2024 NBA Playoffs: East Semifinals: #2 New York Knicks vs #6 Indiana Pacers (Series tied 3-3)

[cgf]

I think people are selling Indiana short. I'm a Knicks fan and I think we are lucky to win in 7. The Pacers did beat some good teams early to get to the Mid Season tournament finale, and beat the Knicks twice.

If you were a “Knicks fan” then you would know we were missing key guys in those pacer wins lol foh

“Knicks fan” lmao

Just cause someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're not a Knicks fan

[magee]

Knicks going 8.5 deep (.5 being Burks) will determine how well they fare against Indy's 8.5. Talent-wise, Knicks have the better roster, but it also depends on how Indy hunts Brunson with Halliburton. He hasn't been the same since his hamstring injury, so it will be interesting to see how the Pacers attack from the top.

For NY, same thing: hunt Halliburton and see how much Turner stays home on drop coverage. Nesmith and Nembhard are gonna be solid defensively on the perimeter, and they match the scrappiness Josh Hart has brought all year.

OG's gonna have to step up a bit more on offense, and I think he will. Same with McBride. How he fares with his minutes and touches will determine how much he's able to give Divencenzo and Brunson proper breathers.

Knicks in 6, with each team winning one game on each other's home court.

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

Their defense is atrocious. And they don’t seem to have much depth.

They had the #1 bench in the NBA during the regular season, but sure...

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

It was a lot of randoms with just bad takes on teams they never watch.

Yea, I've noticed that a lot.

There is nothing wrong with not knowing, but if you don't know, why pretend that you do?

Someone in this thread said the Pacers aren't a deep team.

Dude literally said the team with the #1 bench in the NBA during the season, isn't deep.

I just don't understand, but people be peopling.

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

This series would have been so fun with a pre-injury Haliburton. I still think the Knicks would have won, but who knows, pre-injury Haliburton was doing some ridiculous things.

Brunson though, everytime I think he's kinda peaked, he just continues to improve. I'm done guessing what his ceiling is, because I've been wrong about it 20 times already.

[Hello Brooklyn]

i know this was hard for you

respect

only other thing to do is lie

I keep hearing how the pacers matchup well against us... don't see it


Knicks in 5 possibly 6 if something crazy happens. We are head and shoulders the better team

At worst, Pacers match up well with depth, and running. Thibs runs guys into the ground, and so do the Pacers. That's a scary combo for a coach who's running 7 man rotations. Pacers team runs, bench and starters. If the pace is high, it's gonna test Knicks players cardio, and/or Knicks depth.

Pacers struggled with a debilitated Bucks team. Haliburton looks like a shell of himself.

I don't see it for you guys sadly.

[zimpy27]

I think Pacers win this one.

Pacers PF/C combo is far better than the Knicks.
Hali and Brunson will be a close call.

The pace of the Pacers is going to exhaust the tight lineups that Thibs lays with.

[Wolfgang630]

Bing bong

[Wargreymon]

Pacers are gonna get murdered on the glass. Hartenstein and Hart will be the difference this series with their grit on that end. The only way Indy pulls this upset off is if Haliburton turns back the clock to how he played before his hamstring injury.

[drekwins]

I really think the Philly series prepared us incredibly for this series. Maxey was lightening in a bottle, so we had experience in dealing with that... but the length of Philly was different. Not many teams can put out guy after guy with their length. Not to mention, they were extremely physical and skilled.

Indianas defense is going to make guys feel like they're not even being guarded. I expect a huge series out of our top 3, especially Divo. I think this is his series to thrive. I expect Deuce to really come through as well.

The keys will be limiting their fast breaks and controlling the tempo.

Regular Season Matchups vs. Indiana
The last time we played them, we started Taj Gibson and Precious. OG, iHart & Mitch did not play. Brunson had 39 on 14/25 shooting. We basically played even on the glass even without all of those guys.

Before that, Brunson had a 40 piece again on 15-30 shooting. iHart had 19 rebounds, including 8 offensive. We won the offensive rebounding battle 24 to 9. Divo struggled but got 26 shots off. He was just missing. Mitch and OG did not play.

The time before that, we legit played no defense. We killed them on the glass again (15 Oreb vs. 7 Oreb) but they had FOURTY assists, 23 3's and shot 59% from the floor. Somehow, we only lost by 14. Divo had a big game. We had a very different roster at that time.

All in all, if we can slow them down, we win this series easily. We'll see what Thibs game plan is soon enough.

