NEW YORK — In a despondent visiting locker room at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Josh Hart was searching.
He’d just committed a handful of “just bad, stupid turnovers” that helped kickstart the Pacers’ potent transition attack, fueling Indiana’s offense in a 130-121 win in Game 4 of the 2025 Eastern Conference finals. After a near-flawless performance by Tyrese Haliburton gave the Pacers a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven set, pushing New York to the brink of elimination, Hart was asked what message his team could rally around as they exited Indianapolis.
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“We’re going back home,” Hart said. “I’ve never known this team to quit. That’s not the character of the guys we have in the locker room. Obviously, our backs are against the wall, but we’re competitors, and we’re going to bring it until the series is over.”
It’s not over yet.
The Knicks are still alive, thanks largely to its superstars — the celebrated but also, in this series, somewhat maligned duo of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns — showing up and showing out with the season on the line.
During his pregame media availability, Thibodeau said Towns would be a game-time decision with the left knee contusion he suffered late in New York’s Game 4 loss. Asked when he knew he’d be good to go, Towns said, “I looked at the game, and it said, ‘Game 5.’ Do or die. That was pretty much all I needed to see.”
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Towns credited the Knicks’ medical staff with getting him prepared to be able to compete.
“We put a lot of hours in, trying to get myself ready so I could have a chance,” he said. “God was good. I was able to go out there and play.”
Towns didn’t just play; he started, had a double-double by halftime, and finished with 24 points, 13 rebounds and 3 assists, his fourth 20-and-10 of the series and ninth of this first postseason as a Knick.
“I thought he was very aggressive, and I think that’s super important,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said of Towns. “I think Jalen, as well.”
Ah, yes: Jalen, as well.
Brunson made his first three shots in the first 89 seconds of Game 5, staking the Knicks to an early edge that they’d never relinquish. New York would push the advantage as high as 22 points in the third quarter before settling in for a 111-94 Game 5 win to cut their series deficit to 3-2, and giving the Pacers plenty to think about on the flight back to Indianapolis ahead of Game 6 on Saturday.
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The Knicks’ superstar point guard came out hot and stayed that way, scoring 14 points and dishing a pair of assists in the first quarter, establishing from the jump that New York would be able to get to its game offensively and was not at all interested in embarking on an early summer vacation.
“He was cooking, that’s what I saw — I saw him cooking,” Towns said. “When he’s playing like that and he’s hitting shots, obviously it energizes everyone.”
Two nights after Indiana’s All-NBA table-setter energized his team with his shot-making and ball movement, Brunson responded in kind, finishing with 32 points on 12-for-18 shooting to go with 5 rebounds and 5 assists in 34 minutes of work. It’s Brunson’s 22nd 30-point, five-assist game in the playoffs, tying Oscar Robertson for 15th all-time; he’s now averaging 33 points and 5.4 assists per game on 51/36/93 shooting splits in these conference finals, continuing to burnish his reputation as one of the game’s elite postseason offensive weapons.
“[Haliburton] played phenomenal in Game 4,” Brunson said. “I mean, 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.’ And that’s my mindset every time I’m on the court — just help my team win.”
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Brunson also carried that mindset over to the defensive end on Thursday, playing like a competitor eager to offer an emphatic response to multiple days of conversation about the success Indiana has had hunting him in this series. When the Pacers worked to put him in actions in Game 5, Brunson played with energy, physicality and tenacity.
Jalen Brunson set the tone early and never let up, scoring 32 points to keep the Knicks’ season alive. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
(Al Bello via Getty Images)
When he hedged on ball screens and recovered back to his man, he didn’t go half-speed with a half-hearted reach; he worked to turn back the ball-handler, sprint back to his man, and keep a body on a body. When he got switched into a mismatch, against Haliburton or Myles Turner, he didn’t just concede or commit a bailout foul; he forced the opponent to make plays over the top of him or through him. Sometimes, they did; sometimes, they didn’t. That’s progress.
“That’s our guy,” said Hart, who chipped in 12 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals in 34 minutes as he continued to come off the bench. “We know he’s gonna bring it offensively, but I felt like dug in defensively and had great intensity … Sometimes we know it’s tough against the pick-and-roll offensively, but the biggest thing when you’re getting searched out, at the end of the day, it’s about pride. He answered the call, he defended well, he defended without fouling, which is the most important part. And we need that from him again next game.”
