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I don't know what kind of voodoo the Indiana Pacers have been engaging in, but apparently you've got to beat him five times in two weeks to send him home. Because for the third consecutive series, trailing by at least seven in the final minute tonight, trailing by eight in the final minute, the Pacers have won a game out of the jaws of defeat. It I just cannot. I. I looked over at my wife as the last free throws were being shot by the Knicks and I looked at her and I said, there's no way they do this again. There's absolutely no way they do this again. And they did it again and in just comical fashion as Tyrese Halliburton is dancing in the middle of the floor and then just deciding to cover 15ft backwards towards the top of the key. The shot off the heel that goes way up in the air and the entire basketball world just freezes. And all of us were thinking the same thing. We're like, that kind of went straight up in the air. That's got a chance to come down and it came down and the pacers are up 1. Oh in the eastern Conference finals on a night I was talking with Shane. Shane's a works on our show. He's a Knicks fan. There is so much to be confident and excited about. If you were a Knicks fan coming out of that game and you lost, you're down 10 in the series. I can't believe it. It I so many interesting things to get into. You guys know the drill before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there for content throughout the year and then keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We're going to take about 10, 15 minutes of questions at the tail end of the show tonight. That's where you guys can decide which direction you guys want to go in terms of digging into some of the deeper details of the series. And then when we wrap up here tonight, we're going to be migrating over to Playback Playback TV Hoops Tonight where we have our after show. It's a lot more informal. We take callers, we take questions from the chat, we watch film, we hang out, we talk shit. It's just a fun basketball talking, you know, kind of hangout hour that we have after the show. So come hang out with us on Playback when we finish up later tonight. What a bizarre game. I feel like, you know, it's so funny. I joke with the people that, you know in my friends and family that asked me what my job is like. I always tell them, like the craziest thing is these live reaction shows because, like, you're trying to piece together all these things that happen in the game. And so obviously I prep a lot for my job, so I put together extensive Prep for how I'm going to tell the story of the basketball game. And then the Indiana Pacers, three times in this postseason have made me just rip that up and throw it away as they turn what looks like a very different game into a Pacers win. It's absolutely unbelievable. And everyone knows, everyone who's been following this Pacers team in this postseason run knows they literally never stop playing. You are not done with the Pacers until the final buzzer sounds. There is no relenting. There's no letting go of the rope. Every single time you make a basket or miss a basket, they're picking you up full court. Every single time you go get a basket, they're taking. Even if you make it, they're taking it out. And they're trying to push the ball ahead. First available kick ahead pass. First available advantage. They're hunting it. They're looking to attack quickly. Feeling as though their ball pressure will wear you down, feeling as though they will be able to win the large sample battle. And for the record, like, even though there was a lot of really encouraging stuff on the Knicks farm, we'll get into it. I thought Jalen Brunson looked exhausted in overtime. He had a couple. He had a couple of buckets. But he had a couple of Griffs that he got rewarded with.4 foul shots in overtime that you could tell, especially on the last step back. Three, the one before the offensive rebound. He did not get a lot of lift on that shot and he left it way short. And that's the game that the Pacers play. It's a wear and tear game. It's a leaning on depth kind of game. Like, even with the overtime period tonight, only two pacers actually went over 40 minutes. They. They will wear you down. They never stop again. Ask Cavs fans. They had him dead to rights. Max Drew gets a huge three point shot. They're up seven. Doesn't matter. Game's not over. The Bucks, Gary Trent Jr. Three after three after three. It doesn't matter. Game's not over. They play with such a furious pace and they're so capable of getting insanely hot. Aaron Nesmith. That is one of the greatest Heat checks you will ever see in an NBA playoff game. Six threes in the final five minutes. Every single one of them was tough on the move. One of the things I've been talking a lot about with respect to Anthony Edwards is a trend that I expect to see really take over in the new NBA and the future of the NBA, which is seeing supreme athletes Become great shooters. It didn't used to be that way back in the day. Used to be the supreme athletes didn't work very much on that. It was even denigrated in the lower levels of basketball is settling. If you were a good athlete and you took a three, you were wasting an opportunity to use your athleticism going towards the basket. We are seeing guys like Ant rise and fire and hit tough shots