2025 EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: #3 New York Knicks vs #4 Indiana Pacers (IND leads 1-0)

[xBulletproof]

the issue with the pacers is defense. their defense is straight up weak.

Is it, though? Throughout this year, the Pacers and the Knicks had the exact same DRTG at 113.3. That put both teams tied at 13th.

And if you want to delve even further and look where our DRTG was after Nesmith and Nembhard returned from injury (circa mid-December), you'd see that for the 3/4ths of the season our defense actually ranked in the top 10.

This take was accurate for last year's team but it's no longer accurate.

Knicks have the #1 remaining DRTG in the playoffs and are #2 overall(111.0). Pacers are #7 overall(112.7), #3 remaining behind Knicks and Nuggets

I'm not sure where you're getting the numbers, because NBA website has OKC with the best DRTG in the playoffs still, by a huge gap at 102.5. Knicks are #5 overall. Also the NBA stats website has the Knicks at 110.6 and Pacers at 111.9, so not the same numbers you're saying.

The net rating by teams remaining

OKC 11.5
MIN 7.9
Pacers 5.5
Knicks 0.1
Denver -3.2

[scrabbarista]

I've thought about this for forty-eight seconds.

Pacers in 6!!!!!!

[NoDopeOnSundays]

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You can't guard KAT with your big, so I would expect them to do the same thing as the Pistons and Celtics, with Siakam on KAT and Turner on Hart. The thing is, we're getting better at dealing with that, and most importantly the Celtics and Pistons had a better defense than the Pacers, even when you adjust to the timeline a lot of Pacers fans want, which is Nesmith coming back, from that point on both the Celtics and Pistons were better defensively.

The Celtics were better than the Pacers in ORTG and DRTG over that time period too. I don't see how they win to be honest, they do a lot of the same things as the Celtics just with worse shot creation if they can't get you into rotation, or going against a set defense.

[Pacernation]

Knicks had their hands full with an unexperienced and offensive challenged Pistons squad and a Boston team with a banged up Brown, two players in Horford and Holiday that showed their age, an unplayable Porzingis with whatever illness he had and Tatum that suffered a career altering injury. And with all of those circumstances the Celtics blew both homegames because they decided that the best play would be a highscreen with an immediate contested three afterwards. And now everybody believes that they are worldbeaters? See, I can do this aswell.

[LFGK]

Knicks had their hands full with an unexperienced and offensive challenged Pistons squad and a Boston team with a banged up Brown, two players in Horford and Holiday that showed their age, an unplayable Porzingis with whatever illness he had and Tatum that suffered a career altering injury. And with all of those circumstances the Celtics blew both homegames because they decided that the best play would be a highscreen with an immediate contested three afterwards. And now everybody believes that they are worldbeaters? See, I can do this aswell.

Who have you beaten the last 5 series big dawg? You guys want in the worst way to be validated as some world beater but have beaten not 1 healthy team in the playoffs...

[LFGK]

Knicks had their hands full with an unexperienced and offensive challenged Pistons squad and a Boston team with a banged up Brown, two players in Horford and Holiday that showed their age, an unplayable Porzingis with whatever illness he had and Tatum that suffered a career altering injury. And with all of those circumstances the Celtics blew both homegames because they decided that the best play would be a highscreen with an immediate contested three afterwards. And now everybody believes that they are worldbeaters? See, I can do this aswell.

The same "Horford and holiday that showed their age" led them to the 2 seed but now they are discredited because the Knicks smacked them, when you guys go home real fcking quick, don't be a stranger and disappear like the corley's did please.....stick around...

[bronxknicksfan1]

Knicks had their hands full with an unexperienced and offensive challenged Pistons squad and a Boston team with a banged up Brown, two players in Horford and Holiday that showed their age, an unplayable Porzingis with whatever illness he had and Tatum that suffered a career altering injury. And with all of those circumstances the Celtics blew both homegames because they decided that the best play would be a highscreen with an immediate contested three afterwards. And now everybody believes that they are worldbeaters? See, I can do this aswell.

