NEW YORK — If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Indiana Pacers in these 2025 NBA playoffs, it’s this: They’ve always got time.
Down seven with 40 seconds to go in overtime of an elimination game against the Bucks in Round 1? No problem. Down seven with 47 seconds to go in Game 2 in Cleveland? No problem.
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And now: Down 14 at Madison Square Garden with 2:51 to go in the fourth quarter of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals?
No problem.
Another night, another unprecedented comeback — or unprecedented collapse, depending on how full your glass is — for Indiana, which once again engineered a hostile takeover of a road arena, slipping past the New York Knicks in overtime Wednesday, 138-135.
“Unprecedented for other teams,” former Knicks forward Obi Toppin corrected, with a smile, after chipping in eight points with 10 rebounds, including two huge dunks in the final minute of overtime with the game in the balance. “But for us, we just keep it going. We’re always going to play until that last whistle, until that last buzzer.”
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Last spring, the Pacers ended New York’s season, winning a Game 7 on the MSG court behind a historic offensive display. Now, they’ve snatched home-court advantage away from a Knicks team that had to be feeling like they were on top of the world with three minutes to go … and that, like Milwaukee and Cleveland before them, exits the World’s Most Famous Arena wondering what the hell had just happened.
“You just can never let your guard down against them,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said after his team squandered a 17-point fourth-quarter lead to fall behind in a series for the first time this postseason. “No lead is safe.”
They’re not safe because Indiana has multiple players who can get hot in a hurry. Assaying the role of the Human Torch on Wednesday: Aaron Nesmith, who entered the fourth quarter with 10 points on 3-for-5 shooting, and ended it with 30 points on 9-for-12 shooting, drilling six triples in the final five minutes of the fourth alone, including three in the last minute, to send peals of anxiety coursing through…
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