If you have not listened to Run The Jewels 3, you should.  It is terrific. On that album, the track “Call Ticketron” repeats the line “Run The Jewels live at the Garden,” as in The Garden, where the Knicks reanimate Spike Lee’s fan-corpse for every home game. Knicks-Pacers is special, and tonight, despite the garbage fire that has been the Knicks season, the matchup between Myles Turner and Kristaps Porzingis was going to be fun to watch.

In the first half, both teams looked comfortable to a fault, neither with any sense of urgency, but the block party bumped with Turner and Porzingis registering 2 and 1 respectively. The Knicks scored 18 points. The Pacers bench held steady and the half ended with the Pacers up 10.

During halftime, the Pacers fell asleep, not taking my advice to listen to Run The Jewels 3. They scored 12 points in the third. The Knicks rejoiced. Still, despite a terrible quarter, the Pacers entered the fourth up two.  A scary moment for Knicks fans happened early, with Porzingis going down with a bruised thigh.  The Knicks took the lead midway through the fourth quarter without KP, and a classic will they win or won’t they win for the Pacers ensued.

They wouldn’t. With about 3:30 to go, the Pacers had gone 7-37 from the field in the second half: (busts out calculator) 19% and had just 20 total points in the half.  Along with cold shooting from almost everyone, PG was a second late on passes out of double-teams too often, leading to six turnovers—one short of Teague’s seven to cap off one of Teague’s worst performances of the season. Melo got hot in the second half and the Pacers…well…they got burnt with perhaps their most embarrassing loss of the season.  

Pacers lose: 81-87