Few scenarios occur to us better to start a series of NBA conference endings that lived this past morning at Madison Square Garden. The Indiana Pacers, with a comeback for the history of the playoffs, beat the New York Knicks by 135 to 138 in a film worthy of film. Not even Spike Lee, usual in the first rows at the foot of the track, could have written a similar script.
Andreas Zagklis, next to the NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver / EFE
The premises dominated the encounter from beginning to almost end, having an advantage of +17 in the absence of less than seven minutes for the end of the last quarter. Everything seemed sentenced. Knickerbockers fans began to celebrate in advance a first vital victory that brought them closer to some NBA, an elusive dream for several decades.
With 2:40 to play, those of Thibodeau still led by 14 points and managed to contain the heroic attempts of Haliburton and company, who, overwhelmed during much of the duel, were almost impossible to reverse a situation that seemed irreversible. But so are miracles: they don't warn.
Aaron Nesmith, who closed the game with 30 points —20 of them in the last quarter – turned on the whirlpool wick with a recital from the perimeter. The American came to chain six consecutive triples! The Pacers, now, believed again.
The epic of the epic
With only 52 seconds to play, Indiana still had to overcome a disadvantage of nine points. Fortune also played his role: unusual mistakes of players like Jalen Brunson and a free kick failed by Karl-Anthony Towns left the Pacers with a last possession to tie or win the game. It was then that Tyrese Haliburton – who if not -, star and offensive engine of the team, disguised as Reggie Miller to (almost) complete the feat. He threw a triple that, after hitting the base of the ring and staying suspended in the air so it seemed an eternity, ended up entering.
For a few seconds, everyone in Madison thought it was a triple and that the game was over. Indiana's players invaded the track to celebrate what seemed the final 'Game Winner'. Haliburton even imitated the iconic gesture of the 'choke' that Reggie Miller dedicated to Spike Lee at the end of the last century in that same stage. It seemed a scene out of the script of the most macabre director. But, after the arbitration review, there was no doubt: Haliburton stepped on the line. The basket was two points. We were going to the extension.
In extra time, Knicks and Pacers engaged in an exchange of blows, but it was Indiana who took the lead for the first time from the second quarter. With the score 135-138, another loss of Brunson left the Knicks with a last possession and 15 seconds on the clock. The Pacers chose not to need and the New Yorkers had two opportunities to tie, but neither Brunson nor Towns hit the triple.
“I didn't know how long it was left, so I just tried to calm and throw. I thought it was a triple. It wasn't, but we got it in the extension“Haliburton declared at the end of the duel.
The data is devastating for the Knicks: in the last 27 years of playoffs, the NBA teams had a balance of 0-970 when they lost for more than 14 points with less than 2:50 for playing in regulation time. Well, the Pacers are already the first to break that statistic.
