NEW YORK — “Damn, what a f—ing game,” Tyrese Haliburton said in the visitors’ locker room at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.
Then the Indiana Pacers star grabbed a slice of pineapple from the postgame spread.
The Pacers trailed the New York Knicks by 14 points with less than three minutes to go in the fourth quarter.
since 1995-1996) had ever come back from a seven-point deficit in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime in a playoff game.
According to reserve center Thomas Bryant, they didn’t directly discuss their recent heroics after the Knicks went on a 14-0 run in the fourth quarter.
NEW YORK — Tyrese Haliburton remarked, “Damn, what a f—ing game,” in the Madison sq\. Garden visitors’ locker room on Wednesday. The Indiana Pacers star then reached into the postgame spread and picked up a slice of pineapple.
Haliburton appeared, like the rest of us, to be in shock at what had just transpired. In the fourth quarter, with less than three minutes remaining, the Pacers were 14 points behind the New York Knicks. Haliburton had to make a game-tying, buzzer-beating, foot-on-the-line two at the end of regulation, and Indiana wing Aaron Nesmith had to climb to a higher plane in the final seconds to force overtime. After striking the back of the rim, the shot bounced straight up and fell through the net.
Haliburton told no one directly, “It’s gotta be the shoes, man,” following the Eastern Conference finals Game 1 victory of 138–135 in overtime. “Go grab them. Currently on sale. “..”.
Knicks fans had a front-row seat to Tyrese Haliburton’s latest performance, which is the epitome of what it means to be an NBA villain.
Sam Quinn.
The Pacers’ unexpected comeback victory is not primarily due to Haliburton’s Pumas, which don’t seem to be for sale. This postseason, Haliburton and his team have accomplished the seemingly impossible three times: in the series-deciding Game 5 against the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round and in Game 2 against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round, both of which had Haliburton game-winners at the end, and now this.
Explaining their late-game win probability becomes more difficult the more they attribute it.
There was just one team in the play-by-play era prior to these playoffs (i.e. E. had ever overcome a seven-point deficit in the last minute of the fourth quarter or overtime in a postseason game since 1995–96. In the last 23 days, Indiana has done this three times. Prior to Wednesday, teams that led by 14 points or more in the last 2:45 of the fourth quarter in the play-by-play era were 994-0, according to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press. This latest absurd rally was even less likely than the two that came before it.
A plausible explanation for the Pacers’ seeming advantage is that every comeback makes the subsequent one seem more plausible. The Knicks went on a 14-0 run in the fourth quarter, but reserve center Thomas Bryant claims they didn’t talk about their recent heroics directly. “We try not to,” he said, “because it’s really difficult to do every time. However, they were helped by those victories over Milwaukee and Cleveland without having to mention them.
Bryant stated, “We’d choose not to be in those positions.”. However, they were aware that they had been here before and that they could find a way out. “.”.
Coach Rick Carlisle believes that getting reps during the regular season is the key to Indiana’s ability to perform well at the end of games. In 2024–2025, no team had a greater point differential in the closing minutes.
“We were having trouble in a lot of the early games, so we had to pull out,” Carlisle stated. “When we weren’t performing well, those were crucial games. It’s a muscle, too. It gets stronger the more you work on it. “.”.
Even further backward was Haliburton, who finished Game 1 with 31 points and 11 assists in 42 minutes. After the Pacers acquired him at the 2022 deadline, he claimed to have undergone a “baptism by fire.”.
“I would have to take these shots at certain points,” Haliburton stated. “And no one would give a damn if I missed them. Pacer fans would, but since we weren’t very good and weren’t in the playoffs or anything, it didn’t matter. “..”.
Haliburton asserted that the best teacher is experience. The team is “battle-tested,” according to Myles Turner. Although it is unrealistic to expect a team to consistently go on historic runs, he no longer finds it surprising.
As Turner put it, “I’m just used to it at this point.”. I’m really confident in this group. “..”.
The fact that Indiana’s style of play encourages comebacks is another explanation. By pressing the ball full-court, running off makes and misses, and creating as much confusion as they can in the halfcourt, the Pacers refuse to accept the cliché that the game slows down in big time. In the meantime, their opponent may be exhausted because Indiana’s strategy is to gradually wear down the opposition.
Haliburton stated, “It’s difficult for me to discredit and say that the wear-down effect wasn’t there.”. “I believe that’s a component of it, and I believe that’s a component of who we are: How can we play for 48 minutes? Obviously, we’re picking up full court, as well as our offensive pressure, getting downhill, moving, and playing quickly. We performed admirably offensively, in my opinion, using our style. “..”.
In Game 1, Indiana was outscored, but it prevented the Knicks from grabbing any offensive rebounds in the final quarter and scored a few points in overtime. Haliburton added that New York “had a couple short misses there at the end of the game, missed a couple free throws there down the stretch.”. “.
In part, the Pacers lean into their depth due to their physically demanding style. Nesmith had been substituted out twice during the fourth quarter before scoring 20 of his 30 points, including six consecutive 3-pointers, in the final five minutes of the quarter. In the fourth quarter, Ben Sheppard, who played no part in the first three, played seven minutes, which “allowed Aaron a chance to rest a little bit,” according to Carlisle. “So he had his legs and returned to the game in good form. “..”.
Another explanation could be that Indiana has managed to stay united because, well, it has remained united. Haliburton drew a correlation between the team’s tenacity and the front office’s ability to keep the roster cohesive from the previous season.
Haliburton stated, “We’re just a group that has spent a lot of time with one another.”. They have experienced strong runs in both directions, he continued, and they all have faith in one another. “We think we know where everyone will be,” he remarked. “We have high standards for one another, but I believe we also hold one another responsible. “,”.
Haliburton claimed that he feels confident because he knows that Pacers supporters, coaches, and teammates all want him to make clutch shots. “I think everybody’s living and dying with it at that point,” he stated. Bryant claimed that despite being behind by 16 points with 7:22 remaining and 14 points with 3:44 remaining, the Pacers displayed “great contagious emotion for each other” during fourth-quarter timeouts. According to Bryant, they were “talking to each other, giving each other confidence” and “clapping it up.”.
‘Keep working the game,’ we discussed in the huddle. Keep trying to make these guys’ lives difficult. “Find beauties,” Carlisle remarked.
Carlisle stated that although Indiana was “very much teetering on the edge,” it was able to stay the course. “I didn’t really realize what I was doing in the moment, I was just trying to win the basketball game,” Nesmith said after going on the heater of a lifetime. He was, in other words, unconscious and in a state of flow. He described the final three minutes as “kind of a blur, to be honest with you.”. “We’re just fighting, scumming for every ball that gets lost, boxing out, making plays, taking shots, and doing everything we can to win.”. “.
The Pacers initially believed Haliburton’s buzzer-beater to be a 3. They wouldn’t have jumped on him in joy otherwise, and he most certainly wouldn’t have imitated Reggie Miller’s choke celebration. They had to “grab everybody by their jersey, their neck, their arm, whatever it takes,” Turner said, after learning they needed to play five more minutes. Simply gather them in a huddle and tell them, ‘Let’s go, sir. It is not finished yet. We offered ourselves a shot. “.”.
“The strategy is not to rely on making ‘hellacious shot for three minutes straight the rest of the series,'” Turner stated. However, Indiana will accept victories however they can be obtained, and it will keep playing its game if it encounters another severe deficit in the final moments. The series opener at MSG demonstrated that this can pay off spectacularly, if the Pacers’ prior comebacks hadn’t already made it clear.
“Instant classic,” said Turner.
