THE Indiana Pacers Know exactly who they are. They are a run-And-Gun outfit built on Tyrese Haliburton Transition shine and their stellar depth. Each player contributes to this style in an essential way. Their depth keeps everyone cool enough to play at a pace that his opponent has trouble matching. About everyone reaches a reference of competence in the manipulation of the ball, the shooting and the defense, not only limiting their weaknesses, but allowing them to punish inadequacy wherever they see them. Pacers, who are now increasing 3-1 in the final of the Eastern Conference against the Knickshave a coherent identity.
It is not surprising. We reached the final of the conference. You generally need it to get there so far. For Oklahoma City ThunderIt is their teeming defense. Everything stems from their ability to force turnover. THE Minnesota Timberwolves Press their size and athletics. They want to whisper the paint at one end and leave Anthony Edwards Enter it on the other. The elevator ground for these teams is simple. They are not perfect, but you widely know what is the theory of their team.
But who are the New York Knicks? This is a complicated question. He had an easier answer a year ago when they were Nba Better rebound team and a defendant of the top 10. They were the stereotypical team of Tom Thibodeau, winning on the grain and the cunning, regardless of the slim injury to injuries.
If you are looking for a turning point, it arrived at the start of the free agency last year. Isaiah Hartenstein was a central figure of the 2023-24 season of New York, giving Thibodeau the protection of the rim he needed while serving as offensively critical connective tissue. The death of Hartenstein has kept everyone engaged, regardless of the quantity of dribbling Jalen Brunson did. Its projection was itself a major form of offense, generating 8.3 points per match on assists. His little shot was an evacuation hatch for dead possessions. And the ABC has so limited what New York could offer him that he had no choice but to sign with the Thunder.
The Knicks exchanged Cities of Karl-Anthony Partly to reinvent yourself. They could not be their old self without Hartenstein, so they did not try. The objective of their new team of cities in Center was to become an offensive dynamo. His pick-and-roll with Brunson was supposed to be unstoppable. The Knicks were supposed to be a five output monster. He never completely materialized. The pick-and-roll has been disarmed by the defenses by putting a wing on the cities and letting their center walk around Josh Hart. Their starting five praised played the most minutes in the NbaBut passed the opponents by a meager 3.3 points per 100 possessions.
Defense played a greater role in this mediocrity than the offensive. The Knicks knew how to enter the season that it would be a climb at this end of the ground. Their playmaker and center play with a target on their backs. The idea of ​​exchanging five first round choices for Mikal Bridges had to support their two defensive responsibilities with dominant wings between them. Bridges was a defensive player of the finalist year for the 2022 Sun. He was … maybe a shade above the average for the Knicks? Tyrese Haliburton Monster game 4 was almost appropriate. Between the bridges and OG AnunobyThe Knicks paid an overwhelming quantity of resources in the defense of the point of attack and still had no answer for the leader of the stars which stands between them and the finals.
Thibodeau spent this whole series desperately looking for something on which to hang on. His change of training for the start of match 3 was necessary, but shocked in the context of his career. No trainer has historically reached a smaller number of players than him. Kenny Smith joked on TNT in match 3 that Thibodeau “would not play nine guys in a baseball match”. Well, in match 4, he used 10. Delon Wright And Landry Shamet were out of the rotation a week ago. They played Do-Or-Die at the fourth quarter of the quarter in match 4. None of this is in character for him.
The switching of the Knicks has not done in a defensive manner either. Knicks do not have much choice in this regard. You can’t Blitz Haliburton. He is too dangerous as a smuggler. Playing the falling blanket, the typical preference of Thibodeau, is the death against the caliber of the shooters that Indiana uses. But switching is a style based on communication and instinct. It requires a muscular memory which must be accumulated in an entire season. Knicks don’t have that, but they don’t have a basic system on which they can count in this series.
They were forced to play the Indiana game for most of this series. Never has been more obvious than in the first half of match 4, which the Pacers transformed into a track meeting even in Knicks baskets. New York took the bait and committed. Indiana scored 43 points in the first quarter. The Knicks only managed to slow down the Pacers during Haliburton’s time on the bench. Knicks have rarely been able to dictate the terms of commitment in the same way.
What would be exactly the favorite game script from New York? Keep it near and hope that Brunson’s individual heroism can win it at the end? Brunson generally did his offensive part in match 4. He arrived at the line like crazy. Everyone too on Knicks. But their half-terrain process depended enough of the whistles. Far too many goods here end with sweaters with a forced mid -range.
The bridges are particularly sensitive. He was fairly celebrated or famine throughout this series series. It draws 38.4% from the soil and 24.3% of the first half in the first half of this series. When it becomes hot in the second, New York often wins. When he doesn’t, the team often loses. Does he have trouble developing a lot of pace in the New York head offensive? It is possible. Knicks are on average 70 passes per game per game in the playoffs than the Pacers.
Knicks do not need to be the Pacers. They must be the best version of themselves, and frightening thought here is that even at the end of May, they have not yet found this team yet. They have looked more and more on a double big alignment which Mitchell Robinson The injuries of the regular season have prevented, and that at least helped them to start over the glass again. But this group is so slow compared to Indiana, and Robinson was not a partner of Pick-And-Roll for Brunson as in the past. Could they go in the other direction and embrace the five-stroke style that cities were predefined? This would probably mean the start of McBride Deucce on Hart. This is a program that Knicks used 16 possessions of eliminatory series.
What can the Knicks, as a team, really count at this stage? Does he have a single unequivocal elite line? For all the whistles that Brunson shoots individually, the Knicks ranked 24th at the rate of free throws during the regular season. They ranked 28th at the rate of 3 points. They are obviously not a heavy offense of the ball movement, and their painting of painting has plunged into playoffs. Their defense only works when cities or Brunson are out of the ground. When the two play together in the playoffs, according to the cleaning of the glass, the Knicks grant 117.3 points per 100 possessions. Remove the cities from the equation and the Brunson-Plus defense ranges allow only 112. Flip both and this number falls to 97.8.
It’s fear here. New York gathered an impressive collection of talents, and this talent was enough to do so for the final of the Eastern Conference. But there are convincing evidence here that these players do not get up with each other in the way the knicks surely hoped. Everything could me less than the sum of the parts. Whether this can be addressed by higher training or adjustments on the sidelines are questions for off -season.
For the moment, the Knicks will just have to continue looking for, and they better find their answer soon, because the pacers have had theirs for over a year now.
