The Pacers were defeated by the Knicks in the NBA playoffs rematch

NEW YORK – By the time the timeout was called at 5:43 in the fourth quarter of the Pacers-Knicks on Friday, the Madison Square Garden crowd was already preoccupied with more pressing matters than seeking a little revenge for Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals in May .

Before the timeout, spontaneous cheers erupted as news of Giancarlo Stanton's sixth-inning two-run home run in Los Angeles that gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead in Game 1 of the World Series spread, and fans began ” Let’s Go Yankees.” during a Pacers possession. At the timeout, Stanton's gigantic blast rang out on the center court video boards, generating another roar, then Frank Sinatra's “New York, New York” blared over the public address system as the video board cameras panned around the arena, encouraging the crowd to passionately sing along . This tune, of course, is normally a New York victory song, and by this point, victory in the basketball game ahead was long assured.

The Yankees fans in attendance would later have their hearts broken after they left the arena thanks to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman's walk-off grand slam, but nothing else that happened in midtown Manhattan changed theirs Mood. The Knicks outscored the Pacers by 30 points in the middle two quarters and walked away with a resounding 123-98 victory, with the Pacers never getting closer to 21 points in the fourth quarter. Just over five months after the Pacers stunned New York in their vaunted home arena with the best shooting performance in playoff history in Game 7 of their hard-fought playoff series, they failed to make a particularly strong showing in the rematch and limped out of the game , from which they strutted in May.

“We just weren’t good enough after the first quarter,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.

Clearly there was a lot more at stake in May than there was on Friday evening. When the Knicks lost in Game 7, their 50-win season ended and they gave away a No. 2 seed. Friday's result simply means both teams are tied at 1-1 with 80 games remaining on the schedule and time left in the first week of the season. Still, it was hard to leave the ESPN-televised contest without feeling like the two teams are currently seeing very different returns on their offseason investments.

The Knicks made two of the boldest offseason moves of any team in the NBA. They traded away their best shooter in Donte DiVincenzo, one of their franchise stars in Julius Randle and many draft picks, but added a sometimes dominant big man in Karl Anthony Towns and a two-way swingman in Mikal Bridges who give them a The combination of three defensive wingers in the starting lineup could make them one of the toughest teams in the league to score against. Meanwhile, the Pacers invested heavily in new contracts and extensions to keep last year's team together, hoping they could improve their already strong cohesion and turn it into their superpower. Instead, they appear to be less tight-knit so far this year than they were last season, and there were signs of separation not just on Friday, but also in Wednesday's season opener and throughout the preseason. Even prognosticators with a modest amount of faith in the Pacers expected them to be part of the second-team tier chasing the defending East champion Celtics, but they have shown limited signs of rejoining that peloton this young season can.

In the first quarter on Friday, they seemed to remember what it would take to compete with the Knicks in the playoffs. They brought presence to their defensive battles and kept the importance of the rebound battle in mind, holding New York to 25 points on 10 of 22 shooting and winning the rebound battle 10-8. However, they were outscored by a combined 70-40 in the second and third quarters. The Knicks made 25 of 44 shots (56.8%) in the period, including 7 of 14 three-pointers, and scored 1.58 points per possession in the second period and 1.37 points in the third. Meanwhile, the Pacers made just 18 of 41 shots (43.9%) and 2 of 19 three-pointers in that stretch, for an efficiency of 0.86 and 0.77 points per possession, respectively. They were also outrebounded 27-16.

“The first quarter was mostly encouraging,” Carlisle said. “Competition level, edge, all those things were good. We allowed offenses on offense to affect us on defense and it snowballed a bit. I had to take a lot of time off. It was a difficult evening after the first quarter. We didn't play with enough consistent ball movement and defensively rebounding was again a big problem. They played with more force and we had to play with more force.

When Carlisle mentioned “transgressions” on offense, there were several to choose from. The Pacers committed 16 turnovers, which the Knicks turned into 29 points, while the Pacers scored 13 points on 12 turnovers. They also had a miserable shooting night, making just three of 30 3-point attempts on the night. Bennedict Mathurin made two 3-pointers on five attempts, leaving the rest of the team 1 of 25 from long range, with sophomore wing Jarace Walker scoring the only other goal. All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton missed all seven of his attempts and totaled 0 of 8 from the floor, marking his second scoreless game of his Pacers tenure.

