Knicks-Pacers: 5 takeaways as New York rallies in Game 3 to make it a series
The East Finals continue to defy description as the Knicks, down 20 late in the 2nd quarter, claw back in Game 3.
INDIANAPOLIS – With so many speedy guys in town Sunday, it was ironic that the Indiana Pacers would have downshifted, sputtered and finally stalled out short of their intended checkered flag against the New York Knicks at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
The Pacers, the most offensively potent of the four teams left in the conference finals, were held to a postseason low in their 106-100 Game 3 loss to the Knicks. A team that put up 118.9 points per 100 possessions through its first 13 postseason games fell well short of that standard.
The breakdown thus far is simple:
When the Pacers have scored 114 or more against the Bucks, the Cavaliers or the Knicks, they have gone 10-0. When they fall short, they are 0-3.
With Indy 500 winner Alex Palou in the house, the Pacers replicated a little of the Brickyard. They missed 20 of their 25 3-point attempts, a trifecta of fail from the arc: fewest makes, fewest attempts and worst percentage in their three rounds so far. They had hit an average of 14 until Sunday.
New York, of course, deserves more credit than Indiana deserves blame. The Knicks were the ones whose season was on the brink after losing Games 1 and 2 at Madison Square Garden. They were the ones facing scathing criticism and potentially overhaul-level changes if the slide into summer continued unabated.
They were the ones who fell behind by 20 points in the second quarter, with scoring star Jalen Brunson mired in foul trouble and big man Karl-Anthony Towns accounted for but largely absent to that point.
Yet here they and their boisterous supporters who managed to score tickets in the Pacers’ building are, alive again trailing 2-1 in the best-of-seven. Here are five takeaways from New York’s sparkling reversal heading into Tuesday’s Game 4 (8 p.m. ET, TNT).
1. Zombie comebacks are almost routine now
What Indiana did in Game 1, scratching back from apparently dead in the final minutes to force overtime and win, was so impressive that it seemed to spill emotionally into the Pacers’ subsequent victory in Game 2.
It will be intriguing to see what happens now that New York has fired back. Remember, the Knicks overcame 20-point deficits in Boston in the first two games of their semifinals series. They now are the only team in NBA history to pull off three such comebacks in a single postseason.
Not that they want to dig such a hole again, but they surely wouldn’t lack confidence if they did.
“Unpredictable,” Brunson called this playoff run. He said the key Sunday was that, in the locker room at halftime, the Knicks assured each other they would not fray under the stress of the lopsided score.
“You can quickly start to turn on each other,” Brunson said. “But we talked together as a team. It’s an emotional game. It’s a game.”
It helped that the Knicks used a 10-3 spurt before the break to shave seven points off that margin. They used up the third quarter knocking off only three more points, but whooshed by the Pacers in a 17-5 rush in the initial minutes of the fourth.
“I know you guys roll your eyes when we say no lead is safe,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “But no lead is safe. If you let up just a little bit, that’s what happens.”
2. KAT spends 1 of his lives saving self, team
He didn’t use up all nine of them, but the man nicknamed KAT surely cashed in one of them in the fourth quarter. To that point, he had scored only four points, including a scoreless opening quarter. He was 2-for-8 and the Knicks were hurtling toward a 3-0 deficit, with the inevitable elimination soon to follow.
Who do you think the talk shows and the tabloids were going to eviscerate had that scenario held?
Towns made sure it didn’t, grabbing the game by the throat. He scored 20 points in the fourth, matching Indiana’s entire output. He took nine shots in the quarter, made six, missed only one of his four 3-pointers and one of his six free throws. He grabbed eight rebounds and made himself impossible to guard. Sure looked that way with Myles Turner and Tony Bradley as Pacers coach Rick Carlisle’s choices.
Brunson, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges had done much of the scoring for the Knicks prior to that, but they weren’t going to get in Towns’ way.
“The mantra of the team [is] unselfish guys,” Thibodeau said. “When someone gets going, you try to keep him going. It’s recognizing what’s working.”
3. BREAKING: Knicks use 9 players
New York fans are little different from folks who followed Thibodeau’s previous teams in Chicago and Minnesota. They fret and fume over the number of minutes he heaps on a few key players, typically his teams’ starters.
In the playoffs, most coaches tighten their rotations, but Thibodeau rarely is outdone. Through the first 101 minutes of this series, in Games 1 and 2, he used eight players, with the exception of 26 seconds for Delon Wright in the opener.
Well, get a load of that box score from Sunday. Thibodeau dodged the minutes police by going nine deep. Wright joined the rotation to log more than 13 minutes and the Knicks coach even dug deep to use veteran guard Landry Shamet for more than 11.
Even with Brunson’s foul trouble, it felt odd to see New York playing long stretches without him. He had averaged nearly 39 minutes through the first 14 playoff games. He barely broke 30 this time.
Brunson is essential to the Knicks’ offense. But his value to their defense isn’t at that level. This time, New York was minus-6 when their All-Star point guard was on the floor but plus-12 in the 17:29 he sat.
Carlisle didn’t name names but he noted the difference in the Knicks’ stop-ability. “They had a lot of their better defenders in the game in the second half. That makes it harder,” he said.
Wright was a plus-2. Shamet? Plus-12, best of the Knicks. He had logged a mere 30 minutes in the entire postseason to that point.
Oh, and rim protector Mitchell Robinson started Game 3 in Josh Hart’s place, a move that paid off early when the Knicks center had six points and four rebounds in the first quarter.
This Thibodeau guy is getting almost zany, eh?
4. Nesmith goes down, Pacers’ zest goes with him
Aaron Nesmith opened eyes with an uncharacteristic scoring blitz in Game 1, sinking six 3-pointers in the final quarter of the Pacers’ dazzling comeback. But his greatest value is his defense and a toughness unsurpassed in his team’s locker room.
The 6-foot-5 wing’s primary role this series has been shadowing Brunson. But he had the ball and was working the baseline when he stepped on Brunson’s foot, turning his own right ankle. Nesmith hobbled off with 6:06 left in the third with the Pacers up 70-57. When he returned with 7:03 to go in the fourth, an absence of just over 11 minutes of game time, the Knicks led 89-88, outscoring the home team 32-18.
With an ace defender turning into an Ace bandage, Andrew Nembhard missing shots, Ben Sheppard in foul trouble and Tony Bradley probably on the floor too long, Carlisle experienced some of the “haywire” rotations he spoke of prior to the game.
5. Plot thickens in pivotal Game 4
Nesmith’s ankle will be a topic for 48 hours. So will the Pacers’ unusually chilly night from the arc and Pascal Siakam’s odd game; he scored 17 points but the Knicks were 21 points better than Indiana when the lanky forward was in the game.
For New York, the difference between 2-1 and 3-0 is everything. No matter what happens Tuesday, they get to drag the Pacers back to MSG for at least one more, with a chance to improve their 3-5 home record.
Indiana fired back strong in the previous round against Cleveland, the No. 1 seed, dropping Game 3 at home but controlling Game 4 in a 20-point blowout. Looking for patterns that will hold is risky business, though, when neither of these ultra-resilient teams looks vulnerable to having a stake driven through its heart.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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