And with all that, the Pacers still aren’t better than the Celtics

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Knicks had their hands full with an unexperienced and offensive challenged Pistons squad and a Boston team with a banged up Brown, two players in Horford and Holiday that showed their age, an unplayable Porzingis with whatever illness he had and Tatum that suffered a career altering injury. And with all of those circumstances the Celtics blew both homegames because they decided that the best play would be a highscreen with an immediate contested three afterwards. And now everybody believes that they are worldbeaters? See, I can do this aswell.

We don't need to be worldbeaters to beat you.

There's no real place to hide Haliburton in this series either, you can't put him on OG or Mikal, putting him on Brunson would lead to 40-50 point games, and because he's been guarding Hart, Hart is killing you on the offensive boards as well as scoring. That's probably why you have guarded KAT with your center this season If you have to defend KAT with Turner, yall are cooked.

[Pacernation]

Knicks had their hands full with an unexperienced and offensive challenged Pistons squad and a Boston team with a banged up Brown, two players in Horford and Holiday that showed their age, an unplayable Porzingis with whatever illness he had and Tatum that suffered a career altering injury. And with all of those circumstances the Celtics blew both homegames because they decided that the best play would be a highscreen with an immediate contested three afterwards. And now everybody believes that they are worldbeaters? See, I can do this aswell.

Who have you beaten the last 5 series big dawg? You guys want in the worst way to be validated as some world beater but have beaten not 1 healthy team in the playoffs...

I'd say the Bucks were pretty healthy. Dame was horrible when he played and traffic cone on defense. They were better without him. And Giannis was playing like the best player in the league and left it all on the floor and we still beat them in 5. You played the freakin Pistons and act like they are an elite team. All of the Cavs starters played in the last 3 games and all of a sudden they were able to play 30 minutes+. Sure they were banged up but you gotta put them away in 5 first. Last season Mathurin didn't play and Haliburton was never the same after his hamstring injury. And he didn't play in 2 games against Boston. Would we have beaten Boston otherwise? No, because they were better and more experienced. It was the first playoff run for a very young team where only 2 guys played meaningful playoffgames but you guys act like those guys are unable to improve after they got their first taste of whats needed to win in the playoffs. This team is much better than last year and we will see how this series will play out.

btw. "big dawg" who you've ever beaten? Injured and unexperienced teams. Looks like we're in the same boat.

[Pacernation]

Knicks had their hands full with an unexperienced and offensive challenged Pistons squad and a Boston team with a banged up Brown, two players in Horford and Holiday that showed their age, an unplayable Porzingis with whatever illness he had and Tatum that suffered a career altering injury. And with all of those circumstances the Celtics blew both homegames because they decided that the best play would be a highscreen with an immediate contested three afterwards. And now everybody believes that they are worldbeaters? See, I can do this aswell.

We don't need to be worldbeaters to beat you.

There's no real place to hide Haliburton in this series either, you can't put him on OG or Mikal, putting him on Brunson would lead to 40-50 point games, and because he's been guarding Hart, Hart is killing you on the offensive boards as well as scoring. That's probably why you have guarded KAT with your center this season If you have to defend KAT with Turner, yall are cooked.

I think we're fine hiding him on offensive Juggernaut Josh Hart. And you hide your all defense guys JB and Kat where exactly? But you Knicksfans are just way too smart for me so I'm out. There's no fun in arguing with highly educated people like you.

[Wizop]

And with all that, the Pacers still aren’t better than the Celtics

And yet they won the season series. Celtics declined some this year.

[FlatearthZorro]

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You can't guard KAT with your big, so I would expect them to do the same thing as the Pistons and Celtics, with Siakam on KAT and Turner on Hart. The thing is, we're getting better at dealing with that, and most importantly the Celtics and Pistons had a better defense than the Pacers, even when you adjust to the timeline a lot of Pacers fans want, which is Nesmith coming back, from that point on both the Celtics and Pistons were better defensively.

