Jalen Brunson scores 32 points on 12-of-18 shooting and New York staves off elimination in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
NEW YORK – The New York Knicks defended like their season was on the line on Thursday.
Facing elimination for the first time this postseason, the Knicks found a way to slow down the Indiana Pacers offense that had torched them for most of the Eastern Conference Finals. In what may have been their best defensive performance of the season, the Knicks got stops early and often on their way to a wire-to-wire 111-94 victory in Game 5 at Madison Square Garden.
The Knicks scored on their first five possessions and never trailed. Jalen Brunson (32 points and five assists) and Karl-Anthony Towns (24 points and 13 rebounds) led the way offensively, and we’re set for a huge Game 6 in Indiana on Saturday (8 ET, TNT).
Here are some notes, quotes, numbers and film as the Pacers were held under a point per possession for the first time in these playoffs …
1. Knicks’ defense plays desperate
The Pacers don’t have as much offensive talent as some other teams, but they may have the toughest offense to defend. They came into Game 5 leading the postseason in player movement and ranking second in ball movement.
Through the first four games, the Knicks couldn’t keep up, allowing 121.1 points per 100 possessions, their worst defensive stretch since the All-Star break.
“In this series, we haven’t lacked scoring,” Towns said. “It’s been more about us not stopping them from scoring.”
In Game 5, the Knicks got stops, holding the Pacers to 94 points on 97 possessions, their worst offensive performance of the playoffs by a healthy margin.
Indiana took some bad shots by choice, but also out of necessity, because the Knicks forced them into no-advantage situations late in the clock.
Indiana was still terrific early in the clock, scoring a series-high 31 transition points on 22 possessions, according to Synergy tracking. But when the Knicks were able to set up, they locked them down.
There were some individual efforts that got the Garden crowd fired up, like when Mitchell Robinson pressured Myles Turner into a turnover early in the third quarter. But to keep the Pacers under a point per possession for 48 minutes, you need multiple efforts from multiple defenders.
When Indiana was beginning to get a little traction offensively late in the first quarter, the Knicks had one of their best defensive possessions of the game. It started with Miles McBride getting over a screen for Tyrese Haliburton and Josh Hart closing out to Obi Toppin and staying in front of his drive. Hart then switched onto T.J. McConnell and kept him from getting to his spot …
Brunson hedged a screen for Haliburton, allowing Ben Sheppard to pop open to the top of the arc, but Mikal Bridges rotated over from the weak side and McBride scrambled out to Bridges’ man. Bridges then kept Sheppard from getting off a clean shot in the paint …
The defense has more control over how the opponent shoots in the paint than how it shoots from the perimeter. And on Thursday, the Pacers shot 17-for-37 (46%) in the paint, their worst mark in the playoffs and their third-worst mark all season.
2. Brunson and Towns continue to cook
The Knicks’ issues through through the first four games did not include the offense from Brunson and Towns. But they still need those guys to score abundantly and efficiently to stay alive in this series.
That wasn’t a problem on Thursday, when the Knicks’ stars outscored the entire Pacers starting lineup, 56-37, with those 56 points coming on a true shooting percentage of 67%.
Brunson came out hot, scoring six points before the Pacers had taken a shot. Aaron Nesmith has been Brunson’s toughest defender in this series, but Brunson wasn’t looking for switches early, and instead took it right at Nesmith for two of those three buckets.
When the Knicks did set screens for him, Brunson didn’t need much of an advantage to get where he wanted to go. The Knicks’ smallest leads in the second half were 10 points, and their point guard got them more separation both times it got that close.
The second of those buckets was a tough floater off the glass with Bennedict Mathurin on his hip …
Towns, meanwhile, continued to attack Turner like he wasn’t anything close to seven-feet tall …
With his 32 and five, Brunson became just the fourth different player in NBA history – joining Michael Jordan (three times), LeBron James (three times) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (also this year) – with 10 or more games of at least 30 points an five assists in a single postseason.
Towns is having his best offensive playoff series in the nine that he’s played in his career. His 25.4 points is his highest average by a healthy margin in those nine series, while his true shooting percentage of 64.0% is his third highest mark.
3. Knicks go deep on the bench
With his team facing elimination, Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau did not shorten his rotation. Instead, he played enough guys to field a baseball team … with a DH.
For the third straight game, Landry Shamet and Delon Wright got real rotation time. And Thibodeau played a 10th man – Precious Achiuwa – with Towns in foul trouble and Mitchell Robinson being intentionally fouled by the Pacers.
The bench minutes weren’t great; New York was outscored by nine points in Towns’ 12:14 off the floor. But the reserves did enough to at least keep the starters fresh in a game where they were clearly exerting additional energy on defense. Shamet scored five points, his high for these playoffs, and he and Wright both got key defensive stops.
In the regular season, Knicks reserves averaged just 63.5 minutes per game, the lowest mark for any team in the last 15 seasons. Through Game 2 of this series, they averaged just 52.0 per game. But over the last three games, Knicks reserves have averaged 76.7 minutes.
When these two teams faced each other in last year’s conference semifinals, the Knicks lost the war of attrition and had only three of their top eight players available by the end of Game 7. And while it seems doubtful that Achiuwa, Shamet or Wright are going to change a game with their play on either end of the floor, it may be that their minutes allow the top seven guys to have enough gas in the tank should another Knicks-Pacers series go the distance.
4. Pacers come up empty
While the Knicks’ defense was improved, the Pacers’ shot quality wasn’t their worst of the series. It was actually worse in Games 2 and 3, according to Second Spectrum tracking. They missed some good looks.
“I thought there were stretches where we had good shots and didn’t convert,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “But overall, it wasn’t good enough.”
The Pacers weren’t as purposeful offensively as they were through the first four games. Brunson was the screener’s defender in only 13 ball-screens, down from a career-high 29 in Game 4.
The Pacers’ offense starts with Haliburton, who totaled just eight points in his 32 minutes in Game 5. He’s now averaged 21.3 points (on 48% shooting) in the Pacers’ 11 playoff wins and just 11.5 (on 39%) in their four losses. He took responsibility for the subpar performance on Thursday.
“Rough night for me,” he admitted. “I got to be better, setting the tone, getting downhill. I feel I didn’t do a great job of that.”
5. Can the Knicks do it again?
Slowing the Pacers’ offense down takes a lot of energy. The Knicks were able to do it once, extending their season for at least another 48 hours.
“They played harder than us, loose balls, rebounds, all that,” Pascal Siakam said. “We got to be able to win that battle.”
The Pacers will get another chance on Saturday, when the Knicks will need to summon up a similarly terrific performance. This has been an evenly matched series, with the Pacers up 3-2 and the Knicks having an edge (582-576) in total scoring. Four of the five games could have gone either way.
The Knicks are 6-2 on the road in these playoffs, but the Pacers haven’t lost two straight games since March 10.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are awaiting the winner.
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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