So far, the home team has won every game of the Pacers-Knicks Eastern Conference Semifinals series.
With the series knotted at 3-3, it will take a road win in Sunday’s decisive Game 7 for the Pacers to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics. Indiana flipped the script in Friday night’s win at a raucous Gainbridge Fieldhouse, outhustling the Knicks and showing a fire and physicality that was severely lacking in Game 5’s lopsided loss.
When the final buzzer sounded, the Pacers came out on top 116 -103 to set up the franchise’s first Game 7 since 2018. It's scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Sunday on ABC.
All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton, who finished with 15 points, 9 assists and 6 rebounds, said head coach Rick Carlisle challenged the team to be better after Game 5's crushing loss.
“We had some boneheaded things happen offensively [in Game 5]. Turnovers—that hasn’t hurt us at all this playoffs. If you go back and look at Game 5, the majority of everything that affected us was rebounding the basketball. A lot of their points came off second chance [opportunities] and they kept rebounding the ball and that didn’t allow us to get out in transition.”
Carlisle’s message got through. The Pacers outrebounded the Knicks 47-35 and held a slight edge in offensive rebounds, 14-13. Those numbers were decidedly more lopsided in Tuesday’s loss, when the Knicks outrebounded the Pacers 53-29 and clobbered them on the offensive boards, 20-5.
For longtime Pacers fans, the series has a vintage feel to it, echoing the Indiana-New York rivalry that blossomed in the 1990s.
This will mark the third time the two teams have met in a Game 7 at Madison Square Garden; the Knicks won in 1994 during the Eastern Conference Finals while the Pacers came out on top a year later in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Indiana is 3-6 all-time in a seven-game series; New York is 7-8. It’s New York’s first Game 7 since 2000.
The Pacers have been brilliant at home this postseason, winning each of their six home playoff games. But as the sixth seed in the East, they don’t have homecourt advantage. After a blowout road loss in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Pacers responded with a road win in Game 2.
They won Games 3 and 4 in that series at home before losing Game 5 in Milwaukee. That set up the closeout contest in Game 6; the Pacers responded with a resounding 120-98 win at Gainbridge.
Next up: Game 7 at the decidedly unfriendly Madison Square Garden. The Pacers split road games against the Knicks in the regular season; they’ve been close but have yet to come away with a win at the Garden in the postseason.
“It's the ultimate game and this is a great opportunity,” said head coach Rick Carlisle after Friday night’s win. “This team’s been through a lot of new experiences over the last three-and-a-half weeks and this will be another new one. And so, we’ll do everything possible to get them ready, but in Game 7, it comes down to compete level and how well you’re tied together.”
“Now it’s a one-game series. It’s for all the marbles,” Haliburton said. “Where better to have a Game 7 than the Garden?”