Newsmakers

Fired The Indiana Pacers fired coach Jim O’Brien after failing to make the playoffs each of the past three years and squandering a promising start this season. Team president Larry Bird announced the firing Sunday, saying: “This isn’t all on Jim. All of us share in the responsibility for where we’re at and where we need to go.” Assistant coach Frank Vogel will take over the team on an interim basis.

Fined Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers has been fined $15,000 for leaving the court too slowly after being ejected from a game in Phoenix. Rivers was tossed during the second quarter of the Celtics’ 88-71 loss to the Suns on Friday night. Rivers said coaches don’t know how much time they have before they’ll be fined for leaving the court too slowly. He jokingly suggested starting a 30-second clock after an ejection to entertain the fans. Rivers also said the amount of the fine indicates the NBA wasn’t terribly angry.

• The NBA fined Atlanta Hawks forward Josh Smith $25,000 for making an obscene gesture during a game. The incident occurred with less than 4 minutes remaining in Atlanta’s 111-102 win over the New York Knicks on Friday night.

Died Motocross racer Nathan Woods died after crashing during a jump while practicing for a World Off-Road Championship Series event. Pat Tello, a deputy coroner with the Kern County (Calif.) Sheriff’s Department, said the 33-year-old rider was killed Friday following a jump aboard his 2010 KTM dirt bike at the Honolulu Hills Raceway in Taft. Tello says Woods attempted the jump, landed wrong and crashed end over end. He was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where he died.

• Hall of Fame horse trainer J. Elliott Burch, who won the Belmont Stakes with Sword Dancer, Quadrangle, and Arts and Letters, died after complications from pneumonia. He was 86. Burch died Saturday at Newport Hospital in Rhode Island, the New York Racing Association said. The son of Hall of Famer Preston Burch and grandson of Hall of Famer William Burch, J. Elliott Burch began his 30-year training career in 1955. He went on to saddle more than 60 stakes winners, including Key to the Mint, the 3-year-old champion in 1972. Burch was inducted into horse racing’s Hall of Fame in 1980.