Pacers 138, Knicks 135 (OT): “Sickening game”

First time?

When people imagine themselves traveling through time, they don’t think about the smells. Why would they? Why ruin what should be a fun thought exercise with that detail?

When the national media and fossils over 40 like me reminisce about the Knicks/Pacers rivalry through the 1990s, a lot of the time a lot of the fossil record only exists in trace amounts. The headlines endure: “Reggie Miller in an animated discussion with Spike Lee”; “Johnson is fouled — and hit!” The nostalgia, too, in a folk sense. But nobody warns you about the pain, what it feels like when the stakes are this high. There’s no manual for processing the Knicks’ 138-135 Game 1 loss to the Pacers. How could there be? There’s literally never been a loss like it.

I know it hurts, but history bears repeating: with 2:51 remaining, the Knicks were up 14. The Pacers needed four different Hail Marys to come through to get this game to overtime. All four hit:

• Tyrese Haliburton tied the game at the buzzer. The Pacers needed every one of those final 171 seconds, scoring 20 points over eight possessions to force OT. Indiana’s a pretty up-tempo team; they were seventh in pace, averaging a hair under 100 possessions per 48 minutes. Their pace the last 2:51 was 134.8. That’s like five hummingbirds full of sugar water and cocaine.
• Yet pace without precision is pointless, and the Pacers comeback was quite clearly pointed; they took full advantage of their opportunities, drilling their last six shots, including five threes, four by Aaron Nesmith. How many teams had a single stretch all season of six straight makes, five from downtown? I’d bet a minority. The Pacers did it when it mattered most.
• But credit where credit’s due: the Pacers couldn’t have done it without the Knicks. First there was OG Anunoby losing control of a ball at the rim he had no business trying to put in the rim — the Knicks were up five with 30 seconds left; they didn’t need more points, they needed the clock to keep running. Then there were OG and Karl-Anthony Towns — 81% and 83% at the line this season — both missing free throws in the final 14 seconds of regulation.
• Lastly, the bounce Haliburton’s buzzer-beater took before dropping back down and in — and knowing the moment it bounced that it was gonna drop in — spawned a sick sensation I will never forget as long as I live. That bucket suggests at least one of the basketball gods is on Indiana’s side; that it led to overtime and not instant victory, subjecting Knick fans to the longest agony possible, suggests that partisan power is a trickster god.

I don’t have much else worth sharing, or at least nothing ready to share yet. Quoth StopCapingForTheRefs: “Sickening game.” That about says it — an atypical fall-from-ahead collapse by a group who usually seal the deal when ahead late in games. I leave you to your contemplations, and if you’re anything like me to the bitter taste of blood and ulcer a loss like this leaves in your mouth.