INDIANAPOLIS — The Knicks’ starting five was a mess earlier in the series, so much so that Tom Thibodeau finally made a change, inserting Mitchell Robinson beginning with Game 3.
The Pacers’ starters endured a brutal game collectively in allowing the Knicks back into the Eastern Conference finals Thursday night with a series-extending 111-94 win in Game 5 at the Garden.
This time, it was Indiana’s starting group spotting the Knicks an early double-digit lead from which the Pacers never fully recovered.
The individual numbers for the game were ugly, most notably a shutdown of All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton, who followed up a masterful 32-point, 15-assist, zero-turnover triple-double in Game 4 with eight points on 2-for-7 shooting with six assists in 32 minutes.
Overall, Haliburton and fellow starters Aaron Nesmith, Andrew Nembhard and Myles Turner combined for only 22 points on 8-for-22 from the floor, including only two made 3-pointers in 10 attempts.
Pascal Siakam was also held to 15 points, half his total from two nights earlier.
“We obviously didn’t play with the level of force that we needed to,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “We lost the rebound battle [45-40], we lost the turnover battle [19-15], and we didn’t shoot well. They had a lot to do with it, so give them credit. We’re gonna have to play much better.
“To start the game, we just didn’t have the right level of force, the right level of attitude necessary in this environment. It was a bad start, and we never had a lead in the game. There were a multitude of things going wrong. There were times in the game we got a little bit of traction, but never enough.”
Carlisle called the Pacers taking three of the first four games against the Knicks, including a miraculous late comeback to win in overtime in the series opener, “ancient history now” ahead of another closeout chance in Game 6 on Saturday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
“Everything gets more intense as a series continues to evolve. It’s great competition, but we weren’t at the level compete-wise that we needed to be,” Carlisle said. “Overall, our disposition, posture, force, intensity, all of that just simply was not good enough.”
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Siakam agreed, saying after the game that the Knicks “played harder than us.”
He also got into a contentious discussion with an Indiana-based media member during his postgame press conference over that assertion.
“We played hard, but they played harder,” Siakam said. “That happens in a game.”
Indiana received 57 points from its bench in Game 5, led by 23 from Bennedict Mathurin and 11 from Obi Toppin, but the 37 from the starters resulted in the Pacers being held below 100 points for the first time in the playoffs and the first time overall since a 112-89 loss in Portland in early February.
“We weren’t great as a group,” Haliburton said of the starting unit. “We gotta be better as a group, and our pace has to be better, and that starts with me. It was a rough showing for us tonight, so we’ll watch the film and see where we can get better and be prepared for Game 6.”