But teams worked with her to make sure that she didn’t have to make a choice.

Despite her late-term pregnancy that would prevent her from traveling months into the 2018 season, at least three NBA teams worked to recruit her.Boucek had her daughter, Rylie, days after signing with the Dallas Mavericks, who built a nontraveling coaching position for her initial months.

When she followed Carlisle to the Indiana Pacers, the team agreed to travel with her daughter and a caregiver on road trips lasting more than three days. It’s a type of accomodation she wants to see become normal.

“I hope that one of the byproducts of this is that the NBA and the Pacers are setting an example for all corporations,” Boucek said.

Regarding her future, while Carlisle believes she could become the NBA’s first female head coach, Boucek says it’s not a specific goal, though she previously held head coaching positions in the WNBA.

“If my next assignment, and I feel it’s a purposeful assignment, is to be the head coach in the NBA, I will be very honored to take that honor on and represent women and just show that different types of leaders can be successful.”