Indiana takes two, not yet No. 1
Indiana realized rather early in Game 2 that the Pacers weren't expected to beat the Knicks twice on Friday. Only had to beat New York once, in Game 2, to earn that 2-0 lead. Did not require lifting the enormity of the scope of a 2-0 series advantage in one evening. Indiana only had to take care of one quarter at a time, one line change after another, chopping wood and carrying water, little twirly jumpers in the lane.
New York, meanwhile, acted as if it had to go back and win Game 1. Tom Thibodeau messed with his rotation, a rarity, the Knicks played desperate but hardly within any moment but Wednesday's. It wasn't a downer, but a burden. NBA fans have seen downers, disappointments, this wasn't around in Game 2. Only two teams trying to do everything right.
One team is better at it. The Pacers are deeper, its two-way players sterner, its Eastern finals lead insurmountable unless airborne stomach illness ravages the Pacer plane on its way back home to Indiana.
New York lacks the personnel to compete in this series. Thibs' insistence on adding a bit more Miles "Deuce" McBride into the festivities was well-taken, even if it didn't take. McBride and Cameron Payne each bobbled themselves into biffs in Game 2 and those are two of New York's three, whole, reserves. The Pacers bring seven guys off the bench without blinking.
New York's premier second-stringer is Mitchell Robinson, whom Stan Van Gundy labeled the "MVP" of Game 2's first half after Mitch scored four in 15:38 of first half action, pulling seven boards, blocking two shots and whapping the Knicks toward endless team rebounds. Robinson managed only two rebounds, a block and zero points in two fewer minutes in the second half as Thibs again stuck with OG Anunoby for longer stretches after halftime.
Nothing worked, the Pacer attack was clean, performed with alacrity per script.
“We need him to be aggressive offensively. We need him to be locked in and communicate defensively,” [Josh] Hart said when asked generally what the Knicks need from [Karl-Anthony] Towns.
“That’s all we need from him. Need him to communicate at a high level.”
KAT worked nearly 20 minutes in Game 1's second half but fewer than 14 second half minutes in Friday's Game 2. The Pacers went at him, the Pacers turned him around.
The Pacers also went at Josh Hart. OG Anunoby was without someone to hound, or scraps to score with. New York does not have the personnel to change things, it is up to the Knicks speaking incessantly on defense and ensuring clear space on offense.
New York doesn't need the perfect game, the opponent isn't the Thunder, but close to immaculate. That's how delicate NBA competition is with eight players. And Coach only actually likes a few of them.
Watching Mitchell Robinson exorcise ghosts in Game 2's first half was fun, this was the guy who couldn't stay on the court, who couldn't be trusted to leave his feet at the right moments, instead working through Game 2's hip pulls and ankle twists, tapping keepaway from an entire NBA team. But the Pacers have more, and not just the overdue Thomas Bryant or Tony Bradley (our generation's greatest third-string center, our generation's Sean Rooks), not simply the future idea of Myles Turner (But at Home).
The Knicks demanded Karl-Anthony Towns show them a right shoulder early in Game 2 and KAT responded, 18 points through the first three quarters, alongside that infamous -14 through the same timespan (in a tie game). Thibs has no aversion to sitting scorers in fourth quarters – Carlos Boozer is the only ex-Thibodeau starter who doesn't clunk when he gets out of bed – and Thibs didn't sit KAT in the fourth. Rather worked him half the period, no Julius Randle-sized banishment.
What matters are the minutes Jalen Brunson isn't playing, maybe five total over the course of two games, fourth quarter ticks lost to foul trouble. The Pacers are better, but this series is the tiniest bit away from a 2-0 Knick lead. Two and three extra minutes in the fourth period makes all the difference.
With any other team, we'd figure for a pendulum swing, but the Knicks don't have the rotational inertia. Two victorious Knick trips to Indianapolis shouldn't surprise anyone, but many Pacers must screw up for New York to score upsets: Indiana turned it over only 17 times in 101 minutes at Madison Square Garden, once in 24 minutes of fourth quarter.
Indiana isn't being disrupted, it isn't seeing anything new.
Going under T.J. McConnell's screens only gives McConnell an extra, free, five or six feet gained toward the goal, plus whatever T.J. develops driving past that space New York already ceded him. In a game of inches, it is enough to draw a defense, string a pass, splash a three.
Myles Turner has two moves, shoot or drive. Mitchell Robinson's best closeouts aren't setting Turner off his steps, his rhythm, Myles is used to those Bald Bull-style charges and he knows when to let loose, or duck.
Myles is such a good basketball player, I am very fond of him.
And Pascal Siakam is familiar with making every member of an opposing rotation look utterly unsuitable for play against Pascal Siakam. In spite of what we thought were apparent, necessary attributes like length and quickness and intelligent application of each. In Game 2 it did not matter how much Karl-Anthony Towns did or did not communicate to Josh Hart about the ways Josh Hart is about to be scored upon by Pascal Siakam.
