Nobody thought the Indiana Pacers would make it out of the second round against the New York Knicks before the series began.
“I got picture proof,” Myles Turner said while echoing Tyrese Haliburton’s comments that no one outside of the team’s travel party expected them to win this series.
But with them facing a Game 7 in a hostile arena at Madison Square Garden with an inexperienced playoff team overall, the Pacers didn’t shrink in the pressure but looked as carefree and loose as they would in an early season game against the Atlanta Hawks. They shined with their incredible shot making more than any team ever has in the playoffs as they set an NBA record by making 67.1% of their shot attempts.
Talk about the New York Knicks injuries all you want. They definitely shouldn’t have allowed OG Anunoby to play in this game as he couldn’t move at all in this game and it allowed the Pacers to start the game getting easy buckets and gain rhythm and confidence that never ceased throughout the game. Full credit to OG for his mentality of wanting to play through it but the Knicks staff did the team no favors by clearing him. Josh Hart’s toughness should be applauded 100% for playing through an abdominal strain. The toughness of the Knicks was impressive.
The Pacers can’t control the opposing team’s health but they took control of this game and in the end the series. But is it all that surprising that a team that had been heavily overtaxing players on their roster started to succumb to injury after injury? With how Alec Burks looked in this series, you’re telling me he couldn’t have played 15-20 minutes a game and limited the loads of these guys—some of whom never came off the floor for multiple games in a row? At minimum, the Thibs minute loads that he burdens his players with don’t help with their health. At worst, it actively hindered it, made the problem worse.
Discount this Pacers run all you want. Call them front runners despite coming back from being down 0-2 in the second round. Call them fake tough guys while slowly backing away from every confrontation you start, Donte DiVincenzo. The Indiana Pacers are going to the conference finals for the first time since back-to-back appearances in 2013 and 2014. You can’t tell me nothing.
The Pacers aren’t exactly healthy themselves. Tyrese Haliburton seems to have finally overcome back spasms that bothered him for weeks but he’s getting treatment daily on his back after dealing with a hamstring strain for the last half of the season. Bennedict Mathurin, second-year bucket getter, is out for the season. But the Pacers depth is perhaps their biggest asset as they were able to play 9 guys in the semi-finals with every player contributing to a Game 7 road win against a tough-minded group.
As they have all year, the Pacers succeeded as a collective, as a unit. The stars did their thing but every role player had a critical moment in this game that added up to an amazing game.
Normally, I like to do grades here but this was an A+ performance from nearly the entire team so instead I want to focus on simply the best moment or most important moment for each player that contributed to the Pacers dominant victory.
Tyrese Haliburton broke this game open in the first half while being motivated by a Knicks fan sitting courtside. While Spike Lee isn’t dumb enough to motivate an opposing player anymore, Haliburton was still able to find someone before the game to inspire a blistering 14 points in 3 minutes that extended the Pacers lead to 16. More on that here.
Honorable mention on a steal he got on a “show” defending Jalen Brunson that prevented the pass to get to the screener and resulted in a layup for Haliburton that forced a Knicks timeout after they had started to make things close early in the third. This was also the end for Brunson has he fractured his hand while contesting the layup.
Pascal Siakam said that he wasn’t going into the game thinking he needed to “test” Anunoby but said that it was clear he didn’t look healthy. While he was worried about his friend, he dominated with ease to start the game, continuing his aggression to get inside position from Game 6. He made his first five shots in the opening six minutes. He made it clear that playing OG was going to be untenable for the Knicks very quickly. This play with Tyrese setting a back screen for Siakam, who finished with 20/4/4/1/1, and Nembhard delivering the pass for an easy layup.
You just can’t help but be happy for the Pacers longest tenured player in Myles Turner. In the third Game 7 of his career, he scored 17 points (7 for 11), added 4 blocks and limited the effectiveness of Isaiah Hartenstein who had given him problems on the glass at times in the series. In the first two Game 7s of his career, he went 2 for 11 against the Raptors as a rookie and against the Cavaliers in 2018 he fouled out with six minutes left and Tristan Thompson got the best of him on the glass early in the game which set the tone for the Cavaliers.
