Knicks' biggest stars, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson, fade away in Game 6 loss to Pacers
Indiana Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard defends against Knicks guard Jalen Brunson during the first half of Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals in Indianapolis on Saturday. Credit: AP/AJ Mast
INDIANAPOLIS
No, it was not to be.
There will be no Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. There will be no more nights sitting on pins and needles wondering if the Knicks can pull this thing out.
The Knicks are going home now with no more basketball to play, their crazy and mesmerizing season having ended with a disappointing dud in Indiana. It will be the Pacers who will be playing for an NBA championship after defeating the Knicks, 125-108, to win the Eastern Conference finals in six games.
The Knicks took the court Saturday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse looking to extend their season, already having survived elimination at Madison Square Garden in Game 5 and hoping to force a Game 7 in New York.
For two quarters, it looked as if the Knicks might pull it off. But then it all fell apart in an ugly third quarter as the Knicks were buried in a barrage of three-pointers and were outscored 34-23.
It was a sloppy game that featured 17 Knicks turnovers, an inability to stop Pascal Siakam (31 points) and a shockingly subpar performance from the Knicks’ two best players, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson.
Towns had 22 points and 14 rebounds but looked lost on defense, missed four free throws and was 0-for-4 from three-point range. Brunson turned the ball over five times, scored 19 points and shot 8-for-18. No one else on the team could make up for the stars’ struggles.
Did the Knicks blow a golden opportunity to earn their first NBA Finals berth since 1999? Did they underestimate just how good a team the Pacers are? These questions will be debated for months, if not generations. The immediate hurt was too strong Saturday to worry much beyond tomorrow.
“It sucks, man, simple as that,” Brunson said. “Simple as that. It sucks.”
It marked the second straight year Indiana has knocked the Knicks out of the playoffs. Last year, the pain came a round earlier as the Pacers won Game 7 at Madison Square Garden to eliminate the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Tom Thibodeau said he is proud of his team and what the Knicks achieved this season.
“There’s disappointment because you fall short of what your goal is,” he said. “In the end, there’s only going to be one team that achieves the goal. The challenge for us is to look at it for what it is. We finished in the top three, but we are falling short of the ultimate goal. For us, the challenge is to use that for motivation and determination to work all summer to prepare ourselves to make the final step and keep improving so we can achieve our goal.
“I think that’s the way we have to approach it and look at it. It’s improvement from last year, but it’s ultimately not what our ultimate goal is.”
In some ways, this loss was more painful because the expectations were so incredibly high.
In the offseason, the Knicks reconfigured their roster with the hope of becoming a contender, trading for Towns and Mikal Bridges. It proved to be enough to get them past the Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals, a shocking development considering the Knicks were 0-4 against the Celtics in the regular season and were blown out three times.
The win over the Celtics gave the Knicks their first trip to the Eastern Conference finals in 25 years. They hadn’t been there since Jeff Van Gundy was their coach and Latrell Sprewell and Marcus Camby were running the floor. The fact that they had gotten here by beating the defending champions sent New York City into a frenzy.
There were watch parties all over the city. Mayor Eric Adams named a street in Manhattan after all 15 players. Prices for even the worst playoff game at Madison Square Garden soared to $700. Everyone was so giddy about beating the Celtics that it was just assumed that the Pacers would be a much easier task.
The Pacers brought an abrupt end to the party by winning the first two games of the series at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks blew a nine-point lead in the final 58 seconds of regulation of Game 1 and never quite seemed to get past that.
Said Towns: “It hurts not to be playing for a championship. We just have to get out and put ourselves in this position again.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
