Pascal Siakam, man. 39 points on 15 of 23 shooting as he led the Indiana Pacers to a Game 2 victory and a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Knicks as the team heads back to Indianapolis for Games 3 & 4.
“Whatever was out there, I just took it,” Siakam said after the 114-109 win. “And I think that’s what makes us special as a team is we’ve got different weapons and we aren’t consumed by who’s going to do what. … For me, I just tried to play my game and shoutout to my teammates for finding me.”
He was everywhere. The spice must flow and the flow of the Pacers offense was spicy. Pascal Siakam was unguardable. He scored in transition, he scored in isolation post-ups, he made timely cuts, he ran ghost screens, it was an incredibly versatile scoring effort by Siakam whose 39 points were a playoff career high. No matter the defender, there were no answers for the Pacers forward. After receiving just four votes for All-NBA third team, Siakam looked like a first-teamer in this one.
“That’s why we brought him here,” Haliburton said. “That’s what he’s here to do. He can get a bucket in so many different ways. He started the game hot. We just kept feeding him. I thought he did a great job making big shot after big shot after big shot.”
Everyone expected the Knicks to be the ones to throw the first punch in this game after the Pacers stole the opener in spectacular fashion but instead it was Siakam leading the Pacers with their first 11 points and a 19-9 start to the first quarter.
“Special game,” Carlisle said of Siakam. “In the first half, he was the guy that got us going and got us through some difficult stretches. I thought he really picked his spots to be aggressive, he ran great. He did everything — he attacked the rim, he was great in mid-range, and the 3-point shot was there.”
At one point in the first half, Siakam had 21 of the Pacers 31 points. No one else had much of anything going but it was the experienced former champion that kept them close throughout that first half as it closed at 49-52 in favor of New York.
“He’s been there before, so he’s a calming presence for us and a leader for us,” Andrew Nembhard said of Pascal. “So we all kind of rallied behind that and he kind of calmed us down.”
Showcasing exactly why the Pacers pushed hard to acquire him in January of last season. He provides an avenue for buckets that they didn’t really have prior to the trade. He’s the switch punisher. If you give him a favorable matchup, he’s going to feast and the Pacers do as good as anybody at finding their teammates in these moments.
“I just came out aggressive,” Siakam said on the TNT postgame interview. “At the end of the day, we’re a team. It doesn’t matter who scores. That’s what I love so much about this team. We just want to win the game. I got it going early, the guys did a good job finding me but again another night it’s going to be somebody else. That’s what makes us special.”
Unlike many games in the regular season where Siakam has it going for a long stretch, there was no lull as it continued into the second half immediately as he tied the game with a triple to open the third quarter. He later finished an and-1 over Josh Hart and had a dunk in transition to push him to 30 points, marking the fourth time the Pacers have had a 30+ point scorer in the last three games after having zero as a team in their first nine playoff matchups. He continued to pick his spots and attack in the fourth including another massive 3-pointer to give the Pacers a 9-point lead and an and-1 after spinning past Brunson and getting Mitchell Robinson into the air. Special, special performance.
The Pacers are now just 2 wins away from their first trip to the NBA Finals in nearly a quarter century as they’ve taken a pair of games on the road to open each of the last two rounds. The only other team to manage that feat is the 1995 Houston Rockets.
But they can’t let themselves get comfortable if they want to get to their end goal of a championship, especially knowing the Knicks were up 2-0 on them last season in the second round. They still have plenty to clean up and adjust including not settling for isolations against the Knicks switch defense, which is how the Celtics blew their first two games against New York. Way too much dancing from Tyrese Haliburton in this game though he was still very good outside of shooting the ball with 14 points (5 of 16), 11 assists, a team-high 8 rebounds, and just one turnover. And rebounding continues to be a challenge.
More coverage to come on Game 2 contributors in Ben Sheppard, Tony Bradley, and Myles Turner. Game 3 is on Sunday at 8 p.m. following the Indy 500 on the same day in the city.
-#31-
iPacers - Indiana Pacers News 
[…] Source: Ipacers.com | View original article […]
LikeLike
[…] contributions in the series. And we all know what the starters were able to do: Pascal Siakam put the team on his back in Game 2 and scored 30+ points in three of the Pacers wins, Tyrese Haliburton hit the choke sign in the […]
LikeLike