The Celtics were better than the Pacers in ORTG and DRTG over that time period too. I don't see how they win to be honest, they do a lot of the same things as the Celtics just with worse shot creation if they can't get you into rotation, or going against a set defense.

That's true, sans game 6, I think we did a pretty good job on D. Detroit is pretty good, too.
The thing is the Pacers do have another gear.
Again, I would love to be proven wrong, but I think the Pacers win this in 6. Don't have any preferences, both teams deserve it. I'm just really impressed with the brand of basketball the Pacers play.
Maybe the Knicks can and will play better overall offense against the Pacers, cause Boston was 4th in DRTG in the regular season. Pacers were far worse and I would say, even after Tatum went down, they still aren't better on defense. I think they are special on offense, though.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Knicks had their hands full with an unexperienced and offensive challenged Pistons squad and a Boston team with a banged up Brown, two players in Horford and Holiday that showed their age, an unplayable Porzingis with whatever illness he had and Tatum that suffered a career altering injury. And with all of those circumstances the Celtics blew both homegames because they decided that the best play would be a highscreen with an immediate contested three afterwards. And now everybody believes that they are worldbeaters? See, I can do this aswell.

We don't need to be worldbeaters to beat you.

There's no real place to hide Haliburton in this series either, you can't put him on OG or Mikal, putting him on Brunson would lead to 40-50 point games, and because he's been guarding Hart, Hart is killing you on the offensive boards as well as scoring. That's probably why you have guarded KAT with your center this season If you have to defend KAT with Turner, yall are cooked.

I think we're fine hiding him on offensive Juggernaut Josh Hart. And you hide your all defense guys JB and Kat where exactly? But you Knicksfans are just way too smart for me so I'm out. There's no fun in arguing with highly educated people like you.

You haven't been fine with him guarding Hart, that's the funniest part of all this, Josh is averaging 22/10 against you this season. He has averaged almost 11rpg against you the last 2 seasons, so yes, Josh is very obviously a clear problem for you Max Strus of all people averaged almost 3 offensive rebounds a game against you mainly because Haliburton was on him, downplaying the impact of Hart is funny. Gary Trent was Hali's primary matchup in that buck series and he averaged 19ppg


KAT and JB just finished a series against the Celtics, the Celtics were down 8 when Tatum got hurt, they were going down 3-1 with 2 guys that are better scorers than anyone on your team, they quite literally had a better ORTG and DRTG than you. If they could hold up in that series, they can hold up in this one, especially if you all can't protect the boards

[bronxknicksfan1]

And with all that, the Pacers still aren’t better than the Celtics

And yet they won the season series. Celtics declined some this year.

Knicks won the seasons series against the Pacers.

Celtics were 4-0 against the Knicks in the season series.

None of that matters in the playoffs.

And the Celtics were still better than the Pacers.

[Wolfgang630]

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This is pathetic. Don’t do stuff like this. Taking sports too seriously like you’re fighting in some war.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

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You can't guard KAT with your big, so I would expect them to do the same thing as the Pistons and Celtics, with Siakam on KAT and Turner on Hart. The thing is, we're getting better at dealing with that, and most importantly the Celtics and Pistons had a better defense than the Pacers, even when you adjust to the timeline a lot of Pacers fans want, which is Nesmith coming back, from that point on both the Celtics and Pistons were better defensively.

The Celtics were better than the Pacers in ORTG and DRTG over that time period too. I don't see how they win to be honest, they do a lot of the same things as the Celtics just with worse shot creation if they can't get you into rotation, or going against a set defense.

That's true, sans game 6, I think we did a pretty good job on D. Detroit is pretty good, too.
The thing is the Pacers do have another gear.
Again, I would love to be proven wrong, but I think the Pacers win this in 6. Don't have any preferences, both teams deserve it. I'm just really impressed with the brand of basketball the Pacers play.
Maybe the Knicks can and will play better overall offense against the Pacers, cause Boston was 4th in DRTG in the regular season. Pacers were far worse and I would say, even after Tatum went down, they still aren't better on defense. I think they are special on offense, though.

