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Pacers respond with dominant Game 6 effort to force Game 7 against the Knicks

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Pacers respond with dominant Game 6 effort to force Game 7 against the Knicks

INDIANAPOLIS — After a miserable performance in Game 5 put them on the brink of elimination, the Pacers dominated in all the areas they flopped on Tuesday, pounding the Knicks 116-103 in Game 6 on Friday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse to tie the series 3-3 and force a Game 7.

The deciding game will be played at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday at Madison Square Garden. The winner plays the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals.

Here are four observations.

Pacers score: Indiana Pacers head back to New York after convincing Game 6 win against Knicks

Pascal Siakam, Myles Turner took advantage of mismatches

The Knicks decision to go small starting in Game 5 with Miles McBride inserted into the starting lineup and Josh Hart moved from small to power forward gave the Pacers an obvious size advantage in the frontcourt. They didn’t exploit it nearly as much as they intended to in Game 5, but it Game 6 they had a lot more opportunities and they took advantage.

The Knicks played the Pacers straight up sometimes and cross-matched others. When they put Hart on Siakam, Siakam had a 4-inch size advantage that’s really bigger than that with a 7-3 wingspan and he was able to shoot over him while also spinning around him in post moves. Turner had to deal with Isaiah Hartenstein in those cases but was able to score by dragging him outside and hitting 3s but also attacking off the bounce. When the Knicks cross-matched and put Hartenstein on Siakam, Siakam still had opportunities to score and Turner had an equal size advantage on Hart.

Siakam scored 25 points on 11 of 21 shooting and also grabbed seven rebounds and dished out five assists. Turner scored 17 points on 6 of 10 shooting, also knocking down 1 of 3 3-pointers, grabbing eight rebounds and dishing out three assists.

“I’m just trying to play my game to be honest,” Siakam said. “I think the way they’re playing doesn’t really matter. I just have to play my game no matter what’s happening on the opposite side.”

Pacers attack the paint, win on the glass

The massive rebounding disadvantage in Game 5 kept the Pacers from doing much in the way of offense at all as they took 29 fewer shots than the Knicks did, but when they did have the ball they struggled to get the ball in the paint and finished with 36 points there compared to the Knicks’ 60.

The Pacers surpassed their Game 5 point total by halftime of Game 6.

Point guard Tyrese Haliburton didn’t get a lot of that work done himself, taking most of his shots from beyond the arc except for one exquisite drive and finish at the rim, but he kept the ball moving and attacked mismatches, getting the ball to Siakam with his height advantage on Hart. Bringing bodies to Siakam opened cutting angles for others and so did transition opportunities. And of course, point guard T.J. McConnell was his usual relentless paint attacking self, getting in the lane at will. By halftime, the Pacers had 40 paint points on 20 of 28 shooting in the lane. They kept pushing in the second half and finished with 62 points in the paint.

Meanwhile the Pacers turned around that massive rebounding disadvantage. After losing 53-29 on the boards in Game 5, allowing the Knicks 20 offensive rebounds while grabbing just five of their own, the Pacers won 47-35 on the glass, grabbed 14 offensive rebounds to the Knicks’ 13 and scored 21 second-chance points to the Knicks’ 22.

“They’re both aggression stats,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “We needed to do better in the aggression department. Game 5 in Milwaukee was tough. Game 5 in New York was, I would have to say, our lowest-aggression game of the entire playoffs. We didn’t have a very fun-filled film session yesterday watching it. You go through these ups and downs and young teams are gonna grow.”

Turner was a big part of the reason the rebounding numbers changed. He grabbed eight boards, but just as importantly, he kept Isaiah Hartenstein from dominating on the glass the way he did in Game 5. Turner had eight rebounds to Hartenstein’s seven after Hartenstein had 17 in Game 5.

“When I said we made a concerted effort, it was pretty much Myles Turner,” McConnell said. “We all saw, from each of us what happened in Game 5, not just him, his boxouts tonight were pivotal. Because Hartenstein is a dog on the glass. Credit to Myles, he really came out and changed the game in that aspect.”

Tyrese Haliburton finds rhythm again

McBride nearly took Tyrese Haliburton out of Game 5, face guarding him from end to end as he finished with just 13 points on 5 of 9 shooting and five assists.

The Pacers went into Game 6 knowing that was coming and made sure McBride had to work a lot harder to follow Haliburton with all forms of ball screens and movement to try to pry him loose. McBride still worked hard in the matchup and didn’t give Haliburton easy lanes to the bucket, but Haliburton found space to shoot on the perimeter and enough driving room to at least get to the paint even if he usually ended up passing out of there when he ran into more Knicks defenders. Haliburton scored 15 points on 6 of 12 shooting, including 3 of 8 from 3-point range, and dished out nine assists. The Pacers were +15 when he was on the floor.

“I’m just using every experience on a game-to-game basis,” Haliburton said. “There’s been some different circumstances every game in terms of how the game is flowing and how many shots I’m shooting and who’s defending me. I’m just trying to use all of those to the best of my ability.”

Haliburton’s ability to continually adjust, even after rough performances, has impressed his teammates.

“He watches film relentlessly,” McConnell said. “And the stuff people don’t see is we will have a 10 a.m. shootaround and he’s been in the gym for an hour and a half already already working on his game, getting shots up. He has a hunger to just want to be great and want to be better and fix the things from the game before. That’s what I respect about him most, his willingness to watch film and what went wrong he fixes it, almost instantaneously.”

Aaron Nesmith and Pacers keep Jalen Brunson relatively quiet

The Knicks got production from their secondary perimeter players with Donte DiVincenzo scoring 17 points and Miles McBride scoring 20, but the All-Star that has carried them throughout these playoffs was much quieter than usual until late in the game when the Pacers already had a huge lead.

With forward Aaron Nesmith and McConnell taking on the assignment but the Pacers also getting good help-side defense, Brunson made just 2 of his first 13 shots and had just five points in the first half.

“He’s a great player,” Nesmith said. “You know he’s going to get to shoot the ball whenever he wants to shoot the ball. It’s just making it as difficult as possible. It doesn’t really matter how many he has. You’re just trying to make it hard for him.”

Brunson never stops of course and he still kept grinding his way to layups and open mid-range looks. He finished with 31 points on 11 of 26 shooting, which counts as sub-par for him in what has been a spectacular playoffs. With Brunson off his game, the Pacers held the Knicks to 43.9% shooting and 1.15 points per possession.

Brunson missed some makeable shots around the rim and the Pacers didn’t make it easy for him to get clean looks there. He made just 3 of 9 attempts within 5 feet of the basket. He got going as usual at his spots a few feet inside the foul line, but in many cases he was hitting contested 2s.

Brunson was 9 of 13 in the second half including 3 of 5 from 3-point range for 26 points, however, so Carlisle wasn’t trying to bask in a job well done, knowing that Brunson picked up shooting rhythm going into Game 7.

“I’m not going to celebrate something that happened for half of the game,” Carlisle said. “This guy is doing some historic stuff in the playoffs. He went on a crazy run in the last three minutes he was in there. He hit two or three 3s and got fouled once. There’s no resting on him. There’s no feeling good about anything with him. It’s an endless task when you face a player like him in a series like this.”

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