Knicks 121, Pacers 117: “I haven’t had this much fun since the 90’s Knicks”

The Knicks won a basketball game on Monday.

The Knicks, also, might have not been in such a position to do so had the officials called the game properly instead of whiffing on two pivotal moments late in the fourth quarter.

With less than a minute left in regulation and the game tied at 115, Knicks’ Jalen Brunson advanced the ball past midcourt and tried to find teammate Donte DiVincenzo with a bounce pass to his right.

The ball hit a closing-in Aaron Nesmith, who was trying to double-team Brunson with the help of Tyrese Haliburton, and the refs deemed the Pacers guard had kicked the ball to break the pass.

After replays were shown, it was clear the ball had hit Nesmith on his right arm and not kicked by the guard, although such a call is not reviewable.

“On the floor we felt that would be a kicked ball violation,” crew chief Zach Zabra told pool reporter Fred Katz after the game. “Post game review did show that it hit the defender’s hand, which would be legal.”

Taking advantage of retaining possession of the ball, the Knicks were able to put together a play ending in a 3-point make by DiVincenzo that put New York three points ahead with just over 40 seconds left in the game. The Knicks never trailed for the remaining time and went on to win Game 1; final score 121-117.

“A kicked ball violation is not reviewable and not subject to the coach’s challenge,” Zabra said. “The three things that teams can challenge are fouls, goaltends and out of bounds.”

After making that 3-pointer, DiVo completed another—perhaps even more important—action, this time on defense.

Tyrese Haliburton and Myles Turner planned to run a play with the latter big boy screening the latter but DiVincenzo crashed into Turner, fell to the hardwood, and refs called MT for an offensive foul on the Knicks guard with just 12 seconds left.

There is no doubt that was a moving screen, however, and although it was a close call it was the right one, and not enough evidence was found to overturn the ruling on the court. The Pacers tried to swing the refs’ opinion on it, but not even going through an endless amount of replays convinced the officials.

Speaking after Game 1, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle acknowledge they “were not expecting to get calls in here,” after saying he “doesn’t want to talk about the officiating.”

Said Carlisle: “It would be nice if they laid off [the illegal screen], but that’s just the way it goes. We challenged it, they reviewed it. They’ve got a bunch of people in New Jersey that agreed with it, that’s just the way it goes. We gotta learn from that, too. That’s a timing play, both guys are involved. We’ll have to execute that better next time.”

The offender in the play, Myles Turner, said he’d rather play under streetball rules than NBA’s.

“I think it’s best when players decide the outcome of the game,” Turner said in his postgame press conference. “I think it’s unfortunate that it happened. We reviewed it; they still called it an illegal screen.

“But it’s the playoffs, man. I feel like DiVincenzo did a good job of selling it.”

Pacers guard T.J. McConnell, who dropped º8 points off the pine in 22 minutes and was better than most—if not all—of his teammates, had something closer to reality to say after the game regarding the final minute of play.

“I’m not sure,” he said about whether or not a different pair of calls would have changed the game’s outcome. “There were plays that we could have made that it doesn’t even come down to that. Unfortunate, but we got to move on and fix things that we didn’t do well.”

All of the above, the whole 650+ words, were going to be a separate article published here on P&T today, along with the customary Recap and the Bulletin.

I decided to bunch this L2M report and the Recap into a single piece because well, it’s the thing that everybody is going to talk about today and before Game 2 takes place on Wednesday. (Damn the pageviews and the revenue!)

What is funny about this thing, however, is that seemingly nobody west of New York deemed it worth mentioning Jalen Brunson’s 43 points being the main (or even just one, no worries) reason for Indiana’s loss.

Touching on Haliburton’s mediocre (at best) 6-2-8-4 performance against the Knicks under the brightest of lights and at the biggest of stages he’s ever graced.

Or, just to name a couple more facts, Josh Hart getting a full 48-minute run or New York turning Indiana’s main strength (its second-unit depth) into shreds.

As world-renowned philosopher Drake once told Kendrick Lamar, probably, maybe, “Allow Brunson to Drop 43, Blame the L on the Refs.” (Gotta get that SEO Rank up!)

You don’t win games without a few lucky bounces going your way.

You definitely don’t win games with your best player going for this type of head-to-head matchup numbers.

As costanza! put it: “This team man is so mentally strong. I love em. I haven’t had this much fun since the 90’s Knicks.”

Knicks up one. Knicks in 4.

Go Knicks!