The KAT has nine lives.
With their season undoubtedly on the line on Sunday, the New York Knicks, who have been the ‘Comeback Kids’ throughout the postseason, climber out of another 20-point hole and came away with 106-100 win in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Indiana Pacers on Sunday night. Led by Karl-Anthony Towns, who erupted for 20 points in the fourth quarter, the Knicks outscored the Pacers 36-20 in the final frame.
“They put me in great spots to succeed, and I just wanted to capitalize on the opportunity,” Towns said after also pulling down 15 boards. “All of us are just trying to do whatever it takes to win, get ourselves back in the game. We wanted to put ourselves in a position to where at the end of the game we found ourselves with a chance of winning.”
The Pacers led by 20 points, 55-35 with 3:20 left in the first half and seemed to be on cruise control but allowed New York to build confidence and cut the lead to 13 points at halftime, 58-45. The Knicks stayed within shouting distance after that, and Indiana missed a golden opportunity when their offense went completely dormant in the fourth. If New York was looking in the mirror and kicking themselves for collapsing in Game 1 at home, the Pacers will feel the exact same way after this one.
This was the Knicks’ third 20-point comeback of the playoffs. It will be remembered as the game in which Towns caught fire out of nowhere. Through three quarters, the big man was quiet as a mouse, was saddled with foul trouble and had scored only four points on 2-for-8 from the field and committed four turnovers. He started the fourth with a triple on the first possession and a driving layup on the next one. With Jalen Brunson on the bench, first as part of his normal minutes and rest pattern, then because he picked up his fifth foul, Towns was the clear focal point of the Knicks offense, and he repeatedly delivered the goods.
“He’s got a hair trigger,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle told reporters, “and you think you’re close enough to him and he just flicks the wrist. He hit some 3s, he got to the rim, he played great. He played great down the stretch.”
Towns became the second Knick to score 20 points in the fourth quarter of a playoff game since 1998 in the play-by-play era. The first was Brunson, last season, in Game 1 of New York’s second-round series ironically against Indiana.
Embed from Getty ImagesThis was far from a storybook game for Towns. He finished with six turnovers, and TNT’s Stan Van Gundy correctly put into perspective and noted that several of his five fouls were “silly fouls.” With everything on the line and an extremely high-stakes situation, he carried the team on his back.
“We gotta get up [on Towns] and just do a better job of showing help in the gaps,” Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton told reporters.
Brunson finished with 23 points on 6-for-18 shooting in 31 minutes. He made only one of his five 3-point attempts but made all 10 of his foul shots. The Clutch Player of the Year was not on the floor for most of the final quarter, however, he did make a big shot, a tough floater over defensive stopper Aaron Nesmith, with 1:17 left to put the Knicks up two, 100-98.
But after coming from behind twice from fourth-quarter deficits to take the first two games on the road, and losing their top defender, Nesmith, with a sprained right ankle in the third quarter, Indiana failed to seal the deal in this one.
Nesmith returned in the fourth quarter, but coach Rick Carlisle said he would not know more about Nesmith’s status to play in Game 4 until Monday.
“Regardless of who’s out there, we’ve got to be able to attack better and do the things to maintain it and finish the game,” he said. “We just simply did not execute as well as we needed to.”
Knicks guard Miles McBride played only one minute and 22 seconds in the first half because he picked up three fouls in that short time frame. Late in the third quarter, though, McBride went on a personal 7-0 run. He remained on the floor for a big chunk of the fourth as well, and helped the Knicks get the Pacers’ offense in the mud.
“I thought his intensity was huge for us,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters. “He’s a catalyst — his defense, his hustle. And I think it gives people energy when you see him flying around like that.”
In some unusual lineup changes, McBride shared the floor with Delon Wright and Landry Shamet, both of whom were previously out of the rotation. Veteran Cam Payne did not see the floor at all, with Thibodeau deciding to lean heavily into more defense-oriented combinations. The Pacers high-flying offense scored just 42 second-half points. Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and Myles Turner combined for 56 points but shot just 3 for 15 from 3-point range. Indiana collectively shot a dismal 5 for 25 (20%) from beyond the arc, including 1 for 8 (12.5%) in the fourth quarter.
“They had a lot of their better defenders in the game in the second half, and that makes it harder,” Carlisle said. “And so, you gotta grind defensively to get rebounds and there’s a different element of grinding when you’re going against their better guys. So, we’re going to have to do better in a lot of those situations.”
For the first time this season, Thibodeau elected to change New York’s starting lineup with all of their starters available. Mitchell Robinson replaced the ‘Swiss army knife’ Josh Hart in the first five, and Hart told reporters afterward that he had suggested this move to Thibodeau, according to the New York Post. Hart said they had discussed the move before Game 6 of the Knicks’ second-round series against the Boston Celtics, too.
Robinson has been by far the Knicks’ most impactful defender throughout the playoffs despite missing most of the regular season with ankle surgery. Even with this move, Indiana looked pretty comfortable offensively for the majority of the game. That changed drastically late in the third quarter, and the Pacers could not find their rhythm once the game got tight.
The Pacers are still favored to win the series and Game 4 is Tuesday in Indianapolis.
