NEW YORK — As always, Knicks Nation was persuasive and sensible as they watched the team lose to the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden.
“(Beep) Scrub,” said one reasonable fan who exited MSG in the final seconds of a 130-108 loss.
The home fans were greatly disappointed. No one on the island believed that as long as Jalen Brunson was healthy and New York was capable, the Pacers could get here and the big boy Knicks, depleted as they may be, could tilt into a winner-take-all for a conference finals spot. Keep getting offensive rebounds. ESPN’s coverage plan seemed quite clear. But the Pacers bowed to show what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown over the past few months. They crooned at the Knicks and their wealthy fans on Celebrity Row. They noted how few national reporters there were this season. Their coach seemed to enjoy pointing out the disrespect his team had endured.
And Tyrese Haliburton attended the postgame press conference wearing a Reggie Miller hoodie, and Reg was the best player the franchise has ever seen. Horrible In Gotham.
“I want to be comfortable on airplanes,” Haliburton said, tongue firmly in cheek.
Tyrese Haliburton wearing a Reggie Miller sweatshirt after winning Game 7 at the Garden. pic.twitter.com/TKuOc3t1zu
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) May 19, 2024
Even though they broke the previous record for highest field goal percentage by a team in Game 7, they still shot an NBA playoff record 67% for that game – 53 of 79!! – And Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, who made 13 of 24 3-pointers, came back again and again to defend his team when it mattered most.
“They flipped the script,” Carlisle said. “They won the series with grit, guts and physical play. 94 foot press. And that’s how we beat Milwaukee (in the first round). You have to give these guys a lot of credit, not just for the overall change, but for the very significant change in attitude toward defense, defiance, the importance of defense, and what they did today. I don’t want to talk about shot-making.”
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In fact, the Pacers’ transformation since the first month of the season, when Indy was incredibly bad on defense, has been profound. It took hard work to connect and make the defense louder. But Indiana also had to step out of its comfort zone and place all its chips in the middle of the table, acquiring Pascal Siakam from Toronto in a three-team deal that included New Orleans in mid-January but with no guarantees after that. This is the playoffs, with two All-Stars and an emerging unrestricted free agent remaining.
“My focus for the game was getting everyone settled,” Siakam said. athletic. “I went out on the offensive to keep everyone calm. Once everyone calmed down, (Haliburton) took over. And he can do so to the best of his ability in the game. And it definitely goes back and forth.”
Siakam made his first five shots from the floor en route to 20 points. Haliburton hunted for 3s in the first quarter, including a dead sprint to the left wing for a 26-footer in conversion, giving him 11 points in less than two minutes. Indiana scored 39 points in the first quarter and led 70-55 at halftime. The Pacers’ offense was astonishing in its completeness.
“It’s just old school thinking that you can’t play this fast in the playoffs,” Haliburton said. “But I think opportunistically we can do it. If you can stop, of course you can.”
But Carlyle was right. Indiana may have had a better defensive night in numbers against the Knicks in the series, but considering Game 7 was on the road, this was Indiana’s best defensive time. Brunson was just 6 of 17 from the floor before leaving the game in the second half after breaking his left hand. TJ McConnell has been devastating off the bench as well. And after losing decisively on the glass in the first two games of the series, Indy has beaten New York in four of its last five games, winning all four games.
(Speaking of which, the NBA is so bad at fixing games! They had Boston-New York on a platter, a block full of potential sweet ratings gold featuring the No. 1 and No. 8 TV markets, and the Pacers foul Haliburton or Siakam We didn’t, and this is because the league didn’t allow us a LeBron-Kobe NBA Finals: six times, San Antonio won five times from 1999 to 2014. There hasn’t been a championship in New York in 50 years! If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Because many of you are screaming “conspiracy” this time of year. If the NBA’s job is to fix playoff games to secure the biggest superstars, the biggest market every postseason, it’s really, consistently annoying. Get a better writer. What is Eric Bischoff doing these days?)
Indiana’s defensive transformation began with Haliburton’s star rising nationally and advancing to the finals of an in-season tournament in December. But even then, Indy came back down to earth, losing to the Lakers in the IST finals in Las Vegas. The Pacers had LA’s best opportunity and realized what they were doing wasn’t good enough. The Lakers’ attention to defensive detail, and how locked in to the Indiana team’s scouts, impressed Haliburton.
“I think the biggest thing is experience,” Pacers center Myles Turner said. “We had a lot of players who had never played a high level of basketball or played a significant game. The in-season tournament felt like a heightened sense of urgency in every game. We know how we started the year defensively, but we told ourselves that if we could all come together and go from 30 to average, we could be a great team.”
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Carlisle expanded its starting lineup the day after Christmas by placing Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith and Jalen Smith alongside Haliburton and Turner. The group had a Net Rating of -4.6 and a Defensive Rating of 120.8. It’s not a huge deal by any stretch, but at least the defensive hemorrhage hasn’t been as bad as it was in the first two months. With Siakam on board, the Pacers’ D really took off. In 25 games of Haliburton-Nembhard-Nesmith-Siakam-Turner, Indiana’s defensive rating was 107.2 and its net rating was 6.4.
McConnell said there was a lot of soul-searching.
“I think it was overshadowed by the terrible offense we played, but it wasn’t enough,” McConnell said. “You can’t get to this point without turning things around defensively. Thank you to the coaching staff and everyone. At the end of it all, it’s just a matter of looking in the mirror to get better.”
Getting Siakam not only means trading three first-round picks to Toronto (two this season and one in 2026), but Indiana signed Brown last offseason after helping the Denver Nuggets win a championship. It also brought a big cheer to one veteran forward, Bruce Brown. Brown may not have been a match for Indy, but he had the pedigree of a champion. Of course, the same goes for Siakam, who helped the Raptors win a ring in 2019. But Brown is under contract for next season. Siakam doesn’t.
Beyond Haliburton’s injury, Siakam has been impressed with the way the Pacers have done things (though that’s important, too). With president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard and general manager Chad Buchanan, Indy has veteran front office stability and a clear vision for how to build around Haliburton. In Carlisle, the Pacers have one of the game’s great tacticians, who always seems to get the most out of his roster.
“After the in-season tournament, we decided we needed to get better as a staff,” Carlisle said. “… I just told my guys that we’re going to fight back and get better. We were maintaining our historic pace offensively, but what we were doing offensively to get to where we are at this moment and where we want to get to in the next round and into the future was not sustainable. It just wasn’t like that. If you can’t guard and rebound consistently, you’re not.”
Beating top-seeded and well-rested Boston starting Tuesday at TD Garden is Indiana’s biggest challenge to date. The Celtics may be without center Kristaps Porziņģis early in the series, but are otherwise healthy. They have been the best team in the league this season. They had a relatively easy path to the conference finals.
But here come the Pacers, toying with the house’s money and still far from dominating the city’s sports headlines. Next Sunday will be the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500, and it looks like the rookie guard for the WNBA’s Indiana Fever is getting some attention.
The Pacers will continue to fly under the radar and they will love it.
(Photo credit: Elsa/Getty Images)