because they have ridiculous athleticism. When you combine the shot making with the ability to get lift in separation, it's deadly. And it didn't matter what the Knicks did with Aaron Nesmith down the stretch. He just rose up, got his lift and then right at the top, just that flip of the wrist, that's where his muscle memory comes in. And I and Aaron Neesmith is one of several Pacers players that has just made these minuscule improvements year over year each of the last few years. And they're all just better basketball players now than they used to be. And then Tyrese Halliburton, we talked about it going into this playoff series. As great as Jalen Brunson has been and he's been the best clutch player in the NBA this postseason, Tyrese Halliburton has been right there behind him and he has a tendency to. It's been much lower volume than Brunson, but like just unbelievably high efficiency. He just keeps making every single big shot at the end of games that needs to be made. He seems to be very comfortable operating there in the middle of the floor. Oh my God. Just. I just can't believe it, guys. I just can't believe it. It. The game followed a very interesting flow. Obviously the Pacers come out red hot, hitting every single shot they take. I think they start the game 8 for 8. Then Mitchell Robinson checks into the game and is just a human wrecking ball. Grabbing a ton of offensive rebounds, providing some vertical spacing and ball screens is good. Great work on defense, throwing guys around with this physicality. The Knicks kind of regain control of the situation and they kind of stiff armed the Pacers in that, you know, three to seven point range for a good chunk of time. Going into that early fourth quarter stretch we did see as both offenses were very comfortable in the first half. We saw both defenses shift to a lot more switching in the third quarter, which got rid of some of the natural openings that were existing for both teams. And both teams started to struggle to score the basketball. And all of a sudden TJ McConnell drives on Jalen Brunson along the baseline Pump fakes, catches a swipe down on his right arm and picks up Brunson's fifth foul. And it's 94, 92 with about 10 minutes left in. The Knicks just completely took over the game from there. OG Anunoby given buckets to Ben Mather in a step back three. An aggressive move in the lane. Carl Anthony Towns draws a foul on a transition cross match from Aaron Neesmith as he's trailing the play in transition. Deuce McBride, a smart cut to the top of the key draws a foul. Carl Anthony Towns, another left shoulder hook over Siakam. He kicked Siakam's ass during that stretch. All of a sudden we look up and the Knicks are up by 16 points. It's 118 to 1. Oh two. Pacers don't really have anybody in rhythm. You know, the game's not over at that point, but at the same time the Pacers were or the Knicks were able to kind of stiff arm them until that five minute mark. And it looked like they were going to get out of there with the win. And then all of a sudden Aaron Neesmith just every single time down the floor. The crazy thing is, is the, the Knicks were getting buckets during that stretch. Brunson beating Ben Shepard straight ISO at the top of the key. Carl Anthony Towns, a nice little semi transition attack off the left wing, gets a layup. They were scoring and it didn't matter because the Pacers were scoring every single time down the floor. I did think in overtime that the Pacers started getting better shots now. The Knicks looked very much shell shocked. They legitimately looked shell shocked. I don't blame them. I was shell shocked and I wasn't even playing in the game. But like the Pacers did in overtime, get quality looks in their offense. The Knicks kind of degraded down to Jalen Brunson. ISO ball. I thought the, the play that Andrew Nemhard made on that kind of decoy action, the Knicks come out of a timeout. They run like a decoy action on the right side of the floor for Mikhail Bridges. And they have Brunson kind of fly all the way through to the opposite side. And Andrew Nebhar jumps it and just gets in the passing lane and deflects the ball. It ends up going off of Brunson's fingers out of bounds. You guys saw just how relentless Indiana's ball pressure is. There were two plays towards the end of regulation where they nearly turned the ball over. That play where Josh Hart kind of tripped and fell and he somehow managed to Recover to the ball. Jalen Brunson gets trapped on that first inbounds right by the baseline and while he's falling out of bounds, has to rifle a bounce into the back into play to try to give his team a chance. And thankfully OGN and Obi had to be there. But the Knicks kind of lost their composure against Indiana's ball pressure. And here's the thing, guys, it goes back to that point that I was making earlier as it pertains to the Pacers just never stopping. From the very first possession of this game, the Pacers weren't just full court pressuring Jalen Brunson. They were denying him on the inbound. They were trying to get in front and prevent him from getting the ball at all whatsoever. It is not like they started doing anything unique or different down the stretch in terms of their pressure. It's the same shit they were doing all game. A few more traps obviously in the backcourt when they got especially desperate. But most of it is just ball pressure, ball