The ghosts of Reggie Miller were alive and well at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night – and Tyrese Haliburton once again played the role of Garden villain to perfection.
Haliburton helped Indiana complete an unprecedented 14-point comeback in the final reel, tying the game with a wild jumper at the buzzer in regulation, to beat the New York Knicks 138-135 in overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. The Pacers now hold a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven-games series for a trip to the NBA finals after pulling off one of the most improbable finishes in playoff history.
New York led 119-105 with under three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, seemingly in complete command. According to ESPN Research, their win probability was 99.7%. Jalen Brunson had returned from foul trouble and was attacking the goal with the bite, balance and GPS in the paint of a peak Allen Iverson. Karl-Anthony Towns was stretching the floor and punishing mismatches. A sold-out Garden crowd of 19,812 was in full throat and primed to spill outside into the rain-soaked celebrations that were already popping off along Seventh Avenue. Instead, it was brought to a church-like hush as the Knicks unraveled completely, outscored 31-14 in the final 2:51 of regulation and overtime.
Aaron Nesmith sparked the Pacers’ fightback with a barrage of three-pointers, burying five in the final three and a half minutes of the fourth quarter. He finished with 30 points on 8-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc, including back-to-back makes and a pair of free throws after the Knicks fouled him intentionally so he couldn’t tie the game with another.
“It’s unreal,” said Nesmith, a fifth-year swingman who averaged 12.0 points per game in the regular season. “It’s probably the best feeling in the world for me. I love it when that basket feels like an ocean and anything you toss up, you feel like it’s going to go in. It’s so much fun.”
Even with Nesmith’s late heroics, Indiana still trailed by a pair in the final seconds. Haliburton recovered from a loose dribble, stepped back near the three-point line and launched a high-arcing jumper right before the horn. It bounced high off the back rim, hung in the air for what felt like an eternity before dropping cleanly through the cylinder. He immediately sprinted to the celebrity-dotted sideline near midcourt and flashed a choke gesture, a direct nod to Miller’s infamous 1994 taunt aimed at Spike Lee.
Video replay confirmed Haliburton’s toe was on the line. The basket counted for two, tying the game at 125 and forcing the five-minute extra frame.
Indiana’s Andrew Nembhard then came alive in a back-and-forth overtime period with a three-pointer followed by two go-ahead layups, the second giving the Pacers a 136-135 lead with 26.7 seconds left. A deflected pass off Brunson’s fingertips turned the ball back over to Indiana, and former Knick Obi Toppin slammed home a breakaway dunk with 10.9 seconds remaining to seal the win, the Pacers’ fourth comeback from 15 points or more down in these playoffs.
“I’m so proud of the resilience of this group, we’ve shown it all year,” Haliburton said. “We’ve had to win in so many different, random, unique ways and today we just kept going, kept fighting, and man, that’s fun.”
It wasn’t Miller’s eight points in 8.9 seconds to silence the Garden in the 1995 Eastern Conference semi-finals. It was somehow worse. And not just because Miller had a courtside seat for the carnage while commentating on the game for TNT. “Defensively, we let off the gas. The intensity and physicality weren’t there,” the Knicks’ Josh Hart confessed. “Offensively, we were playing slower, and more stagnant. It looked like we were playing not to lose.”
Haliburton finished with 31 points and 11 assists. Nembhard added 15 points, including seven in overtime. Pascal Siakam scored 17, and Myles Turner contributed 14. The Pacers shot 57.1% from the field and 17-of-30 from deep, surviving New York’s fourth-quarter surge – including 14 unanswered points as Brunson sat with five fouls – and executing flawlessly down the stretch.
It was a collapse of historic proportions for New York, who appeared to have the game in hand after a 19-3 run midway through the fourth that opened a 111-94 lead. Since play-by-play tracking began in 1997-98, teams leading by 14 or more points with less than 2:45 remaining in regulation had been 994-0. The Knicks are now the one-in-a-thousand outlier.
The incandescent Brunson poured in 43 points and five assists but was hampered by foul trouble for much of the fourth quarter. Towns, who had struggled mightily from deep in the previous round against Boston, responded with 35 points and 12 rebounds, including 4-of-8 from three. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges each added 16 points while the Knicks shot a blistering 53% from the field – only to spit the bit when it mattered most.
Instead the night belonged to Haliburton, who is no stranger to the role of Garden heel. Last year the 25-year-old led the Pacers to a one-sided Game 7 win that ended New York’s season in the second round, departing the arena in a hoodie depicting Miller’s notorious gesture. But the visitors were quick to put Wednesday’s stunner behind them. “It’s a long series,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “We’re not going to get too excited about this. We’ve got things to clean up. They got things to clean up. Game 2 is going to be another war.”
The overtime classic on a soggy Wednesday night in Manhattan marked the first Eastern Conference finals game at Madison Square Garden in 25 years – and, fittingly, another white-knuckle installment in one of the NBA’s most storied playoff rivalries. The Knicks have now reached the conference finals four times since 1994. All four times, the opponent has been Indiana. New York won those meetings in 1994 and 1999. The Pacers answered in 2000 – and now again in 2024, with another devastating blow on enemy hardwood. They say everything old is new again: Knicks v Hicks is back.
Game 2 is Friday night at the Garden. New York will have to regroup fast. The Pacers, after stealing home-court advantage in spectacular fashion, are already penning the next chapter of a rivalry that refuses to fade.
“In the playoffs, when you win, it’s the best thing ever. When you lose, it’s the worst thing ever,” Brunson said. “The best way to deal with all that is to stay level-headed and making sure we have each other’s backs.”