Considering how poor the shooting numbers were, Haliburton noted that the Pacers were fortunate that the final score wasn't worse. He also thought that most of them were good recordings.

“We didn’t fire any shots, bro,” Haliburton said. “I don't know what to tell you. It's hard to win a game when you're shooting 10% from three. We didn't take any shots in the first two games. They'll start falling, so I'm not tripping. … I think if we had a game last year where we shot like that, we'd probably get 150 points, to be honest. We didn't shoot that bad I think we were that bad defensively, we just missed a lot of shots and that starts with me.

But Carlisle noticed the ball movement wasn't where it should be. They got good touches in the paint with 70 points in the game, including 44 in the first three quarters when the game was still relevant but other parts of the operation were stagnant.

“We didn’t move the ball,” Carlisle said. “It got caught on one side of the floor too often. Our inability to get stops took us out of transition and bad things on one end led to bad things on the other end.”

The Knicks, of course, had something to do with these bad things. The combination of Bridges and fellow wings Josh Hart and OG Anunoby allows them to constantly switch in terms of length and athleticism. Haliburton had to deal with all three at some point, and every time he got a ball screen he generally faced another difficult duel. That's why he rarely had both feet in the paint. When he got there, he had to contend with the 7-foot, 248-pound Towns and didn't seem interested in challenging him near the rim.

On the other side of the floor, All-NBA point guard Jalen Brunson was just as dynamic as he was in last year's playoffs, scoring 26 points on 10 of 19 shooting, getting into the lane at will, but also hitting 3 of 5 3- Pointer and five assists. His ability to create off the bounce led to open jumpers for Bridges (21 points), Hart (20 points) and Anunoby 14. It also helped Towns as his ball-screen partner, as he hit two 3-pointers Scored 21 points.

And on the glass, Towns did well to make up for the offseason loss of Isaiah Hartenstein by grabbing 15 rebounds. The Knicks finished with 43 rebounds, the Pacers 33.

“They’re a good defensive team,” Haliburton said. “They have a lot of guys who can stay in front of the ball well in our conference and in our league.

Haliburton believes the Pacers will too. He noted they have an off day on Saturday to get some shots in before playing their first home game of the season against the 76ers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. As the season progresses, he said they should be able to find momentum.

“It’s Game 2, we’re 1-1,” Haliburton said. “Shoot, we’re at .500. Many good teams haven't won a game yet. We have a day off tomorrow, I'm going to the gym. The great thing is that I'm going to get one. “I'm going to take a lot of shots tomorrow, and I'm going to take a lot of shots on Sunday and be ready to go on Sunday. It all depends on your point of view, but this is not panic mode at all.

That shouldn't be the case, but after an inconsistent performance against the Pistons in which they shot 9 of 31 from 3-point range and turned the ball over 15 times, there are some concerning trends, and right now they don't look anything like them the team that led the NBA in scoring and ranked second in offensive efficiency last season. And they will only be tested more in the coming days, after Sunday's game against Philadelphia, a road game against promising young Orlando and then a home game against the defending champion Celtics on October 30. That will be followed by a two-game road game against New Orleans and Dallas, two postseason teams, followed by another home game against the Magic.

If there's as big a gap between the Pacers and the East's elite in this stretch as there was Friday at the Garden, they could quickly find themselves in a hole.

“It’s a gauntlet,” Carlisle said. “…We have to fight and fight for everything at this point in the season. Those first 10 or 12 games are as tough as any in the league. We need to focus on the collective group, who we are and what we are.” I'm trying to stand up for that.

The Pacers were defeated by the Knicks in the NBA playoffs rematch

Similar Posts

Vikings 31-29 Packers (September 29, 2024) Game Recap

Hurricane Milton A severe storm surge, wind threat for Florida

Leave a Reply Cancel reply