With Knicks on the ropes, the Pacers let go — and let New York back into East finals

INDIANAPOLIS — Jalen Brunson, the New York Knicks’ second-team All-NBA guard, picked up his fourth personal foul with 1:36 left in the second quarter of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals, in a game the Indiana Pacers led, at the time, 56-40. After Andrew Nembhard made two free throws following the foul, Indiana’s lead was 18 points.

If ever a series was about to be a wrap, it was this one.

Indiana had a 2-0 lead, having won the first two games of the series in New York, and was up by as much as 20 in the second quarter Sunday night. A 3-0 hole for the team trailing in a playoff series has been the end of the road for every team facing that deficit in NBA playoff history — the current record for teams that take a 3-0 lead is 157-0. Thus, a certain trip soon after for the Pacers to the NBA Finals was teed up like a 2024 TP5 that Rory McIlroy is about to smoke within 15 feet to an open, inviting par 3.

Yet, somehow, Indiana let the Knicks get off the deck. The game was lost down the stretch of the fourth quarter, to be sure, as New York’s Karl-Anthony Towns had a monster 12 minutes, scoring 20 of his game-high 24 points.

But the Knicks’ 106-100 win, cutting Indiana’s series lead to 2-1, really happened because of what transpired late in the first half and in the third quarter. The 100 points were the fewest the Pacers have scored in a game since Feb. 4. And Indiana scored just 42 points in the second half.

“I do know that when we started building a lead, and the crowd got into it, things got a little crazy,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “We had some back-and-forth, kind of nutty plays, with some turnovers and stuff like that. So much of playoff basketball is doing the basics really well. And in those instances, being able to keep a level of poise, along with aggression. I’ll look closer at it (later Sunday night), but clearly, we didn’t do well enough in that area.”

It happened slowly at first, as New York, seeming innocuously, shaved what had been a 20-point deficit in the second quarter to 13 by intermission.

And then it happened even slower, in an inexplicable third quarter by the Pacers in which they didn’t attack Brunson despite his foul trouble, took a series of questionable shots instead and allowed New York to stay within striking distance. At the end of three, the Pacers led 90-80. But that was much, much too close, in these playoffs where everyone, seemingly every night, digs themselves out of huge holes. That it was Towns rather than Brunson who led the Knicks to their wild comeback mattered some, but not that much.

The fourth quarter should never have mattered.

“I have to watch film to give you a better answer, but it felt like the game was just, like, stuck there,” Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “Which is a weird feeling. It felt like every time we scored, they scored. Every time we didn’t, we got a stop. We never were able to really pull away. I don’t really know the real answer. … (but) I felt the ball got stuck a little bit. I felt like a lot of our turnovers (eight of 12) happened in the second half. I just felt like we did a better job of valuing the ball in the first half.”

The Knicks hid Brunson on Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith. No one’s saying Indiana should have attacked Brunson to the exclusion of everyone else, but the Pacers didn’t go at him at all. They didn’t put him in any pick-and-roll actions off ball screens, where he’d have to try and stay in front of his man coming downhill and would likely have had to give ground to avoid picking up a fifth foul. Nor did they post up the 6-foot-1 guard using the 6-6 Nesmith. He just stayed safe in the corner, with no one making him guard anybody.

Brunson didn’t pick up his fifth foul until there was 7:03 left in the fourth quarter. He came out for several minutes but was able to play the last 1:37, and made a floater in the lane to put New York up for good, 100-98, with 1:17 to go.

“I don’t think we’re trying to focus too much on just attacking him,” Nembhard said. “We’re trying to play our game, and wherever he’s at, he’s at.”

It didn’t help Indiana when Nesmith went down with a sprained ankle midway through the third quarter. He’d been one of the Pacers’ best offensive players so far in the series, going 13-of-20 overall and 10-of-12 on 3s in the first two games. Sunday, though, he was just 2-of-8 from the floor, and while he returned to the game in the fourth quarter, he didn’t score or force the Knicks’ hand defensively. His return to Game 3 would seem to indicate he’ll be available Tuesday for Game 4, but playing every other day is a small window through which to recover.

The Pacers led by 16 four minutes into the third. Five different times, they led by 15 points in the period. But each time, they let the Knicks hang around. It wasn’t Brunson doing the bulk of the scoring, either; it was Mikal Bridges, with six straight points midway through the quarter, and Miles McBride scoring the last seven points of the period for the Knicks. So, instead of New York being hopelessly behind after three, the Knicks were only down 10. That wasn’t a prohibitive deficit. Towns made sure of it with a special fourth.

“Poor job of closing the third quarter and not a good enough start to the fourth quarter,” Carlisle said.

You can’t let a great offensive player believe he can still bring his team back. The Pacers let Towns believe.

Indiana does have some unfortunate recent experience in this area. The Pacers won each of the first two games of their previous two series, against the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers, on the road and returned home with a chance to apply the coup de grâce at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. And they got smacked around by both the Bucks and Cavaliers in Game 3. But in each case, they won Game 4 convincingly, then closed out the series in five games. It doesn’t mean the Knicks are going to roll over and die now that they’ve gotten new life. But the Pacers have been able to figure out what they’ve done wrong in previous Game 3s and adjust quickly.

“A hundred points? That’s not us,” Haliburton said.

It better not be Tuesday night, for Indiana’s sake. Or this is going to be a series, again, and the Knicks will have home-court advantage, again.

(Photo of Aaron Nesmith and Josh Hart: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)