In this game, his most impactful moments came with his timely rim protection—consistently erasing shots at the rim from Brunson or Miles McBride with force. Offensively, his biggest shot came in the third quarter a possession after he lost the ball on a bad turnover in the post. He took an open 3-pointer with confidence and nailed. It was one of many threats from the Knicks that was quickly extinguished as the Turner 3 pushed the lead back to 10 and the Knicks never got it within single digits.
Aaron Nesmith didn’t miss a shot. After struggling to find his jump shot all series, he went 8 for 8 including a pair of threes setting a Game 7 record for shots without a miss. His biggest buckets though came on multiple pull-up 2-pointers as he attacked closeouts but didn’t force himself into traffic at the rim.
The best pull-up two moment also combined with TJ McConnell’s most impactful play. McConnell was awesome as ever pulling up for his short jumpers every time the Pacers needed to match a Knicks bucket. His best play though was his trademark play on defense: a steal in the backcourt. After Nesmith hit one of his pull-up jumpers, McConnell swiped the ball away from Brunson on the entry pass found a cutting Nesmith who scored on an and-1 basket. This came immediately after the Knicks cut the lead to 10 for the last time with 4 minutes left in the third quarter. Every time the Knicks crowd got into it, the Pacers quickly answered before letting themselves succumb to the frenzy of the garden like in Game 5.
Andrew Nembhard continues to have an amazing first playoffs. With the increased attention that Tyrese Haliburton has seen, more offensive creation duties have been put in his hands as a starter and he’s consistently delivered in both series. He hasn’t missed from the left wing since making that 31-foot game winner in Game 3 which was the obvious play of the series, potentially preventing the Pacers from falling behind 0-3. In this game he was surgical, going 8 for 10 from the field including multiple layups where he seemed to slither through multiple Knicks defenders. His transition 3 that was the last call for OG probably his most impactful but his layup to put the Pacers up 20 in the 2nd was the coolest play he had. With Burks doing his best to provide a Knicks miracle in the fourth, he also prevented squashed any hope the Knicks had with multiple takes to the rim.
Ben Sheppard is a rookie but you’d never know it with how poised he looked in a Game 7. He played fantastic defense against Brunson, forcing turnovers and misses. His best play was making a well timed cut to make himself available in the paint on a Siakam double team, taking one dribble, and then completing the shovel pass to Isaiah Jackson for an easy dunk. As Quinn Buckner would say, “Basketball! That’s basketball!”
Isaiah Jackson made himself available for that dunk but he had a fantastic finish on a transition play where he faked a pass to Sheppard and then finished through contact for an and-1 bucket. Jackson scored 9 points making all 3 of his shots and continued to make good use of his minutes as the backup center in this series.
Obi Toppin was the only Pacers player that didn’t shoot above 50% in this game but he still had 3 points, 3 rebounds, and 4 assists. His one made basket came on an assist from Aaron Nesmith to end the third quarter that I thought was a Nesmith miss watching live. To end the third, a clear moving screen from McBride went uncalled but DiVincenzo missed the open 3. Nesmith then raced down the floor and drew contact from multiple Knicks but no call. The ball fell right into Toppin’s lap however and he scored to put the team up 17 to end the third.
Most importantly, Toppin got revenge against the team that traded him away for future second-round picks. After missing a between the legs dunk in the Garden in the regular season and got laughed at, he completed one in the playoffs and got booed. He came up big for the Pacers again and again in the series.
Now Aaron Nesmith gets his shot at revenge against his former team. After being called a paper clip by Bleacher Report after the Pacers sent Malcolm Brogdon to the Celtics, he’s a starter on an Eastern Conference Finals team. Just look at his smile when asked about it here and tell me he’s not thrilled he has this chance.
James Johnson bonus contribution. Johnson showed up for his security duties after the Pacers called timeout to challenge a foul call on Haliburton that would be overturned. As he ran all the way to the other end of the floor to insert himself in the scene—which he normally would not be able to do except for the timeout—as DiVincenzo attempted to start a pushing fest with Siakam who was making sure to stall for time for the Pacers to decide whether or not they wanted to review. Of course as soon as he pushed Siakam, he backed away like the real tough guy that he is.
Now the Pacers have their toughest challenge yet coming against the Boston Celtics and another chance to prove themselves as the “uninvited guests” of the conference finals. Let’s see what else they can make happen.
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