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That progress was an important part of the Knicks turning in their best defensive performance of the series — and, given the stakes, arguably their best of the entire season.
New York held an Indiana team that had been shooting 50% from the floor in the playoffs as a team and scoring a scorching 121.1 points per 100 possessions through four conference finals games to 40.5% from the field and just 96.9 points-per-100 in Game 5. That’s the first time the Pacers have failed to score at least one point per possession in the 2025 NBA playoffs, and just the eighth time in 97 combined regular- and postseason contests.
The Pacers made a couple of runs at it, getting within 12 on a 3-pointer by little-used reserve Jarace Walker with just over eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter, and cutting the Knick lead to 14 on a driving Haliburton layup with 3:18 to go in regulation. If that combination of time and score made you start to sweat a little, you might be a Knicks fan who’s still working through the trauma of the team squandering a 14-point lead with 2:51 to go in Game 1.
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On Thursday, though, Aaron Nesmith wasn’t coming out of the bullpen to start chucking lightning bolts. The Pacers forward, still battling through a sprained right ankle, played just 16 ineffective minutes in Game 5, missing seven of his eight shots and checking out for good with five and a half minutes to go in the fourth.
On Thursday, Pascal Siakam wasn’t ending every good possession of New York defense with a backbreaking fadeaway, or sprinting the length of the court off of every Knick make or miss for deflating transition buckets. Six days after scoring what Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle called “a quiet 39 points,” the Pacers All-Star forward finished with an actually quiet 15 points on 5-for-13 shooting.
And on Thursday, Haliburton wasn’t getting loose to torture New York with impossible haymakers. In fact, he wasn’t really going anywhere.
After four games largely spent flailing in his wake, the Knicks defense finally found some success limiting Haliburton’s freedom of movement, holding the All-NBA point guard to just eight points on 2-for-7 shooting and six assists — just his second single-digit scoring performance of this postseason, and his fewest helpers in the series.
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Thibodeau is fond of saying that you don’t defend superstar players individually, you guard them with your entire team, and dimming Haliburton’s shine on Thursday was a collective effort. Mikal Bridges turned in his best and most committed defensive performance of the series, giving the Pacers a taste of their own medicine by extending his pickup point, applying backcourt ball pressure on Indiana’s lead guard, and staying connected to Haliburton all over the court. When other Knicks picked up the assignment — including OG Anunoby, who guarded Haliburton for a stretch in the second quarter, and reserves Landry Shamet and Delon Wright, who continue to make significant contributions now that Thibodeau has actually deigned to go to his bench and lengthen his rotation — they followed suit, staying physical and disciplined to limit Haliburton’s easy touches and opportunities to drive into open space.
Big men Towns, Mitchell Robinson and Precious Achiuwa did yeoman’s work moving their feet when drawn out into deep water. The gap help behind the initial defender was on time all night, dissuading Haliburton from making his typical deep forays into the paint.
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“Sometimes, it was probably a combination of him missing some shots he normally makes,” Thibodeau said after the game. “But I thought our guys were tied together, trying to make him work for everything. That’s what you have to do. We have to fight to win every possession.”
That extends to the other end of the floor, too. Thibodeau insisted after the game that New York didn’t necessarily make a concerted effort to hunt Haliburton the same way that Indiana’s been hunting Brunson all series long. When opportunities presented themselves, though — a Bridges post touch here, a Bridges-Mitchell Robinson pick-and-roll in secondary action there, some double high ball screens that forced Haliburton to navigate traffic — well, let’s just say New York didn’t turn them down:
Through four games, the Pacers had outscored New York by 28 points in 152 minutes with Haliburton on the court; in Game 5, Indiana lost his minutes by 23.
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“I feel like we picked up our intensity a little bit, obviously,” Brunson said after the game about the defensive improvements, on Haliburton and in general. “I think we paid attention to detail better as a team. The little things go a long way. If we pay attention to the minute things, the things that just don’t seem like a huge deal, they really do help.”
The devil’s in the details, the magic’s in the work, and the Knicks, still, are in the fight. They’ve staved off elimination once. Do it again on Saturday in Indianapolis, and they come home for Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. It’s a tall task. But Hart’s never known this Knicks team to quit, and on Thursday, they sure didn’t look like they were ready to start any time soon.
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