pressure, physicality, jumping passing lanes, trying to turn you over. And again, it is a 48 minute job. This is not the first time they've done this. Even if you pull away from the specifics of the last minute comeback, they have multiple large deficit comebacks in this postseason run. They, they game five in Cleveland, they were down what, 20, what, 48 to 24 or something like in the first half. They ended up losing that game. Like they just never stop coming at you. It is a, it is a team wide dynamic that manifests almost as though it goes beyond what you see on paper with the talent with this team. I, I, I just, I just was completely blown, blown away tonight. I think the dynamic that this series is going to swing on is the ability to contain the basketball. This is where I want to get into some of the stuff that there, there is some encouraging stuff. If you're a Knicks fan, you now have to beat the Pacers five times. That's going to be a pain in the ass. But you do have the tools with which to do so. I thought that with exception of really overtime, I didn't think the Pacers had any sort of extended stretch of defensive success against the Knicks. And again, over time, the Knicks were shook in the first half. A lot of traditional coverages. You guys want to know why Miles Turner sat out the majority of the second half of this game and then played all of what, 90 seconds in overtime before Carlisle pulled him again? The Pacers were running a lot of traditional coverages, especially to Start the game. And Miles Turner was doing a God awful job defending the screener and the ball. There was a play where Deuce McBride got an early layup in this game where he was like hugged up to Mitchell Robinson up at the top of the key. In general, the Pacers were trying to account for Cat and his catch and shoot threes by, by staying off of that, that ball handler and ball screens. And you were just seeing Brunson get downhill over and over and over again. Mikhail Bridges was getting into the paint whenever he wanted to. Brunson, you could tell, feels immensely comfortable against Nemhard and N. Smith relative to Drew Holiday. I think one of my big thoughts coming out of this game was some contender needs to be reading the tea leaves here and identify that Drew Holiday is one of the most impactful defensive players in the postseason and jump on that guy because he could come in and instantly raise the ceiling of your defense. Because Brunson and Nemhardt and Neesmith are two very good on ball defenders and Jalen Brunson is just too big and too strong for them. The big thing I noticed was in those ball screen actions when Brunson was going over the top, that automatically put the on ball defender into the sidecar or into the back position, right, Trailing or in that like kind of jail in the on the hip sort of position. And Brunson was just very easily able to kind of bump guys off in that position and get all the way to the rim. Then in the second half when they started going into more switching and there were still some traditional schemes there, both teams were still like trying not to switch if they could. But if anybody got hit by the screen, they were willing to switch in that second half. And in that second half, same sort of thing, it didn't matter who it was. Brunson was able to get to his spots against his primary defender. And so there's some encouraging stuff on the Knicks front where I do feel like they're going to be able to score the ball effectively and consistently in this series. On the flip side, I thought that they had some extended stretch of successful defense against the Pacers. So for instance, in that big run that the Knicks had while Jalen Brunson was off the floor, they had success in switching. And in their traditional schemes. You guys remember that play where Deuce McBride blocked Pascal Siakam on the dunk? Traditional coverage, Siakam slips pocket pass, Siakam takes off and there's a rotation from Deuce McBride off the baseline, A huge blocked shot Couple possessions later, they run like a little, you know, wedge screen to try to get Siakam a little separation before he sets the ball. Screen for Halliburton. Halliburton gets down into the lane. Josh Hart nail help off of Neesmith. Nice kick out. And Josh Hart just throws a crazy closeout at Aaron Neesmith and nearly blocks the shot and gets a stop. A few possessions later, they straight up switch a ball screen. Cat ends up on Halliburton. He gets a stop. They had some extended stretches where they were able to get stops against the Pacers in both their switching scheme and in their traditional scheme using just chaotic rotations. So again, when the Knicks hang onto the rope and they're very invested mentally and physically, they can be really physically overwhelming for this Pacers team in rotation, especially on the glass. A lot of interior matchup hunting. It wasn't just Cat going at Siakam or Cat going at Turner. There was a stretch there where OG Anunoby went at Ben Mather in a couple times in a row. Was just able to power right through him and get to where he wanted to go. And I mean, a lot of this comes back to what I said before the series about the Knicks, which is like, there is a reason why most Knicks fans I talked to after the Pistons series didn't really like the team. Most Knicks fans I talked to throughout the season were like, this isn't the same kind