INDIANAPOLIS — The temptation, after Tyrese Haliburton scored just eight points on seven shots in a disappointing Game 5 loss, was to call for the Indiana Pacers to adjust the sliders for Game 6 by overindexing on the kind of aggression that’s easy to see in the box score — to counteract the New York Knicks’ stepped-up ball pressure with hunted shots and hero ball.
That’s not what Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle called for, though.
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“As a team, we have to be aggressive, and we have to have a level of balance,” he said after Game 5.
Which is to say: They needed to play Pacers basketball.
The many-hands-make-light-work approach that has produced one of the NBA’s most potent offenses. The insistence on pipe-bursting full-court ball pressure that has made the Pacers one of the NBA’s most improved defenses. The commitment to running 12 deep — and to all 12 of ’em running, off makes and misses — that makes them tough to handle on the second night of a back-to-back in February, but that makes them an absolute nightmare to deal with every other night for two weeks in late May.
It’s a play style that elevates collective effect over individual impact — one that makes the Pacers different and special, has made them one of the best teams in the NBA for nearly six months … and now, has made them Eastern Conference champions.
Eleven Pacers played before garbage time in Saturday’s 125-108 Game 6 win, and seven of them scored in double figures. Andrew Nembhard changed the game with his defense on Knicks star Jalen Brunson, snatching six steals and getting his offensive game unstuck with 14 points on 6-for-12 shooting. Backup center Thomas Bryant, who’d seen his minutes dwindle in favor of Tony Bradley’s superior ability to battle Knicks center Mitchell Robinson on the glass, got an opportunity to return to the fold with Bradley nursing an injured hip; he made the most of it, drilling three huge 3-pointers, blocking a shot and finishing with 11 points in 13 minutes. Obi Toppin provided his trademark irrepressible energy and above-the-rim finishing against the team that drafted and then traded him, chipping in 18 points, six rebounds and three blocks. (That last stat drew a surprised smile after the game from Haliburton, who chided Toppin for having “all that athleticism, but just [not using] it on the defensive end sometimes.”)
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“We’ve preached depth this whole year,” said Haliburton, who didn’t need to dominate the ball or the shots to bounce back from his quiet Game 5, tallying 21 points, 13 assists, six rebounds, three steals and a block. “We keep talking about it, and it’s not just a word we use for fun. This is our identity, and this is who we are, and I thought we did a great job of utilizing that. We had many different people step up.”
Including, of course, Indiana’s superstars, who knew they had to turn in more forceful and productive outings back home in Game 6 than they had at Madison Square Garden in Game 5, and who answered the call.
Pascal Siakam kept the offense afloat early, scoring 16 first-half points to stake Indiana to leads after the first and second quarters of a tight, tense elimination-game first half contested entirely within two possessions, with neither team able to gain more than six points of separation. He tilted the run of play in the Pacers’ favor shortly after intermission, having a hand in three straight buckets — a pick-and-pop 3, a setup for an Aaron Nesmith 3 in transition and a transition leak-out and beautiful reverse finish through contact — that amounted to a 9-0 run to put Indiana up 13 early in the third and giving it the separation it needed to push the Knicks past their breaking point.
Siakam would finish with a game-high 31 points, five rebounds, three assists, three blocks and a steal — another monster performance in an Eastern Conference finals where the Knicks never really found a great answer for him, where he made abundantly clear why Pacers brass felt he was the missing piece they had to go all out to get at the 2024 trade deadline and of which he was voted the Most Valuable Player.
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“It’s cool,” Siakam said of the Larry Bird Trophy, which he brought with him to his postgame news conference. “I didn’t know they had a trophy for that, but I’m excited.”
Not as excited, though, as he is to get another chance to play for a much bigger gold trophy, six years after he hoisted it with the 2019 Toronto Raptors.
“I was telling the guys — I mean, like, for me, you know, I got there when I was in Year 3, and I thought I would get back there a lot. And it didn’t happen,” Siakam said. “So it’s a hell of an opportunity, and you don’t know when you’re gonna get it again. So I think we have to have a mindset of going out there and, at the end of the day, just giving everything we’ve got and knowing that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Yep, the Indiana Pacers are going to the NBA Finals. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Haliburton didn’t get many good shots early, going without a field goal until he sprinted into a pull-up 3 four and a half minutes into the second quarter. But he kept reading the game, kept moving the ball and his body, and kept trusting that the deposits that he and the Pacers had put in over the course of the game and the series — all those miles they put on the Knicks’ legs, all the mental and physical strain they’d put on New York’s players with their frenetic, relentless…
Dan Devine
