With the Indiana Pacers down 0-2 to the New York Knicks after two close, excruciating losses in hostile Madison Square Garden before heading back to the comfortable confines of Gainbridge Fieldhouse, they had a lot to fix in order to give themselves a chance to win against a tenacious team like the Knicks.
“Just digging in. Understanding our backs are against the wall. We’re here at home. Obviously they handled business getting both at home and everybody knows what it looks like when you go down 3-0,” Tyrese Haliburton said of the Pacers mindset after game three. “We had to come out and play desperate, play hard.”
Beyond just playing hard, they also needed to make some tactical adjustments after Jalen Brunson had proven to be too much to handle for Andrew Nembhard on his own as he burned the Pacers defense to the ground in the second half while playing through a sore foot that caused him to miss the second quarter to follow up his 43 points in the opening game.
Enter Aaron Nesmith, who did guard Brunson at times in the first two games, but was not his most frequent defender and guarding him from the opening tip. The decision by Carlisle paid dividends immediately as Brunson went just 1 for 5 in the first quarter and Nesmith didn’t commit a foul while hounding the Knicks offensive engine for 94-feet.
“You can’t give New York a recipe of the same thing over and over again. They’re going to adjust — Brunson’s too great a player,” Carlisle said of trying to slow him down. “The idea was just change the matchup, give him a little more size. Aaron did as good a job I think as you can possibly do. Brunson’s so good. He’s the best scorer in the playoffs I believe. We had good timely help tonight, too.”
While Brunson scored 26 points, it took him 26 shots to get there. Nesmith was the primary defender on 18 of those shots and held Brunson to 33% shooting. The increased physicality and the longer arms of Nesmith enough to help make things more difficult for Brunson as he went 4 for 8 against all other defenders.
But even with slowing down Brunson as well as could possibly be hoped, the Knicks still had a 9-point lead near the beginning of the fourth quarter and it felt like the Pacers may be fading in the second half yet again. But Tyrese Haliburton, refusing to let his team go down easily, stormed the Pacers right back into it with seven straight points while tallying his second consecutive 30+ point effort after lacking aggression in the opening game of the series.
“He adapts quickly. For a first-timer in the playoffs, he’s had to do some pretty significant adjusting in both series,” Carlisle said after game three. “Sometimes it’s you know you can score, but there’s a need to get other guys involved. Sometimes it’s the other way around, he knows we need his scoring. His aggression was very important in this game. Whether he’s scoring a lot of points or not, his aggression is going to be important in every game of this series.”
The only problem after that scoring outburst from Haliburton was that he rolled an ankle during a steal and transition layup and landed on his tailbone after another drive to the basket where he scored with a foul. Already dealing with back spasms since the Bucks series, he was clearly hampered for the remainder of the game and the team had to find offense elsewhere.
Fortunately, while the Pacers struggled to score for a few minutes, so did the Knicks as they had just one point for nearly six minutes after taking that 9-point lead. The Pacers manufactured points with Pascal Siakam getting to the foul line and making key free throws and finding the biggest baskets of the game from what would have been an unlikely source: Andrew Nembhard, who had zero points in the game’s first 46 minutes while missing all four of his shots up to that point.
First, with the game tied Tyrese Haliburton committed a rare turnover after getting caught in the air while Siakam was stuck on a screen. Josh Hart looked to have a wide open path to the basket but Myles Turner made the biggest block of his career in terms of stakes—a block that deserves its own article—by pinning it to the backboard with two minutes remaining.
“I think there are certain plays that happen over the course of a series, and the course of a game, that can really change things,” Haliburton said of Turner’s block. “I think we’re going to remember that play, because I feel like that changed the game. It was a game-changing moment. I think it just speaks to how hard he played and the tone he set today.”
The Pacers pushed the ball ahead to quickly score in transition with Andrew Nembhard finding a driving line wide open—thanks to Siakam’s bear hugging of Isaiah Hartenstein that went uncalled.
