The Indiana Pacers lost to the New York Knicks last night, 106-100, for the team’s second home playoff loss of the 2025 postseason. That loss cuts the Pacers’ series lead to 2-1.
“[It was a] poor job of closing the third quarter, and not a good enough start to the fourth quarter,” said Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle after the game. “[It] turned it into a real back-and-forth game, and they executed down the stretch, and we did not execute well enough.”
Indiana led by 20 points in the second quarter and even found themselves ahead by 15 in the third quarter, but the Knicks clawed their way back into the game, outscoring Indiana 43-22 in the last 15:11 of gameplay.
“We got a pretty good lead in the third quarter but didn’t do a good enough job of attacking, but also avoiding miscues,” Carlisle added. “[It’s a] difficult loss… There are a lot of things we can do better.”
final. pic.twitter.com/iGfgqWRz29
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) May 26, 2025
Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, who led New York with 24 points, had a 20-point fourth quarter.
“He’s got a hair trigger,” Carlisle said. “He hit some threes. He got to the rim. He played great.”
Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith hurt his right ankle, forcing him to leave the game in the third quarter. That sparked a 32-18 run to give the Knicks the lead by the time he returned to the contest. Rick Carlisle admitted that Nesmith’s injury played a role in the loss.
“Yeah, it certainly is a factor,” he explained. “He went back to the training room, got it looked at, believe he got it re-taped. He was doing things in the hallway to get moving again. And then I got the word that he was good to go back in, that he was moving without limitation at that point in time. And so, rather than wait, I decided the best thing to do is get him back in there so that he didn’t stiffen up anymore. And then, down the stretch, he seemed to move okay to me just from the eye test standing there, but I haven’t studied the film yet and, obviously, we’ll know more tomorrow.”
The Knicks are now the first team in 27 years to achieve three 20-point comeback victories in a single playoff run. pic.twitter.com/n1mr1MzXbx
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) May 26, 2025
In the second half, the Pacers only scored 42 points while being held to just 20% shooting from beyond the arc (five for 25).
“I got to watch film to really see our offensive processes, what they really were,” said Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton following the loss. “It felt like we got kind of stagnant on that end.”
Despite having a team-high 20 points, Haliburton took the blame for the loss, saying that he should’ve played better.
“I thought we just didn’t do a good job of continuing to play fast,” he said. “I felt like I did a poor job of keeping pace in the game, especially in the fourth. I felt like I was walking the ball up every play. I know it’s a big area of improvement for me… Obviously, a 42-point half isn’t us. We’ll see what we can do better there and improve on it… Honestly, I think a lot of our offensive struggles in the second half were due to me, so I got to be better there, and I will be better in Game Four.”
The Knicks-Pacers series has been cinema 🍿 pic.twitter.com/eUpX7j5MTb
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 26, 2025
Former NBA Champion and three-time All-Star Pascal Siakam tallied 17 points as well, but he knows that the Pacers didn’t play their brand of basketball.
“I didn’t think we were playing as fast,” he said. “We didn’t really attack the paint as much… Offensively, we didn’t have our usual pop.”
“We’ve just got to play our way,” Siakam continued. “We’ve just got to run better. We just didn’t have that ball movement and everything as much as we usually do.”
“We feel like, offensively, we’ve had a great series thus far,” Haliburton said. “I would say that was our first real like bad half offensively, so we got to be better there. And then defensively, you hold a team like that to 106, that’s — you should win that game. I mean, 100 points isn’t us.”