[xBulletproof]

only other thing to do is lie

I keep hearing how the pacers matchup well against us... don't see it


Knicks in 5 possibly 6 if something crazy happens. We are head and shoulders the better team

At worst, Pacers match up well with depth, and running. Thibs runs guys into the ground, and so do the Pacers. That's a scary combo for a coach who's running 7 man rotations. Pacers team runs, bench and starters. If the pace is high, it's gonna test Knicks players cardio, and/or Knicks depth.

Pacers struggled with a debilitated Bucks team. Haliburton looks like a shell of himself.

I don't see it for you guys sadly.

How did they struggle? What? They won 4-2. Only losses is in the first game which was most of the players first playoff game, where they clearly had jitters. And game 5 which was their first elimination game for those same guys. Outside of that it was a complete blowout. At no point did I even think we were under threat to lose the series, in fact the wins were won by an average of 14 points per game. Even after game 2 I had a post already talking about the next series.

Now that those first time experiences are out of the way, I wouldn't count on that again.

[KnixtapeH20]

At worst, Pacers match up well with depth, and running. Thibs runs guys into the ground, and so do the Pacers. That's a scary combo for a coach who's running 7 man rotations. Pacers team runs, bench and starters. If the pace is high, it's gonna test Knicks players cardio, and/or Knicks depth.

Pacers struggled with a debilitated Bucks team. Haliburton looks like a shell of himself.

I don't see it for you guys sadly.

How did they struggle? What? They won 4-2. Only losses is in the first game which was most of the players first playoff game, where they clearly had jitters. And game 5 which was their first elimination game for those same guys. Outside of that it was a complete blowout. At no point did I even think we were under threat to lose the series, in fact the wins were won by an average of 14 points per game. Even after game 2 I had a post already talking about the next series.

Now that those first time experiences are out of the way, I wouldn't count on that again.

Mil didn't have Greek for the entire series and Dame only played 3 games one which was a win.

They beat you w.o their two best players one game and took you to OT in a loss. Pacers are a young team they're not battle tested yet

Knicks-Pacers is a historic old time rivalry and this Knicks team is extremely battle tested basically all season long. We beat the Celtics to end the season & had a WAR with Philly in round 1 and finished them in 6 games.

I'm not over-looking this series but if we take care of business it should be an easier path to the Celtics than philly.

We have the clear advantage in defense, rebounding, experience, coaching & we have a team full of DOGS


Good luck

[DaGawd]

Pacers struggled with a debilitated Bucks team. Haliburton looks like a shell of himself.

I don't see it for you guys sadly.

How did they struggle? What? They won 4-2. Only losses is in the first game which was most of the players first playoff game, where they clearly had jitters. And game 5 which was their first elimination game for those same guys. Outside of that it was a complete blowout. At no point did I even think we were under threat to lose the series, in fact the wins were won by an average of 14 points per game. Even after game 2 I had a post already talking about the next series.

Now that those first time experiences are out of the way, I wouldn't count on that again.

Mil didn't have Greek for the entire series and Dame only played 3 games one which was a win.

They beat you w.o their two best players one game and took you to OT in a loss. Pacers are a young team they're not battle tested yet

Knicks-Pacers is a historic old time rivalry and this Knicks team is extremely battle tested basically all season long. We beat the Celtics to end the season & had a WAR with Philly in round 1 and finished them in 6 games.

I'm not over-looking this series but if we take care of business it should be an easier path to the Celtics than philly.

We have the clear advantage in defense, rebounding, experience, coaching & we have a team full of DOGS


Good luck

carlisle is a good coach whose also won a chip before… i love thibs but i wouldn’t say we have an advantage there

[cgf]

Indiana has more live bodies than we do and I think Carlisle's the 2nd best coach in the conference. If the Pacers can impose their pace on the game we'll be in a tough spot...even with our rebounding / experience / tenacity, there's only so much you can do if a team is hitting their shots & running after makes.

I really think that whether we can get away with 10-15mpg of Precious next to RobinHart could be pivotal in this, because they could just exhaust our transition D if we can't roll 8 deep. Turner's a good rim protector, but he's not as imposing as Joel, so we should be able to get away with cramming the paint a little more than we could against Philly.

[KnixtapeH20]

How did they struggle? What? They won 4-2. Only losses is in the first game which was most of the players first playoff game, where they clearly had jitters. And game 5 which was their first elimination game for those same guys. Outside of that it was a complete blowout. At no point did I even think we were under threat to lose the series, in fact the wins were won by an average of 14 points per game. Even after game 2 I had a post already talking about the next series.

Now that those first time experiences are out of the way, I wouldn't count on that again.

