Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks defeated the Indiana Pacers 111-94 Thursday night in the Garden to avoid elimination. Now the question is whether the Knicks can win two more games to advance to the NBA finals.
Going into Thursday’s game, the Pacers held a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference finals. Only 13 teams have come back from being down 3-1 to win a series. The last time it happened was nearly a decade ago, in 2016, when Lebron and the Cavs came back from 3-1 to defeat the Golden State Warriors.
The Knicks could pull off this comeback as well.
On Thursday, Brunson had a 32-point performance, going 12 of 18 from the field with five assists. The other star on the Knicks is Karl-Anthony Towns, who had 24 points, 11 rebounds, and three assists while being a stud on defense.
The Knicks’s defense was tough to score against on Thursday. Pacers star guard Tyrese Haliburton only had eight points, while he has averaged more than 18 points per game throughout the playoffs this year.
Clearly, the Knicks have to continue to limit Haliburton’s production if they are going to win the next two games.
On Thursday, Bennedict Mathurin led the Pacers in scoring with 23 points, which is much higher than the 10 points per game he has been averaging in the playoffs. The Knicks cannot let him have another big game.
Also, the Pacers loved a fast-paced game, so the Knicks need to slow the game down and control it if they want to win this series. Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau tells the Knicks to play with aggression and heart every game, which could help in this area.
Thibodeau does have a problem with playing his bench, though. When the Knicks won Game 3, they got good bench scoring. But the bench only scored five on Thursday, and it probably needs to score more to take the series.