of, like, character team that we saw last year when it was, you know, Isaiah Hartenstein. It was a. It was. It was a different team right at that point in time. And the reason why was there was frustration with the Knicks and their ability to consistently execute on both ends of the floor, their ability to hang onto the rope mentally and physically. And in this game, it's these brief stretches where they're just not leveraging their gifts to the ability that they're capable of. And the Pacers will quite literally never let go of the rope. And so there's just so many different things there. There. There are so many different things there to learn from this game if you're the Knicks, which is that, like, you cannot let up even for a second in this matchup. Let's get into some other notes around the series. So a couple things. The Knicks rebounding, I think you could see a real perimeter size mismatch in this particular series. So, for instance, OG Anunoby, Mikhail Bridges, even when you get down to Josh hart and Deuce McBride, there is like, a size athleticism advantage in terms of just like Vertical ability on the perimeter for the Knicks. There's no doubt that the Pacers have speed and that that speed can be a problem in different ways. Mainly just the pace that they're able to play with just furiously throughout the entire game. But when it comes to some of those battles in the vertical plane, the Knicks can win a lot of those battles. And I thought that that was pretty clearly evident in game one. I did think that Brunson was more capable to. More capable of compromising the defense and getting into the paint over the lion's share of the game than Hilberton was. Even though we can acknowledge that Halliburton was better in the overtime period. I thought, I thought a classic Halliburton sequence in that overtime was that drop off pass to Nem hard cutting off of the slot. Just a reminder with Halliburton that he's going to score, but he will quite literally never miss a read if the read is there. It's just like programmed into his brain to play a certain way and he's going to hunt that read every single time he gets that opportunity. But I did think that there was a dribble penetration advantage for the Knicks. Mitchell Robinson, we did not see any sort of, I mean obviously they would grab him anytime he got, you know, right underneath the basket or anything like that, but we did not see a hack of Robinson at any point in the game. Ty Mitchell Robinson in 21 minutes was even and was pretty successful as just a physical monster. Offensive rebounding, defending that vertical spacing like we saw in that lob off of the Jalen Brunson two man game. A lot of stuff for Rick Carlisle to look at, by the way. Just in general with their ball screen coverages and the job that Thomas Bryant and Miles Turner did. Those guys were getting absolutely fried everywhere on the floor tonight. And there are some real problems there that they're going to have to look at. Thomas Bryant was minus 11, Miles Turner was minus 3. And you end up winning this game. In the small ball groups. Though I did think that Knicks had some success with that overall size, especially with Cat who was really given the business to Pascal Siakam in those sequences. On the Pacers front, I thought that Siakam didn't do a good enough job punishing mismatches throughout the game, nor Miles Turner. That is a credit to the Knicks. They battled really well in those situations. But remember that was a huge part of this series last year was Siakam attacking, specifically Josh Hart and he, he did hit a little fade away. And he drew a double team on Josh Hart that led to a layup for Andrew Nemhard, but there was not enough of that punishing from Siakam from Turner against Switches in the late Turner got multiple deep catches on mismatches that he wasn't able to pay off and so I think there's some opportunity there. Neard was better in the second half, but I didn't think he did much to impact the game offensively early. Tyrese Halliburton kind of looked like he was off to another one of those funky starts in this game and then right around halfway through the second quarter he really hit the jets with his aggression and you could tell he's going to get looks because of the drop coverage that they're running with Carl Anthony Towns and when he gets switches against Carl Anthony Towns, he's going to be able to get to his three point shot. He he's just going to have to be able to knock it down consistently but really, really fascinating. Game one this is going to be a really entertaining series. Every game I feel like is going to come down to the wire just with the relentless never ending pressure of the Pacers and with how gifted of a crunch a crunch time scorer that Jalen Brunson is just an instant classic here in Game one of the Eastern Conference Finals. I'm really excited to get further into it. Blending Vice's signature dynamic storytelling with the high octane world of sports, Vice Sports brings an exciting and diverse range of programming that goes beyond the game. From action packed live events to gripping behind the scenes documentaries to hard hitting investigative pieces and in depth profiles of athletes, coaches, teams, Vice Sports captures the raw energy, drama and passion that makes sports truly unforgettable. Catch live events and other exclusive sports programs only on Vice TV.