Mil didn't have Greek for the entire series and Dame only played 3 games one which was a win.

They beat you w.o their two best players one game and took you to OT in a loss. Pacers are a young team they're not battle tested yet

Knicks-Pacers is a historic old time rivalry and this Knicks team is extremely battle tested basically all season long. We beat the Celtics to end the season & had a WAR with Philly in round 1 and finished them in 6 games.

I'm not over-looking this series but if we take care of business it should be an easier path to the Celtics than philly.

We have the clear advantage in defense, rebounding, experience, coaching & we have a team full of DOGS


Good luck

carlisle is a good coach whose also won a chip before… i love thibs but i wouldn’t say we have an advantage there

i was feelin the vibes too much got carried away, yall know how I feel about Thibs but he's grown on me moreso now that we switched directions n no longer have a young rebuilding team... still drives me nuts but he's our coach and I'm all in so ride the wave

[Wizop]

My heart says Pacers in 6 but my head and my vote went Knicks in 7.

Pacers played a short rotation against the Bucks who really only had one center which allowed us to play Toppin as the second unit 5. I hope we go back to a 9+ rotation this time and wear out the Knicks starters.

[Phish Tank]

Want to say Knicks in 6, but there are a bunch of variables worth considering here that'll depend on whether the playoffs end for New York or whether the series ends early for the Pacers.

The Pacers/Bucks series was a bit lopsided for various chunks so you saw the Pacers bring out the garbage time guys a lot. I'm curious to see what the real rotation will be like. If they go 9, that may not be a smart thing. They'll probably stick to 8. I think the Knicks have to expand to 8, but the Pacers should be warned that tiring the Knicks won't happen here. They'll simply have to execute.

For the Knicks, the biggest key here is that OG will have the much easier defensive assignment. He'll be tasked to guard Siakam. Unlike Embiid, Siakam is not a foul hunter. If Siakam's attempting 10 FTs, the Knicks aren't playing disciplined. Also worth noting Siakam spent a majority of the series with Bobby Portis on him. When Portis wasn't, you got bouts of Middleton & Brook Lopez. That won't be the case against NY. Even the Knicks' worst defenders are better than the Bucks in this circumstance. Just gotta stay disciplined

Where we need to be careful is with defending Myles. Myles made a LOT of threes against the Bucks. If we need to, we can slot OG against Myles and put our big against Siakam. We can't allow Myles to hit a lot of 3s. We'll need to be careful with going in a deep drop, but we have some experience here with Embiid.

Nesmith & Nembhard are interesting. They'll hustle for rebounds, so Hart and co. will have to do the same. I think Hart will be fine defending Nesmith and I think the Knicks will slot Brunson on Nembhard.

We'll see which Tyrese we'll get. Unlike Maxey, Tyrese attempted MOST of his shots from the perimeter and wasn't that great at it. I think we'll see DDV on Tyrese. We'll need to curb the playmaking and making sure Tyrese stays out of the paint. I think our defense is more prepared here.

The Pacers do have the "better" bench but am curious to see how they deploy it vs us. I do worry a bit about Mitch in this series due to Myles/Obi's penchant to hit shots from the perimeter.

The Knicks' key is to outrebound Indy, expose their defense, and keep them out of transition. It'll be hard, but I think we win in no more than 6. Gotta win both games at home though.

[Residual-Heat]

I feel like this will be an easy series for the Knicks. Easier than against the Sixers. Sixers are more talented than the Pacers and a worse match up for the Knicks IMO. We'll see though. Going to be fun watching Siakam vs OG, and Brunson vs Hali. Voting for Knicks in 5.

[RHODEY]

This series would have been so fun with a pre-injury Haliburton. I still think the Knicks would have won, but who knows, pre-injury Haliburton was doing some ridiculous things.

Brunson though, everytime I think he's kinda peaked, he just continues to improve. I'm done guessing what his ceiling is, because I've been wrong about it 20 times already.

That hamstring injury happened in early January . I know hamstrings can be tricky, but its been 4 months. No more excuses for him.I think he was playing over his head and what we are seeing now is close to what he is.

[cgf]

I feel like this will be an easy series for the Knicks. Easier than against the Sixers. Sixers are more talented than the Pacers and a worse match up for the Knicks IMO. We'll see though. Going to be fun watching Siakam vs OG, and Brunson vs Hali. Voting for Knicks in 5.

As a knicks fan who was very confident against Philly, I'm much less confident here. They're much faster than philly, much deeper, tougher, better coached, and they play a very different style that were less suited for. I can absolutely see them just running us out of the gym in a couple of these.