NEW YORK — He was done answering questions and reporters scattered off, leaving Josh Hart to ponder what had just happened.
The Knicks forward sat at his locker and leaned with his elbows resting on his knees, his face buried in his hands. Then, for a few minutes, he stared ahead vacantly, presumably processing how his team let a 14-point lead inside the final three minutes slip away — how his team let Game 1 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals slip away.
For the first 44 minutes of the game, the Knicks matched the speed and tempo of the Indiana Pacers. And for the first 44 minutes, it worked.
The Knicks controlled the middle portion of the game, grabbing a lead with 8:20 to play in the second quarter and retaining it until Tyrese Haliburton’s improbable game-tying shot at the end of regulation bounced high off the back rim, hung in the air, and fell through the net, sending the game to overtime.
“We didn’t finish the game out,” Hart told reporters moments earlier. “We didn’t run through that finish line. I feel like defensively we let off the gas; the intensity and physicality wasn’t there. Offensively, we were playing slower, a little stagnant, and it looked like we were playing not to lose. We got to make sure we don’t make that mistake again.”
In the interview room down the hallway here at Madison Square Garden, Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau also summed it up succinctly.
“You just can never let your guard down against them,” Thibodeau said. “No lead is safe.”
These assessments from Hart and Thibodeau reveal a truth simmering below New York’s collapse: the Knicks, who excel in the halfcourt, ranking 26th in pace, are better served grinding games down, making the Pacers slog through their offense when confronted with physical transition defense. Indiana wants to play fast, and spending 48 minutes matching its speed often leaves opponents sucking wind at the end of games, trying — and often failing — to do anything to stop its late-game onslaughts.
This postseason alone, the Pacers have won a pair of games in which they trailed by seven inside the final 48 seconds — putting the record of teams facing such situations at 3-1,679.
On Wednesday, the Knicks scored 69 points in the first half, tying a franchise record for most in a half of a playoff game. New York had set that mark last year in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals … against the Pacers, a series New York lost in seven games.
Throughout the early part of Game 1, the Knicks scooped boards and fed players streaking down the court on outlets, generating high-percentage looks at the rim or kickouts along the perimeter.
In essence, they outpaced the Pacers — until they couldn’t.
Late in the fourth, as New York was trying to cling to its lead, Knicks players appeared gassed, doubling over, slow to rotate. Their play, particularly on defense, suffered.
In the fourth quarter, New York allowed Indiana shooting guard Aaron Nesmith to drain five consecutive 3s — the Pacers as a team connected on seven straight from deep to close the period — and score 20 of his 30 points in the quarter. For the most part, the shots were open looks that the Knicks could not contest in time.
In the final minutes, the Pacers played quicker and more assertively. They closed the fourth on a 31-14 run. Nesmith was the catalyst, and it’s safe to question whether fatigue set in on New York.
“I mean, yeah, once he hits one, you have to be on high alert,” Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson told reporters after the game. “I got to do a better job of finding him. I think he had one or two with me in the vicinity that started it off. That’s not a way to close a game.”
“It’s a tough one,” Hart said. “We’re all disappointed in it, but the series is not over after one game.”