There was no historic comeback in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
There were no furious 3-point barrages or bouncing, buzzer-beating shots.
But the Knicks fell flat in the fourth quarter once again. And now their season is in serious jeopardy.
The Knicks failed to keep up with the Indiana Pacers down the stretch of their 114-109 loss at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, putting them in a 2-0 hole in the best-of-seven series.
“We just have to finish games,” Knicks forward Mikal Bridges said. “That’s pretty much it.”
Two days after they suffered one of the most dramatic collapses in playoff history, the Knicks entered Friday’s fourth quarter with the score tied 81-81.
But a series of defensive lapses doomed the Knicks again.
Confusion on one sequence led to a wide-open dunk for Myles Turner, who finished through a foul by Mitchell Robinson for a three-point play that gave Indiana an 86-83 lead.
Two possessions later, Ben Sheppard was left open for a 3-pointer, which put the Pacers up by six.
Pascal Siakam’s 3-pointer the next time down the floor capped a rapid-fire 13-4 run for Indiana, which made its first five shots of the quarter — all with star point guard Tyrese Haliburton on the bench.
Siakam finished with 39 points on 15-of-23 shooting.
“The rotations weren’t there,” Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson said. “There are things we need to obviously help each other out with when it comes to defensive rotations, and they weren’t there.”
It was a particularly tough night for Karl-Anthony Towns, whose plus/minus of -20 was the worst among any player.
Towns shot 6-of-14 for 20 points and struggled defensively. He spent more than six minutes of the fourth quarter on the bench.
“It’s tough to lose any way,” Towns said of his prolonged fourth-quarter absence. “We’ve just got to regroup together for the next one.”
Brunson led the Knicks with 36 points on 13-of-27 shooting and 11 assists. He nearly willed the Knicks back with a 3-pointer and a floater on back-to-back possessions, cutting the deficit to 110-107 with 1:06 left in the fourth.
With the score the same on the next possession, Brunson sought a 3-pointer but ultimately found Josh Hart for an open lay-up with 14.2 seconds to go, making it a one-point game.
But Brunson fouled Aaron Nesmith on the ensuing inbound, and Nesmith made both free throws. After a missed 3-pointer by Brunson, Turner made two more free throws to ice the game.
“We had a chance to tie the ballgame, so it’s a hard-fought game,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Both games came down to the last play.”
For the second game in a row, the Pacers punched first, jumping out to a 19-9 lead. Siakam scored Indiana’s first 11 points and had 23 at halftime.
Siakam lifted Indiana on a night Haliburton shot just 5-of-16 and had two points at halftime. Haliburton finished with 14 points, eight rebounds and 11 assists.
The series has been a far cry from the previous two, when the Knicks emerged as the kings of the comeback.
The Pacers, behind an unrelenting uptempo attack and superior depth, have won the third and fourth quarters in both games, as well as overtime in Game 1. With 5:24 left in the fourth quarter of Friday’s game, Brunson was slow to get up, then stood with his hands on his knees as Robinson stepped to the free-throw line.
Friday’s finish was not as stunning as Game 1’s, when the Pacers erased a 17-point deficit with 6:26 left in regulation and a nine-point deficit with under a minute to go.
Nesmith made six 3-pointers in that fourth quarter, setting up a game-tying shot by Haliburton that clanked off the back of the rim, hung in the air, then fell through the net as time expired. The Knicks lost 138-135 in overtime.
But the Game 2 loss was just as consequential.
Since 1956, teams that lost the first two games of a playoff series have advanced only 7.3% of the time. With the Knicks seeking their first trip to the NBA Finals since 1999, they will have to pull off history to end the drought.
The series now shifts to Indiana, where Game 3 is set for Sunday night.
“We’re in the conference finals,” Brunson said. “Nothing else matters right now. We have a game every other day. We’re playing in a very high-stakes moment. The mental focus, everything, has to be there. There is no question about it.”
Originally Published: May 23, 2025 at 10:47 PM EDT
