It’s hard to capture how improbable everything that happened in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals was, so let’s start with a straightforward question everyone who watched it should be able to answer: At what point did you give up on the Indiana Pacers?
Was it with about seven and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter, when OG Anunoby swooped in for a layup that gave the New York Knicks a 16-point lead, capping off a 14-0 run that miraculously began when Jalen Brunson exited with his fifth foul a few minutes earlier? New York’s win probability was 98.7 percent at the time.
How about with 2:51 on the clock, when Brunson drilled a pull-up 3 over Ben Sheppard to make the score 119-105? New York’s win probability at that moment was [checks notes before passing out] … 100 percent, odds that are partially shaped by the fact that we have literally never seen an opponent rally back from that kind of deficit in the NBA playoffs before.
My personal answer to this question came with a little over 40 seconds on the clock, when Karl-Anthony Towns rumbled to the rim and made a layup that extended New York’s lead to eight, giving the Knicks a win probability of a paltry 99.9 percent. Even after seeing Aaron Nesmith hit three of the eight 3s he’d sink to spark Indiana’s historic 138-135 overtime win, I closed my laptop, stood up from my seat, and made my way down to Madison Square Garden’s media room. Very little of me believed that the Pacers would or even could steal Game 1 at that point, even though I’d already seen them pull off a pair of near-impossible comebacks in these exact same playoffs. I was, obviously, very wrong.
If the playoffs have taught us anything this year, it’s that you should never give up on these Indiana Pacers. It’s not because they never lose or are overflowing with a roster full of first-ballot Hall of Famers. No, it’s because they apparently exist to pull off unexplainable basketball miracles and have enough poise, synergy, experience, talent, and stamina to believe they’re in every game, regardless of what the scoreboard and clock happen to read.
Also, they have Tyrese motherfucking Haliburton, whose game-tying (Reggie Miller tribute) prayer at the buzzer was, for lack of a better description, one for the ages. “The ball felt like it was up there for an eternity,” he said afterward, describing that excruciating second when his shot bounced straight up about 10 feet in the air before it fell through the rim. It will go down as one of the more theatrically indelible sequences anyone who watched it live will ever see unfold on a basketball court. A jumper that met, exceeded, and then pummeled the moment into submission.
The perfect mix of balance, gumption, stones, awareness, and flair all culminated in a back-snapping pull-up as Haliburton’s momentum drifted away from the rim and Mitchell Robinson’s fingertips forced the ball to arc a bit higher than it normally would.
Just watch this thing:
With just seconds left in regulation, down by two, Haliburton cut off his own drive and pivoted back out to the perimeter. He had options. First, Myles Turner was wide open for a spot-up 3. Then Aaron Nesmith slipped behind OG Anunoby on a cut to the rim for what would’ve been a wide-open layup. Haliburton processed all that immediately and decided Indy would either live or die by his hands. “When it went in, I thought my eyes might have been deceiving me in the moment,” Haliburton said. “But it felt good when it left my hand.”
It was unforgettable. “He bets on himself,” Turner said. “He’s very confident.”
In other words, the antithesis of overrated. Haliburton finished with 31 points, 11 assists, a 62.6 true shooting percentage, and only two turnovers. The Pacers were plus-15 in his 43 minutes, and so much of their offensive flow emanated from his ability to control the game’s rhythm, push the pace, share the ball, and find ways to punish New York’s switch-heavy defense.
There’s no one player who is responsible for a win like this, though. As a team, the Pacers finished the regular season with a league-best plus-20.9 net rating in crunch time. They were comfortable in high-leverage situations then, and in these playoffs they’ve elevated to an even more absurd plane of existence, with a crunch-time offensive rating that now sits at an incomprehensible 160.5 in 22 minutes.
Think back to that remarkable Game 5 win that eliminated the Milwaukee Bucks in Round 1, when the Pacers trailed by seven with 40 seconds left and won at the buzzer. Or, of course, Game 2 against the Cleveland Cavaliers, when they found themselves down seven with 57 seconds remaining. By the numbers, these were the fifth- and seventh-least likely comebacks of the play-by-play era. Game 1 against the Knicks is now officially fourth but unofficially, forever, no. 1.
There are theories to explain this degree of steadfast determination. Haliburton credits the Pacers’ familiarity with one another and the front office’s decision to run last year’s roster back for another run.
“I think it was really big, because we've been through everything together,” he said Wednesday night. “We've been on big losing skids, big winning runs. We’ve had to win in so many different ways; so many guys had to step up and make big shots. I think in the NBA, you don't see a ton of continuity from year to year, right? Many teams are changing from year to year, and I think our front office did a great job of keeping this group together. And I think that just gives us all confidence in each other, like we feel like we know where everybody’s gonna be. We have high expectations for each other, but I think we also hold each other accountable at the same time.”
Maybe they wore the Knicks down with their ball pressure. The Pacers are physical, exhausting, fast, selfless, and deep, with lineups that are loaded with tough shotmakers at every position. They pick opposing ball handlers up full court and have a diversified offense that went 11-for-19 from the midrange in Game 1. All of it’s taxing to play. All of it’s a singular grind to take down and stamp out.
Haliburton saw a little bit of that take its toll on the Knicks down the stretch: “You could say that. They missed a couple free throws there down the stretch, had a couple short misses there at the end of the game. … I think that's a part of our identity. How we can wear on teams for 48 minutes. Obviously picking up full court, but also our offensive pressure, getting downhill, moving, playing fast. I thought that we did a good job offensively of playing our style.”
Their success in competitive back-and-forth battles is a combination of all the above. The Pacers have felt these flames before. They know what they feel like and don’t let significant stakes take precedence over the game plan.
“We had a lot of these games this year. I mean, we’ve had, we probably had a dozen of them throughout the season,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said. “A lot of the games early where we were struggling were games we had to pull out. There were clutch games when we weren’t playing particularly well. And you know, it’s just, it’s a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.”
The Knicks had their opportunities to close this game out in the fourth quarter and overtime. But it seemed more like a case of Indiana ripping Game 1 away rather than New York losing it. Shortly after the comeback was complete, Carlisle summed up everything we’d just witnessed by perfectly, plainly capturing why this series between two teams that have come to personify perseverance now has a chance to go down in history as one of the more thrilling, high-stakes, unpredictable battles in a very long time.
“NBA players are amazing,” he said. “I mean, you know, these guys get on a roll, and they do amazing things.” Who among us can disagree?
