Jalen Brunson scored 32 points, Karl-Anthony Towns added 24 points and 13 rebounds despite a left-handed left knee and the New York Knicks remained alive in the East Conference finals by beating the Indiana Pacers 111-94 Thursday night in game 5.
The Knicks won at home for the first time in the series and prevented the Pacers from obtaining the second trip of the NBA finals in the history of the franchise. Indiana will try again on Saturday night at home.
Knicks fans sang “Knicks in 7! Knicks in 7!” In the last minutes, since New York extended his first trip to the conference finals since 2000 and alive the hopes of becoming the 14th team to overcome a 3-1 deficit to win a series. No team has won a series of conference endings after leaving the first two games at home.
Two nights after giving up 43 points in the first quarter, the Knicks kept the Pacers only 45 in the first half and limited Tyrese Haliburton, which had 32 points, 15 assists and 12 rebounds on Tuesday, only eight points and six assists.
Brunson, surpassed by his owner’s counterpart on Tuesday, recovered with his franchise record of the twentieth postseason game of 30 or more points with the Knicks.
Bennedict Mathurin scored 23 points from the bench for the Pacers, who had won six consecutive games. Indiana triggered only 40.5% from the field with a lot of its lowest postseason score game.
Brunson scored 14 in the first quarter when the Knicks had an advantage of 27-23, giving 20 points less than in the first quarter of game 4, when 43-35 followed.
Towns, who was questionable to play after hurting his left knee in a collision at the end of game 4, picked up the slack with 12 in the second, when Brunson had no score.
Brunson returned with the first eight of the third quarter Knicks when they opened an advantage of 20 points in the middle of the period. The Pacers cut it in half before New York recovered control with an explosion of 12-0, highlighted by the group of four points of Brunson, to put it 86-64.
