Knicks 106, Pacers 100: You are here
The Knicks are back
Remember maps in shopping malls? You’d walk up to this eight-foot tall structure featuring a map showing all the stores in the mall on all the levels, with a little triangle or dot somewhere that said, “You are here.” Remember how difficult it could be, ironically, to orient where you were off some map telling you where you are?
Last night the Knicks halved their conference finals deficit from two games to one with a stirring 106-100 comeback victory in Indiana, and in doing so became the first team with three 20-plus point comebacks in one postseason. Usually big turnarounds like that leave the losing team dizzied and disoriented, but if you try to point to one primary reason for New York pulling this one out you’re playing three-card monte. Only suckers play three-card monte.
One reason the Knicks may have finished differently is they finally started differently. After being visited by the same three ghosts who inspired him to bench Elfrid Payton four years ago and switch against Boston one fortnite ago, Tom Thibodeau realized starting every game from behind’s not a lotta fun and changed up the sacred starting five, replacing Josh Hart with Mitchell Robinson. The Knicks got off to a decent start, holding the Pacers to 10 points nearly eight minutes in, but then Indiana exploded for 20 points the final few minutes of the first and led after one. Ironically, last night – when Thibodeau finally made the change to the starting five everyone’s been clamoring for – was the first game this series New York trailed after one. As the second quarter unfolded, things were looking familiar, in a bad way.
Sometimes the Knick head coach can only bend so much, like hearing “You gotta play Randle & Obi together!”, trying it for two minutes, scrapping it and mothballing. But in addition to swapping out Hart for Mitch, T-Squared kept kinking it up elsewhere. Landry Shamet hadn’t played more than five minutes in a game since the playoff opener versus Detroit; he played seven in last night’s second quarter. Delon Wright only played four postseason minutes period before last night; he played more than that in the second. Nine Knicks played 10-plus minutes, probably for the first time since Mike Miller was coaching, and all four reserves – Hart, Wright, Shamet and Deuce McBride – finished with positive ratings. Truly a new and unpredictable Thibodeau has been unleashed.
Zooming in a bit on the bench, a moment – a few moments – to single out McBride. With Jalen Brunson unexpectedly contracting Kurt Thomas Syndrome this postseason, i.e. frequent foul trouble – four by halftime; his fifth five minutes into the fourth, when Towns also had five – the buttoned-up-so-far-he’s-wearing-a-straitjacket Thibs we’re always hearing gripes about would have damned the torpedoes and pushed as long and far as he could with his number-one guy, and after Brunson had fouled out and the Knicks lost Thibs would have told us the game told him what to do, and there’d have been riots.
Instead, Deuce was one of four Knicks with second-half double-digit positive ratings, along with Hart, Towns and Shamet. With New York trailing by 15 late in the third, McBride ran off a one-man 7-0 run to make the gap manageable entering the fourth . . . where he was not relegated to the bench, but remained running the show while the captain cooled his jets. McBride played most of the fourth, and played so, so well.
The Knicks rattling off big runs to close quarters was a running theme: trailing by 20 with only three minutes left in the first half, they cut it to 13 by the break; following Deuce’s third-quarter run, the fourth was an extended trailer of what heaven looks like, with the Knicks winning the period 36-20 to turn a 10-point deficit into a six-point win. And while Brunson struggled by his standards, both shooting and simply staying on the floor, when he checked back in – not until there was 1:37 left, the game tied – it was closing time. And closers close.
In addition to that game-winner, Brunson also hit the clinching free throws.
We’re already at normal recap length, and yet if we end it now it’s completely incomplete. Because the biggest katalyst behind the Knicks exploding the fourth, the man who’s now wrecked katastrophic damage in two different spurts this series, did it again when it mattered most. KAT had the kind of quarter Reggie Miller’s teats would still be sore from milking 30 years later. 20 points and eight rebounds in the frame – the Pacers as a team had 20 and seven! – scoring inside and out: 6-of-9 from the floor, 3-of-4 from deep, 5-of-6 at the line. I didn’t even recognize the noise that came out of me after a sick KAT throwdown put the Knicks up for the first time since the first quarter. And that wasn’t even his most impressive make.
The Knicks have two All-NBA players, not one. Sometimes I don’t think they remember that. They should.
Josh Hart once told Mitchell Robinson, “You get regular rebounds. I get the rebounds that break teams.” Hart was benched for Mitch at the start, but when the game was knee-deep into Act III and the biggest rebounds were up for grabs, who else would corral them but the Knicks’ corazón? And these weren’t rebounds dropping at the right place in the right time; these were as bright lights in the sky, illuminating the path to victory. Hart ascended unto the heavens to claim them. Hallelujah!
Game 3 was an inspiring effort. Where are we now? Game 4 tomorrow night will tell us. Either result may result in Knick fans feeling disoriented. Hopefully we’re left dizzy from the sudden climb up to 2-2, and not dashed by dropping to 1-3.
