The Pacers Were Just Too Much To Handle

Playoff basketball is intense and complicated, full of minuscule decisions that can swing a possession, a game, a series, a season. But at its core, it can be, and often is, quite simple: The better team tends to win more often than not. In the case of the Eastern Conference Finals, after some twists and turns, this axiom proved to be true, as the Indiana Pacers bounced back following a lackluster Game 5 to close out the New York Knicks on home court in dominant fashion, 125-108.

The Pacers proved throughout this series that they were in fact the better, deeper, more prepared outfit. Credit to the Knicks for pushing this series along as far as they did, but Indiana's, well, pace and energy often turned chunks of gametime into track meets, competitions with which the shallower and battle-weary Knicks could not keep up. This was true in Game 1, when Indiana completed an impossible comeback in the final three minutes, and it was true again in Game 4, when they bludgeoned New York with points off turnovers and a transcendent Tyrese Haliburton performance. Was it any surprise, then, that the Pacers did it one more time on Saturday night to a clearly exhausted and banged-up Knicks team? Not to me, at least.

There's plenty of credit to go around for an emphatic close-out win that blew open in the second half. Haliburton didn't have his best shooting game of the series, but he hit some key baskets in the fourth, including the exclamation point—an outlandish 32-footer that forced Kevin Harlan to scream "Tyrese Haliburton has gone MAD!"

(Quick aside: This was the final NBA game on TNT for now, so I'm glad Harlan got to let loose right one last time at the end. He's the best shouter in commentary.)

Pascal Siakam, en route to winning the Eastern Conference Finals MVP, fared even better, scoring 31 and taking every Knicks defender thrown at him to the basket, while running out on every transition. Obi Toppin, a former Knick, added in 18 from the bench. Aaron Nesmith and, especially, Andrew Nembhard hounded Jalen Brunson every time down the court, pestering him as they had all series with body-to-body guarding and plenty of reach-ins. Indiana forced 17 turnovers on Saturday, and it felt in real-time like double that count.

What was true, mostly, through the first five games proved to be true here again. Indiana just had too much firepower, too many bodies, and too much coordination for New York to handle. Both of New York's stars struggled mightily to save their team's season. Karl-Anthony Towns was as big a defensive sieve as he had been all playoffs, hampered as he was by an injured knee, and four missed free throws helped keep Indiana in solid control even when he was able to get them to over-commit on defense. Brunson had his worst game of the series, finishing with 19 on 8-of-18 shooting (2-of-7 from three) to go along with five turnovers. With the Pacers guards doing their best to disrupt his rhythm, Brunson just didn't have the energy to get to his favored spots on the court, and he missed a couple of his trademark floaters and layups. Mikal Bridges was efficient (6-of-9 shooting) but couldn't assert himself enough to pick up the stars' slack, and Josh Hart was an active negative, punctuated by one of the uglier three-point misses I've seen in years, somehow hitting nothing but the far glass of the backboard.

It was death by a thousand cuts, as New York continuously made little runs to stay in it only for Indiana to rip off unanswered points in bunches until those bunches became just too much in the third quarter, which Indiana won 34-23, essentially closing out the game; the Knicks would not get closer than nine points in the fourth. Aside from OG Anunoby, who had his best game of the series on both ends, no Knicks player seemed up for the task at hand, while every Indiana starter and almost all of their reserves finished at or above 50 percent shooting on the night. That's the result of easy baskets off turnovers, yes, but also off half-court sets that had the Knicks in a choke-hold; plenty of times, Haliburton would drive into the paint, forcing the tired Knicks into rotations that they could not recover from after the Pacers star leaped into the air for one of his patented jump passes.

So the NBA Finals are set, and it's hard to argue against this being the correct match-up. Just as Oklahoma City steamrolled through the West, only going to seven games against a heroic and undermanned Denver Nuggets team, the Pacers did the same, reaching the championship round losing just four games. The Knicks showed in Games 3 and 5 that, on their very best days, they could keep up and even stomp Indiana. But the Pacers never seemed to panic, comfortable in the knowledge that they were simply a better team all-around. They played faster, harder, and more efficiently. Now they are back in the Finals for the first time since 2000.