The Pistons and your Celtics were better defensively on the season and had the defensive personnel to play that kind of defense, putting a big on Hart and a wing on KAT is how teams have dealt with us, but we also run two bigs now, and the actions to get the opposing center in screens is getting better as we go along. Every team that has done that against us has a front court that can block shots but most importantly they can rebound, the Pacers would be the first to try it against us that doesn't have a strong rebounder on their team, ie. Tatum is a better rebounder than anyone on the Pacers. I don't know if they'll put Turner on Hart, but if they do I don't see how they can keep him off the boards, Turner is an awful rebounder, the Pistons couldn't keep Hart off the glass with Ausar/Duren.

The Pacers play at a fast pace, we play at a very slow pace, historically when two teams play with drastically different paces, the slower paced team drags the other team down to their speed. Even in the series we lost, despite all those injuries they played at our pace, we didn't have the scoring last year with all the guys being out, this year we do, and we have the rebounder off the bench to get extra possessions.

[cgf]

And with all that, the Pacers still aren’t better than the Celtics

And yet they won the season series. Celtics declined some this year.

Not against us you didn’t

[FlatearthZorro]

You can't guard KAT with your big, so I would expect them to do the same thing as the Pistons and Celtics, with Siakam on KAT and Turner on Hart. The thing is, we're getting better at dealing with that, and most importantly the Celtics and Pistons had a better defense than the Pacers, even when you adjust to the timeline a lot of Pacers fans want, which is Nesmith coming back, from that point on both the Celtics and Pistons were better defensively.

The Celtics were better than the Pacers in ORTG and DRTG over that time period too. I don't see how they win to be honest, they do a lot of the same things as the Celtics just with worse shot creation if they can't get you into rotation, or going against a set defense.

That's true, sans game 6, I think we did a pretty good job on D. Detroit is pretty good, too.
The thing is the Pacers do have another gear.
Again, I would love to be proven wrong, but I think the Pacers win this in 6. Don't have any preferences, both teams deserve it. I'm just really impressed with the brand of basketball the Pacers play.
Maybe the Knicks can and will play better overall offense against the Pacers, cause Boston was 4th in DRTG in the regular season. Pacers were far worse and I would say, even after Tatum went down, they still aren't better on defense. I think they are special on offense, though.

The Pistons and your Celtics were better defensively on the season and had the defensive personnel to play that kind of defense, putting a big on Hart and a wing on KAT is how teams have dealt with us, but we also run two bigs now, and the actions to get the opposing center in screens is getting better as we go along. Every team that has done that against us has a front court that can block shots but most importantly they can rebound, the Pacers would be the first to try it against us that doesn't have a strong rebounder on their team, ie. Tatum is a better rebounder than anyone on the Pacers. I don't know if they'll put Turner on Hart, but if they do I don't see how they can keep him off the boards, Turner is an awful rebounder, the Pistons couldn't keep Hart off the glass with Ausar/Duren.

The Pacers play at a fast pace, we play at a very slow pace, historically when two teams play with drastically different paces, the slower paced team drags the other team down to their speed. Even in the series we lost, despite all those injuries they played at our pace, we didn't have the scoring last year with all the guys being out, this year we do, and we have the rebounder off the bench to get extra possessions.

Like the post, let's see, it should be a great series. Two styles clash. I definitely believe NYK is the better defensive team, despite having KAT and Brunson.
If you beat IND and do it easy, I'd be super impressed.
Oh and last year, we beat IND 2 games with Haliburton, blew them out in the 2nd, Hali played 32 mins.

[ArksNetsSince99]

I've thought about this for forty-eight seconds.

Pacers in 6!!!!!!

What took you so long ?

[knicksNOTslick]

Why are Knicks fans like this.

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?

Pretty sure that's the 12 year old Knick fan in this thread

It's not like the dude wearing a Pacers jersey was just walking down the street minding his own business. There was a Knicks crowd that was there.

So it seems to me he was looking for trouble. I get it, Knicks fans shouldn't have done what they did. But he was also wrong. Dude was trying to be a troll. You can't act all shocked after that.