“He’s one of our toughest guys, mentally and physically,” Carlisle said of the second-year guard. “He’s really gained a love for these types of moments and playing in this kind of stage, this kind of level of competition.”
Nembhard wasn’t afraid to shoot despite being unable to make anything prior to the layup as he attempted two 3-pointers from the corner that didn’t connect after making the layup. So after Brunson tied the game at 106 with 40 seconds left, Nembhard was just 1 for 7 for the game. The mental toughness to complete the following play with the game on the line was off the charts.
“Basketball’s a game of many mistakes,” Nembhard said. “It’s about being neutral, not getting high or low based off good or bad plays. Just trying to move on and understand the next play’s the most important.”
That statement couldn’t have rang more true for this moment with the shot clock winding down and Haliburton slow to find an outlet after being doubled. He found the always calm, cool, collected Nembhard, who bobbled the ball while trying to attack off the catch, realized how little time was left, and.created enough space for a 31-foot stepback triple that hit nothing but nylon as the shot clock expired with 16 seconds left.
“I heard Thibs yelling to double,” Haliburton said. “I probably held the ball a little too long. I should have been more aggressive to attack the blitz. I put Drew in a kind of a bad situation. He just made an unbelievable shot, big shot. Just really stepped up to the moment when we needed him the most.”
This shot will live on with the likes of numerous Reggie Miller shots, Rik Smits’s pump fake and bucket at the buzzer against the Magic, Travis Best’s series clincher against the Bucks, and Byron Scott’s 3-point game winner against the Magic among the biggest shots in Pacers playoff history. He and Damian Lillard are the only two players in playoff history with game winners that were launched from farther than 30 feet.
After being removed from the toughest assignment on defense and struggling all night to find the basket, Nembhard made the biggest shot of his career and perhaps saved the Pacers season. For a second-year player to come up that clutch in the moment was incredible stuff.
“Andrew does so many things for us as a team, just fights every possession, picking up full court. He’s so valuable for us,” Siakam said of Nembhard. “Obviously, he wasn’t making shots or anything like that. But we have full trust in him, the work that he puts in. He’s a confident kid. Obviously it’s a tough shot, but if somebody’s going to make that, it’s going to be him. I just love everything about him and his focus.”
In Game 4, his defense was critical as he contributed greatly in the effort to slow down Donte DiVincenzo, who has been a human flamethrower from behind the arc all series. He made just 3 of 13 shots in game four after scoring 35 points and making 7 of 9 threes in game three.
Nesmith remained on Brunson for much of the game as he and most of the Knicks roster fell short on most of their jump shot attempts, looking exhausted from the tip with the short turnaround. He was held to just 18 points on 6 of 17 shooting.
The Pacers are started sending much more help on Brunson once he got into the paint as the Pacers chose to leave lesser shooters like Precious Achiuwa and Josh Hart open to make life even more difficult for Brunson. Caitlin Cooper and Samson Folk go over the Pacers adjustments in glorious detail here from Basketball She Wrote (unlocked).
So many Pacers have gained valuable playoff experience so far and shown that they can meaningfully contribute to playoff success. 7 players for the team are averaging double figures including Nembhard and Nesmith and they’ve been crucial perimeter defenders for a team that has been widely known for their defensive struggles all season. Nembhard’s secondary creation on offense has been a game changer with teams focused on Siakam at times and Haliburton struggling through back issues after the first couple of games against the Bucks.
All of a sudden these Pacers with so many inexperienced, young players are just two wins away from the conference finals. You know the Knicks aren’t going to go away easily, definitely won’t shoot as poorly as they did in the previous game, and still are favored at home in Game 5 for a reason but you have to love the fight of the Pacers to not go away easily after falling behind 0-2 and getting two wins at home. They aren’t going to make it easy for their opponent either.
“At the end of the day, all we did was take care of business at home,” Haliburton said of tying the series at two. “We understand the magnitude of game five and we’ll be prepared for it.”
iPacers - Indiana Pacers News 