Pacers. Got. Broken.

Possibly, the Knicks are not that bad when they play home games…

Factually, the Knicks are nearly impeccable when they play road games…

Here’s what Coach Thibs and many other people said before and after yesterday’s affair, if you know what I’m saying…

Tom Thibodeau

On his Game 5 lineup decisions, mostly involving bigs:

“It’s just matchups and what’s going on in the game. Sometimes it’s impacted by foul trouble as well.”

On showing better defensive cohesion to stop the Pacers:

“They’re a very potent offensive team. Everyone has to be tied together and on the same page.”

On how the Knicks need to approach the remainder of the series:

“You just take it game-by-game, you’ve got to keep fighting every game, every possession.”

Karl-Anthony Towns

On Brunson’s third-quarter performance in Game 5:

“He was cooking, that’s what I saw. When he’s playing like that and he’s hitting shots, obviously it energizes everyone.”

On playing through his knee injury:

“I looked at the game and it said ‘Game 5, do or die.’ That was pretty much all I needed to see.

“Shout-out to our medical staff. They gave me a chance to go out there and compete tonight. I’m glad I was able to put in a lot of hours in the training room, trying to get myself ready so I had a chance [to play].”

On the Knicks’ bench mob:

“It just [speaks] to the professionalism that they have. Be ready for the moment. They did a great job. Every single day we see them working, always being ready for us, so if we ever need them, they can come in and impact the game.”

On meeting the moment in Game 5:

“It’s a testament to our team answering the call. I think tonight we did that. But we are going to have to be even better next game if we want our season to continue.”

On Game 5 performance and team identity:

“With this series, we haven’t been able to close out games the way we’ve wanted to, we haven’t been able to show how special we are. We’ve had moments of brilliance, but we haven’t had games of brilliance. I think tonight was a good testament to when we’re locked in playing 48 minutes, we could show the world how special we really are.”

On his aggressive mindset:

“I just came into the game thinking about being ultra-aggressive. If I got a chance to go downhill or impact the game, I wanted to do that.”

On Charles Barkley’s criticism of dumb fouls:

“God only knows (why I do those). You ain’t wrong. It hurts our team. I gotta do a much better job, I gotta do a much better job at that.”

On the team’s situation heading into Game 6:

“We have no more room for error. It’s our backs against the wall, and every game is do or die. So, if we don’t bring that energy, we don’t bring that execution, our season will be over.”

Jalen Brunson

On the team’s first-quarter performance:

“We have to try to replicate the first quarter next game.”

On the mindset after the Game 5 win:

“Our backs are against the wall. I wasn’t thinking, I need to play better than him. I was just thinking, I need to help my team win.”

On his approach in Game 5:

“I wanted to [set the tone], for sure. But it was more than putting the ball in the basket. I mean, that happened, but just trying to make sure we’re all on the same page and ready to go and just trying to give everyone energy. Our backs are against the wall, so we have to give it everything we got.”

Josh Hart

On how the Knicks lost control of the series:

“We put ourselves in this position. This series could easily have been 2-2 right now, [or] 3-1 us. A couple of mistakes that we made put us in this position.”

On whether the Knicks overlooked the Pacers:

“During this year and last year during the playoff run — I don’t know if you call it a run, but the playoffs — we want the fans to go out and have as much fun as they can during this time. This is a time for them to support us, to have fun, and for us to be locked in on the next opponent. So we didn’t overlook them at all because we know what they had and what they bring to the table. We knew it was going to be a tough task. But we always want our fans to go out there and have as much fun respectfully and as responsibly as they can.”

On defending Haliburton in Game 5:

“Mikal did a great job. We’re asking a lot from ’Kal. He’s picking him up, running around with him. Tyrese is someone who never really stops moving. He’ll bring the ball down, he’ll hit, he’ll run off of it, he’ll get the [ball] back, he’ll throw it back to the big, he’ll run back. ’Kal did a great job today trying to be physical, trying to be on his body and not give him anything easy.

“I think we didn’t have any plays where we had a miscommunication or left him open for three, which I feel like we did a couple times last game.”

On Towns’ performance in Game 5:

“He was huge for us. He got to his spots. He was aggressive offensively, and I think that helped him a little bit defensively. We know he’s a mismatch nightmare, offensively. He’s someone that can get into that paint, someone that can post, drive, play off the catch, knock down shots. He has a huge arsenal offensively and we need him to be aggressive, and we need that aggression to bleed into the defensive end and him helping on defense.”

Landry Shamet

On his feelings toward Knicks fans and his performance in Game 5:

“I love New York. I love these fans. I’ve seen how they ride the wave with us, the highs, the lows. It’s just important for me to give everything I’ve got to them. I appreciate it. We got more to do.”

On crowd energy and defensive hustle:

“In basketball, anyone who’s played knows when you see somebody competing that way, it is infectious and it doesn’t matter who it is or when it happens. It’s infectious and we need more of it.”

On what led to the Game 5 win:

“I think just our intensity, our attention to detail, that’s a sense of desperation which is what we needed. And we’re gonna have to go do it again. That was the biggest thing, just our energy. Our communication was great. Did a better job in transition. Still some other things we got to clean up, we’ll get to that tomorrow.”

On whether the Pacers were frustrated:

“I could sense a competitive game, there’s waves like I said. Our job is not really to pay too much attention to that. We just got to focus on us and do what we can do. We know they’re a hard team to guard, play fast. If we take care of what we have to take care of, hopefully we see results like tonight.”

Rick Carlisle

On the difficulty of closeout games:

“It’s never not the hardest game.”

On the Game 5 loss:

“To start the game, we just didn’t have the right level of force, the right level of attitude necessary in this environment. It was a bad start; we never had a lead in the game. There were a multitude of things that were going wrong. There were stretches in the game where we got a little bit of traction, but never enough.”

On struggles from the get-go:

“To start the game we didn’t have the right level of force, the right level of attitude necessary in this environment.

“There were a multitude of things going wrong.”

Aaron Nesmith

On the Pacers’ mindset entering Game 6:

“You get punched in the face like this. Sometimes you got to lose to get better. That’s what happened today.”

Pascal Siakam

On the Pacers being absolutely broken:

“What’re you talking about?

“They played harder than us. It’s OK. We played hard, but they played harder. What’s your point? I don’t get it.

“That happens in a game, though.

“You good, bro?”

On team morale after Game 5 loss:

“You’re going to have bad games. This is the NBA, and there’s going to be times where a team is going to play hard. In fact, they’re going to beat you. It is just all about us, man. It’s always been us against the world, and I don’t expect it to change. … We are 3-2 in a series and we have an opportunity to go back home and show what we’re made of.”

Tyrese Haliburton

On the Game 5 loss and team mentality:

“We’re a resilient group. We always want to respond when things don’t go well after a game like that. We understand what the stakes are. … We’re fine. There’s no need to panic or anything.”

On his own performance and Game 6 outlook:

“I got to be better, and I’ll be better in Game 6. We got to be better as a group. Our pace has to be better. That starts with me. I got to be better there. As a group we’ve shown that we can have some success this playoffs. This was a rough showing for us tonight. So we’ll watch the film, see where we can get better and be great.”

Charles Barkley

On Towns’ foul trouble:

“Hey man, why do you be getting them dumb fouls?

Because when you got your fourth foul, they took you out. [The Pacers] made a run. You gotta stop doing that.”

You can get fouls, like the other day when you just grabbed somebody by the wrist.”