Thrilling Pacers run Knicks ragged, reach first NBA Finals in 25 years

Washington Post

2 days ago

INDIANAPOLIS — James Johnson, the Indiana Pacers' beloved enforcer, pulled his white pickup truck onto Delaware Street around midnight and waved out his window to acknowledge the jubilant swarms of gold-clad fans that lined the downtown sidewalks. Up the road, loud music boomed and horns honked through gridlock traffic, and the watering hole crowds overflowed onto packed sidewalks. A small pack of dejected New York Knicks fans found itself on the wrong end of good-natured heckling: 'Hicks in six!'
This Midwestern ecstasy was 25 years in the making.
The Pacers pulled away from the Knicks with a hot-shooting third quarter and rode a splendid effort from star forward Pascal Siakam to claim a 125-108 victory in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Saturday, advancing to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2000. Indiana, which entered the playoffs as the East's No. 4 seed, tore through the conference bracket with a 12-4 record just one year after being swept out of the East finals by the Boston Celtics.
'When it happened 25 years ago, I wasn't even 6 months old,' Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said. 'I think this is a really special time for our organization and our fans. It's a special feeling to do it with this group. We got to the same spot last year and fell short. We worked our tails off to get back here. This is going to be something I remember for the rest of my life.'
While the Oklahoma City Thunder will be heavily favored in the Finals, which begin Thursday, the Pacers are charmed underdogs who rebounded from an injury-riddled start to the regular season and executed three incredible late-game comebacks in the postseason.
Indiana kept its poise throughout the tense, series-clinching win over New York, in which neither team led by more than six points in the first half. Siakam proved to be the difference-maker, earning Eastern Conference finals MVP honors after finishing with a game-high 31 points to go with five rebounds and three assists. The three-time all-star forward, who won a championship with the 2018-19 Toronto Raptors before being dealt to the Pacers in January 2024, made a three-pointer to open the second-half scoring. The Pacers never looked back, hitting seven three-pointers in the period to open a double-digit lead they never relinquished.
'I was super excited about coming [to Indiana in the trade] because of the pace,' Siakam said. 'It fits who I am as a person and the way I play. We have a lot of underdogs. That's my style. I like that. That's been me my whole life. We're resilient. We won't stop. Even after bad games, we're still going to be here, waking up with our head up and going to work. That's what you want from a team.'
Haliburton's savvy playmaking and guard Andrew Nembhard's fierce defense on Knicks star Jalen Brunson helped Indiana stave off several rally attempts down the stretch. Haliburton didn't score in the first quarter, but he found his groove as the game unfolded to post 21 points, 13 assists and six rebounds. In the fourth quarter, he hit a pair of runners in the lane to keep the Knicks at bay. The hard-nosed Nembhard, who was an unheralded second-round pick in 2022, tallied 14 points, eight assists and six steals.
The Knicks faced an uphill battle in the series after blowing a 14-point lead in the final three minutes of Game 1, and they sputtered to the finish line following a valiant Game 5 win at Madison Square Garden on Thursday.
New York was undone by its 18 turnovers — which Indiana converted into 34 points — and its shaky transition defense. Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns scored a team-high 22 points and grabbed 14 rebounds in Game 6, while Brunson managed 19 points on 8-for-18 shooting.
'It hurts to not be able to bring an opportunity for a championship to the city,' Towns said. 'The plan now is to put ourselves in this position again and succeed next time.'
The Pacers, who have been the East's fastest team in the playoffs, ran the Knicks off the court in the second half of the series clincher. Siakam leaked out into the open court for backbreaking buckets, and Haliburton provided the exclamation point by setting up Obi Toppin for a lob dunk with less than three minutes to play.
'Imagine you normally set the treadmill to seven miles an hour,' said a rival assistant coach, whose team was eliminated from the playoffs by Indiana. 'Playing the Pacers is like trying to run at nine miles an hour.'
The home crowd roared its approval throughout Game 6, with Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark leading the cheers from a courtside seat. After the final buzzer, Haliburton waved for his father, John, to join the festivities. John Haliburton, who was briefly banished from attending Pacers games for taunting Giannis Antetokounmpo following Indiana's first-round series victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, made his way to the court like a conquering hero, accepting handshakes and hugs from fans along the way.
Tyrese Haliburton, who was acquired from the Sacramento Kings in a February 2022 trade, basked in the excitement and posed for photographs with rapper Rob 49, who name-checked the Pacers star in his song 'What the Helly.' As Pacers legends Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose were mobbed by selfie seekers, 10-year veteran center Myles Turner drew a loud ovation when he noted during a postgame interview that he had spent 'one-third of my life' in the Hoosier State.
'Nothing but joy,' Turner said. 'Pure excitement and validation. The emotions at this time of year are underrated. You don't sleep. You lose hair. You can't explain that if you've never been here before.'
Pacers Coach Rick Carlisle brought the house down by uttering a popular local motto to cap the postgame trophy presentation: 'In 49 states, it's just basketball. But this is Indiana.'
Across many of those other 49 states, there will probably be some hand-wringing about a Finals matchup that defies the NBA's norm. The small-market Thunder and Pacers both hail from flyover country, and they are hardly traditional powers. The Thunder franchise hasn't won a championship since 1979 when it was still known as the Seattle SuperSonics, and the Pacers haven't won since joining the NBA from the rival American Basketball Association in 1976.
Both teams were distant afterthoughts as recently as the 2021-22 season, when the Thunder won 24 games and the Pacers won 25. Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the newly crowned MVP, and Haliburton, an Olympic gold medalist and two-time all-star, have since emerged as exquisite playmakers, but they're not nearly as famous as old guard icons LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant. Top-heavy super teams tend to attract casual fans, but Oklahoma City and Indiana win with deep casts of hardworking role players who are more appealing to purists.
Even so, the Thunder and Pacers were clearly the most deserving representatives from their respective conferences. Oklahoma City went 12-4 through the West bracket, sweeping the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round, surviving seven games with Nikola Jokic and the 2023 champion Denver Nuggets in the second round, and then making light work of Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference finals. Indiana dispatched Antetokounmpo's Bucks as an appetizer and stunned the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round before outlasting the Knicks.
Now, one of these two party-crashers — the Thunder or the Pacers — is set to become the NBA's seventh different champion in the past seven seasons.
'This is no time to be popping champagne,' Carlisle said, while the celebrations outside the arena were still just getting started. 'We understand the magnitude of the opponent. Oklahoma City has been dominant all season long, with capital letters in the word DOMINANT. Defensively, they're historically great. I think it has the makings of a great series.'