A courtside Knicks fan stirred up Tyrese Haliburton, just like Spike Lee had done to Reggie Miller almost 30 years earlier.
This one went even worse for the Knicks.
Fired up by the unknown heckler, Haliburton carried Indiana to a 130-109 rout of the Knicks in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semis on Sunday at the Garden.
Then Haliburton donned a hoodie with a picture of Miller’s famous choke pose, just to troll the team he had just sent packing into their offseason.
Haliburton led the Pacers with 26 points, six assists and four rebounds. But spurred by the heckling fan even before tipoff, the All-Star point guard came out white-hot with 14 first-quarter points to spot the Pacers to a 39-27 lead they just padded to as much as 23 in a blowout.
“You like that s–t?” Haliburton yelled to the fan after a 3-pointer that gave Indiana a 34-22 lead with 2:03 left in the first.
“He was just talking before the game,” Haliburton said of the courtside fan. “He was talking before the game. It seemed like whoever was sitting in that seat all series had something to say to me. So once I got going, I knew I was going to pick somebody today to get me going and it just happened to be him.
“It just got me going in the first quarter, and we just continued on. But I think that’s the game within the game, the fun that is this environment.”
The environment included a raucous sellout crowd of 19,812 — one of whom had some unintended consequences. Like Lee had.
Even before Miller famously scored eight points in 8.9 seconds to beat the Knicks in Game 1 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semis, Lee had already sparked a rivalry with him.
The iconic filmmaker and Knicks superfan had taunted Miller in the prior season’s Eastern Conference Finals, and lit a fire under the Pacer star.
Miller poured in 25 fourth-quarter points in Game 5 while going back-and-forth with Lee, giving the latter his famous choke gesture.
At least the Knicks took the last two games of that series to reach the 1994 NBA Finals. But Sunday, the Knicks got sent packing into their offseason.
And they got sent there by a trolling Haliburton, clad in a funeral-black hoodie with a huge photo of Miller’s infamous choke pose.
“Yeah, I mean, we text every day. I mean, he’s just been a good mentor for me. But I mean, I’m just wearing a hoodie; I like to be comfy on the plane,” Haliburton said, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “I got this hoodie like two days ago; so I appreciate whoever gave it to me.”
And the Pacers appreciated the latest Knick fan to fire up one of their stars.
“Tyrese, Tyrese does what he does. The fans helped him [Sunday], actually talking to him,” ex-Knick Obi Toppin said of Haliburton. “So he did what he had to do and helped us get this one.”