While the Oklahoma City Thunder sit at home, spend time with their families, sip wine and gear up for the core’s first NBA Finals, a brutal war of attrition bloodying both sides is going down in the East.
The Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks have given fans a series for the ages, complete with comebacks, toughness, explosive showings of offence and dogged efforts on defence. It’s how basketball should look once you get this deep into the post-season.
Despite the series sitting at 3-2 in favour of the Pacers, the Eastern Conference Finals feel like they could still go either which way. It could just as easily have been 3-2 for the Knicks or 4-1 for either team. Nothing on the hardwood over the past week has felt remotely predictable.
But still, over the course of five games — and more if you’re counting the rounds that came before — trends do start to emerge. And heading into a pivotal Game 6 back at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, much can be said about the outings that came before and how they could be predictive of what comes next.
So to get you ready for the crucial showdown, here’s a look at some trends to keep an eye on ahead of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
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The New York Knicks try to stay alive when they face the Indiana Pacers in Game 6 of a thrilling Eastern Conference Finals. Watch the game Saturday at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT on Sportsnet or Sportsnet+.
KAT playing feral
The Bodega KAT is playing more like a rabid dog of late. Following an absurd 20-point fourth-quarter outburst in Game 3 to drag the Knicks from the jaws of defeat, Karl-Anthony Towns has been on an absolute tear, and it’s apparent his confidence is peaking.
In the two games since, Towns has turned into a bruiser, pushing his seven-foot, 248-pound frame into the paint on drives and forcing the issue on smaller defenders like Pascal Siakam and Obi Toppin. Then against a more traditional big like Myles Turner, Towns has dragged him out to the three-point line, where he’s shooting 8-for-11 in the series against the Pacers centre. Overall, he’s got a 54.1-per-cent field goal percentage against Turner, making him an unsolvable problem in single coverage for Indiana.
But his aggression has been a double-edged sword, as his drives, while effective, have at times been inadvisible, routinely drawing charges and getting him into foul trouble early on in some of these outings. He has four fouls in four of the five games this series and has yet to pick up fewer than three over the entire playoffs. He plays a dangerous game, but it’s one the Knicks need.
Nothing easy for Nembhard
The last three games have not been kind to Andrew Nembhard, as he’s shooting a brutal 6-for-26 (23.1 per cent) from the field while averaging 6.0 points on a 31.4 true shooting percentage and a -33 plus-minus.
It’s been ugly for the Aurora, Ont. native, and that’s been part of the plan for New York. Though common sense would tell you to shut down guys like Tyrese Haliburton or Siakam, the Knicks have schemed around the player they consider to be Indiana’s weak point in its otherwise game-breaking offence.
The Knicks have put OG Anunoby on him, their best one-on-one defender, completely stalling out the Pacers’ half-court and pick-and-roll offence. According to Caitlin Cooper, the Pacers have scored only 0.611 points per possession on 45 pick-and-roll sets with Nembhard as the ball-handler in the last three games.
Though the Pacers have still done well at scoring in transition, once the Knicks’ defence gets set and the plays run through Nembhard, New York has found a way to shut it down.
Elimination-game Brunson is real
The Pacers might have made a mistake when they went up 3-1 and gave Jalen Brunson the chance to have three elimination games to show out in.
Since joining the Knicks ahead of the 2022-23 season, the diminutive guard has been unstoppable with his back against the wall, averaging 32.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and 6.0 assists while shooting 55.7 per cent from the field and 46.7 per cent from three-point range.
He showed more of that in Game 5, popping off for 32 points on an obscene 81.0 true shooting percentage. Though he’s struggled with Nembhard guarding him for most of this series, he took it to the gifted defender on Thursday, going 5-of-5 from the field with two assists and no turnovers. Dread it, run from it, elimination-game Brunson is inevitable.
Haliburton can’t take a backseat
With the chance to take the Pacers to the NBA Finals for the first time in 25 years, Haliburton looked passive. The superstar guard looked like a role player in Game 5, finishing with only eight points on 2-of-7 from the field and a playoff-low 12.9 usage percentage.
The Pacers march at the beat of Haliburton’s drum, and while he’s one of the best and most efficient playmakers in the league, he needs to leverage his scoring ability, even if that means taking on a guy like Mikal Bridges, who has held him to 34.6-per-cent shooting from the field this series. The switch onto Brunson won’t always be there, but the Pacers need Haliburton to be aggressive.
Over the last two seasons of playoff games, when Haliburton takes fewer than 11 field goals, the Pacers are 4-7. Meanwhile, they’re 15-4 in games when he takes 11 or more. Indiana needs Haliburton to play like the superstar he is.
Knicks don’t play their stars
When the Knicks staged their masterful Game 3 comeback, much of it was done with Brunson off the floor and Towns going on a heater. That’s actually been the best recipe for success for the Knicks in these playoffs — one of their stars on, not both.
When Towns and Brunson share the court, they have a -1.7 net rating, mostly due to how porous both players are on defence, creating too many holes on that end for the rest of the Knicks to cover up.
With only Brunson on, the Knicks’ net rating jumps to +5.3 because of how much he provides on the offensive end, while with only Towns, it skyrockets to +16.8 because his defensive lapses are easier to plug than Brunson’s. Head coach Tom Thibodeau has done a nice job of understanding when and how to deploy the two in staggered minutes, and should continue to do so as this series trudges along.
