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Hot-Shooting Pacers Rout Knicks in New York to Advance to the Eastern Conference Finals

The Indiana Pacers could not miss and the New York Knicks could not stay healthy: that was the story as the Pacers defeated the Knicks 130-109 in game seven at New York, earning the right to face the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Pacers set an NBA playoff single game record by shooting .671 from the field (53-71), while the Knicks set an unofficial record by having five of their top eight rotation players unavailable by the end of game seven: Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, and Bojan Bogdanovic did not play at all in game seven, OG Anunoby played less than five minutes after coming back too soon from a hamstring injury, and Jalen Brunson missed the last 15 minutes after breaking his left hand late in the third quarter. The Knicks won the first two games of this series at home, but lost four of the next five games as Anunoby missed three full games (and 43 minutes of game seven) and iron man Josh Hart suffered an abdominal injury that limited his effectiveness in games six and seven.

The Knicks define themselves by their physicality, defense, and rebounding, so it must be particularly galling for them not just to lose to a finesse-oriented team but to be outdone in both points in the paint (52-38) and rebounding (33-28) in game seven at home.

Tyrese Haliburton led the way with a team-high 26 points on 10-17 field goal shooting, but he had a lot of help as all four other Indiana starters scored in double figures: Pascal Siakam (20 points, 8-15 field goal shooting), Andrew Nembhard (20 points, 8-10 field goal shooting), Aaron Nesmith (19 points, 8-8 field goal shooting), and Myles Turner (17 points, 7-11 field goal shooting). T.J. McConnell provided a spark off of the bench with 12 points (6-8 field goal shooting) and flypaper sticky defense. 

Donte DiVincenzo scored a game-high 39 points, Alec Burks scored 26 points off of the bench, Brunson had 17 points and a game-high nine assists, and Hart added 10 points, eight rebounds, and five assists before fouling out. However, Brunson candidly admitted after the game that he had not played well before breaking his hand, as he shot just 6-17 from the field. 

Although it would have been interesting to see these teams battle it out with the Knicks at full strength, the Pacers deserve full credit for how well their offense performed in game seven; this was not just about making shots: the Pacers pushed the ball up the court, made crisp passes, and hunted mismatches. The Knicks looked a step slow at both ends of the court, which is another way of saying that the Pacers looked very fast at both ends of the court; the undersized Knicks are at their best when they are scrambling around so fast that opposing teams cannot find any holes to exploit, but in game seven the Pacers adroitly identified when Siakam was isolated in the post against a smaller defender, when Turner was cutting to the hoop behind the defense, and when three point shooters were open as the Knicks tried in vain to shut down the Pacers' paint attack. New York Coach Tom Thibodeau asked his team to make multiple efforts--"one is not enough," he said during one of the their timeout huddles--but the Knicks just could not keep up with the Pacers. 

Despite all of the attention paid to "clutch time" statistics, the reality is that the NBA is often a first quarter league. Haliburton (14 points) and Siakam (11 points) combined for 25 first quarter points as the Pacers outcored the Knicks 39-27 in the opening stanza. Anunoby scored five points on 2-2 field goal shooting in five minutes, but he also had a -6 plus/minus number as he dragged his left leg up and down the court, unable to move well enough to play defense. The Pacers shot 16-21 (.762) from the field in the first quarter, including 7-8 from three point range.

The Knicks never cut the margin to less than six points the rest of the way, they trailed 70-55 at halftime, and they trailed by at least 15 points for most of the second half. The Pacers shot 29-38 (.763) from the field in the first half, the best field goal percentage in any half in the 25 years since the NBA has kept such records. 

It would have been logical to assume that the Pacers could not maintain such a lofty field goal percentage in the second half, but their 60 second half points on 24-41 field goal shooting (.585) proved to be more than sufficient. The Knicks made their last stand when Hart's layup cut the margin to 73-67 with 8:03 left in the third quarter. The Pacers answered with four straight points before Brunson assisted on a DiVincenzo three pointer that trimmed the deficit to 77-70 at the 6:43 mark of the third quarter, but the Pacers had already pulled away to a 92-74 lead by the time that Brunson left the game with his broken hand.

This is the Pacers' eighth trip to the Eastern Conference Finals (1994-95, 1998-2000, 2004, 2014) after winning three ABA championships (1970, 1972-73). It will be interesting to see these young Pacers contend with a veteran-laden Celtics squad that is making their sixth Eastern Conference Finals appearance in the past eight years.

Labels: Donte DiVincenzo, Indiana Pacers, Jalen Brunson, Myles Turner, New York Knicks, Pascal Siakam, T.J. McConnell, Tyrese Haliburton

posted by David Friedman @ 9:31 PM

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