NEW YORK — As ever, Knicks Nation was cogent and discerning watching its team lose Game 7 at Madison Square Garden to the Indiana Pacers.
“(Bleeping) scrubs,” one well-reasoned fan said as he exited MSG in the closing minutes of the 130-108 loss.
The home fans were bitterly disappointed. No one on this island believed the Pacers could come in here and big boy the Knicks, depleted though they may have been, in a winner-take-all tilt for a conference finals spot, as long as Jalen Brunson was healthy and New York could keep grabbing fistfuls of offensive rebounds. ESPN certainly seemed clear in its coverage plan. But the Pacers bowed their necks to show what they’d learned and how they’d grown during the last few months. They woofed at the Knicks and their well-heeled fans on celebrity row. They noted how few national reporters had been around much this season. Their coach seemed to delight in pointing out the disrespect his team had endured.
And Tyrese Haliburton came to the postgame news conference wearing a Reggie Miller hoodie, with Reg in classic “Knicks choked” mode, a tribute to the franchise’s all-time greatest player and enfant terrible in Gotham.
“I just like to be comfortable on the plane,” Haliburton said, tongue firmly planted in cheek.
Tyrese Haliburton in a Reggie Miller sweatshirt after winning Game 7 at the Garden 😈 pic.twitter.com/TKuOc3t1zu
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) May 19, 2024
Even as they shattered the previous record for the highest field goal percentage by a team in a Game 7, shooting an NBA playoff record 67 percent for the game – 53 of 79!! – and made 13 of 24 3-pointers, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle came back, again and again, to the defense his team played when it mattered the most.
“They have flipped the script,” Carlisle said. “They won the series with grit and guts and physical play. Pressing 94 feet. And that’s how we beat Milwaukee (in the first round), too. You have to give these guys a lot of credit for, not a total change, but a very significant change in the attitude toward defense, the defiance about, the importance of defense, and what they did today. I don’t want to make things about shot making.”
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Indeed, the Pacers’ metamorphosis since the first month of the season, when Indy was cosmically bad at the defensive end, has been profound. It required the grunt work of getting connected and louder on defense. But it also required Indiana to get out of its comfort zone and put all its chips to the middle of the table, acquiring Pascal Siakam from Toronto in mid-January in a three-team deal that also included New Orleans, with no guarantee after these playoffs that the two-time All-Star and rising, unrestricted free agent will stay.
“My focus coming into the game was just settling everybody in,” Siakam told The Athletic. “I came in aggressive, just making sure everybody calmed down. Once everybody calmed down, (Haliburton) took over. And he can do that with the best (in) the game. And, obviously, the back and forth gets you going.”