What does New York have? Five games to win four, a point guard with an unstoppable shot, an impeccable turnaround jumper, a move capable of a 50-point playoff performance. A helpful 50-point playoff performance. Even against Indiana's unending array of 6-3 guards, the same Pacers draping Jalen Brunson in foul trouble every game.
Game 2 was a normal loss, from which the Knicks might recover. Unlike the harrowing hours after Game 1, New York has a chance to watch itself speak softly and lurch slowly defensively on Game 2's tape. There is room to listen to internal thoughts. Without shrieks from Indiana's Game 1 comeback ringing in each ear.
Clean up the defense, force a few turnovers, and the Knicks can compete in Indy, win in Indy. The Pacers work for what they create and sometimes it doesn't work out, shots don't roll in.
This is not an even series, but it doesn't have to play to script. Why start now?
Game 3 in Indianapolis on Sunday on TNT at 8:00 PM Eastern
MIKE TYSON PUNCH-OUT CHARACTERS
Ranked in order of least-satisfying to most-satisfying landed punch.
King Hippo – no fun punching this guy, embarrassing after a while. Feels like an aberration of Queensbury Rule.
Don Flamenco – crushing left, right, left, right on an insecure man's pointy jaw until he falls and refuses to get up? And I have to do it twice?
Glass Joe – connection is less like glass and more like a teetering, collapsible Nerf hoop. This is not for adults, or even school-aged children.
Bald Bull – happy when our punches hit, but it feels like a chore, a dirty one, something caught in the crawlspace and died and you have to close your eyes and reach to dig it out.
Piston Honda – starts somewhat pointless, the size of this guy, but then he's felled by hubris? I'm the main character, here, not my opponent.
Soda Popinski – felt great to hit him because fuck that guy.
Mr. Sandman – don't know what it feels like to hit him, never got past Soda Popinski.
Macho Man – don't know, never got past Soda Popinski.
Mike Tyson – don't know, never got past Soda. However, I ain't no Mitch 'Blood' Green, now. I'd get a lick in.
Great Tiger – as a cat lover, this is fun. You can't yell at your own cats, let alone land an uppercut, but you can beat the shit out of Great Tiger.
Oh, does today's dry and wet food mix offend your sensibilities? Wanna jump on that basket of clean, folded laundry as soon as it enters the room? Wanna spin around the room randomly four times before stopping on a dime to beg for attention?
Number one?
Von Kaiser – feels good, therapeutic for both sides, like Der Kaiser is in on it too.
Head snaps back in a satisfying way, chest blows are lean and inviting, has the stamina to hang in there for one and definitely two and maybe three rounds.
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN PACERS
I'm in a hotel in New Orleans, a hotel that hasn't opened yet, our friends are the only ones here because the guy getting married works for the guy opening this new hotel.
On Friday night I'm in a corridor taking a Bluetooth speaker down to an awaiting party, a good speaker, real name brand shit. A man walks with me, I don't know him, he has a beard and his head is in his phone, typical look for our modern times.
He asks me if I'm paying attention to this and "this" turns out to be Game 2 and I shriek something about saving it for later, watching it from the tip and he gives me a look like, you don't have to make up a story and lie to me, man, I don't even know you.
We turn from the corridor and past a bar and into the rehearsal dinner, which is good because I need the practice. The dinner is really a party, which I'm strong at, and every party deserves karaoke, a much larger Bluetooth speaker, so after two or three turns 'round the infield I gotta split to drive to another part of Treme to knock on someone's mother's door at 11 PM on a Friday night, pick up a karaoke machine we mailed there before this trip. I leave the blazer on while driving because I am very cool. I find mom's house and illegally park and rip the phone from its cord, my music from the air, and remember to quickly mute the emerging 1120 AM radio on my dial. No spoilers for Game 2.
I drive the machine back to the party, make the rounds, meet the parents, the other parents, fill up a plate to pounce upon after the game. I look around and I'm the only guy, again, my kinda dance floor. The next morning my ever-informative wife tells me the groom's friends are all "assholes. They left before you got there to go to a bar to watch the game."
Not that game, but the game. My wife uses no pejoratives with these particular Eastern finals because she was there with me on Wednesday, driving in Mississippi, listening to every last wow from Game 1.
One-bar LTE reception for my NBA app to feed off, a shocking paucity of NBA radio affiliates in the mid-to-south Mississippi region. Still, we tapped onward through Game 1, bouncing between radio broadcasts via the app, Kelly claiming "ok, now we're done," incorrectly, at least twice in regulation.
How do you follow up a memory? Listen to the same music every season? Hit the same restaurant on every holiday, every vacation with the same takeout order? Maybe sing the same song on the anniversary of your birth? Over and over, until it ends.
How does this series end? On Tuesday? In a week? In June? What lasting images will we claim, what aura will be farmed? Tyrese Haliburton's words were correct, aura in this realm is something to be commodified, harvested and trimmed and shipped and sold.
Memories are our own. It is up to us if we want to pay extra every time we want to revisit them, one more round before they close.
MO JA HANNA
Thanks for reading!
