Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals featured an absolutely insane comeback from the Indiana Pacers to take a 1-0 lead on the road. With nine minutes remaining, the New York Knicks had a sizable lead before Aaron Nesmith put up 20 points in just five minutes, setting the stage for Tyrese Haliburton to hit an improbable shot to send the game to overtime. The Pacers wound up winning that extra period, giving us an all-time classic game that could be a decisive blow this early in the series.
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The Pacers have been the most consistent and best team in the playoffs this year and are coming off a series where they thoroughly shellacked the first-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers. Their brand of basketball is focused on leveraging Tyrese’s advanced playmaking ability in transition to create open looks for their shooters and stylish dunks for their athletic forwards.
According to Shannon Sharpe, this play style was apparent not just in terms of strategy but also in terms of preparation. Sharpe focused on the Knicks’ conditioning as a key reason for their loss. Sharpe spoke about the same on Nightcap and discussed the reason for New York’s implosion.
“Them legs gone… There’s a difference between walking on the treadmill for 45 minutes and jogging or sprinting on the treadmill for 45 minutes,” Sharpe said. The analogy may be funny, but it’s absolutely true. “The Pacers are used to sprinting on the treadmill… you can lift weights and you can do cardio, but when you combine the two, you see their cardio capacity.”
Even though the Knicks’ starters played fewer minutes last night than we’re accustomed to seeing, it was how the Pacers were tiring them out during those minutes that made the difference. Last night, the Pacers had a 10-man rotation, as compared to the Knicks, who played eight guys, and Delon Wright(for 26 seconds).
Some may blame Tom Thibodeau’s shortened rotations for tiring his players out. Earlier this year, Mikal Bridges, who has been an ironman since he joined the NBA, ruffled some feathers by saying so, but the minute load is only one of the problems the Knicks faced.
The entirety of the Pacers’ roster turned the ball over seven times last night, while Jalen Brunson had that same number on his own. The Knicks more than doubled the Pacers’ total of turnovers, which is especially dangerous because it plays into Indiana’s ideal style of play, i.e., transitional basketball.
“They played well enough to win,” started guest host and former all-star Joe Johnson. “They had the game down the stretch, but it seems like late in the game, they were having these mental lapses where they were almost turning the ball over, but they kept getting away… Indiana gonna make them pay for this. They kept throwing these lackadaisical passes and getting these turnovers.”
Limiting turnovers is not just a strategy to beat the Pacers, it is a prerequisite to even having a chance. Former Cleveland Cavaliers now Detroit Pistons head coach JB Bickerstaff said it would be the defining margin of this series, and he was absolutely right. The Knicks have the bigger names and better scorers, but if you let the Pacers run, they’ll make up the difference in talent.
The Knicks will aim to salvage any hope in their home stand on Friday when the two teams will once again face off inside the walls of Madison Square Garden.
