NEW YORK — Even as the ball bounced high in the air after clanking off the back of the rim, Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton said he knew his jump shot at the end of regulation was going in.
“I felt like it got stuck up there though,” Haliburton said after the Pacers went on to complete another stunning playoff rally Wednesday night. “But it felt good when it left my hand.”
The Pacers trailed the New York Knicks by 14 points with 2:51 remaining in regulation before mounting a furious comeback, punctuated by Haliburton’s shot to tie the score and send the game into overtime. From there, Indiana pulled out a 138-135 victory in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals at Madison Square Garden.
Haliburton initially thought he had won the game in regulation.
With the Pacers down two and the clock winding down near the end of the fourth quarter, Haliburton took the ball out near the top of the arc and toward the 3-point line and launched his shot. Replays would later confirm it was a 2-point shot, but when the shot fell in, Haliburton — thinking the game was over — ran toward the sideline and made a choke signal to the New York crowd, a callback to Hall of Famer Reggie Miller’s famous gesture to Spike Lee while leading a Pacers comeback over the Knicks in a playoff game in 1994.
“I wasn’t like plotting on it or anything,” Haliburton said after the game. “Everybody wanted me to do it last year at some point, but it’s got to feel right. It felt right at the time — well, if I would’ve known it was a 2, I would not have done it. So I think I might’ve wasted it.”
But the Pacers didn’t waste Haliburton’s clutch shot, finishing with a victory in overtime to take a 1-0 series lead. Game 2 is Friday in New York.
Nesmith finished with 30 points, going 8-for-9 on 3-pointers, including six 3s in the fourth quarter to match an NBA record in a playoff quarter. Haliburton contributed 31 points and 11 assists, making them the third Pacers duo to score 30 each in a playoff game.
According to ESPN Research, the Knicks’ win probability in Game 1 peaked at 99.8% when they were up 14 late in the fourth quarter.
But the Pacers have made three comebacks already this postseason when trailing by three possessions with less than a minute to go. Only one other team in NBA history, the 2014 Oklahoma City Thunder, had ever done that in the playoffs before this season.
“We give ourselves a chance,” Pacers center Myles Turner said. “That’s all that was. We thought it was over, but it is what it is. It’s to the point where I’m just used to it.”
Game 1 marked, perhaps, the most unlikely of the Pacers’ playoff comebacks. Entering Wednesday, teams that trailed by nine or more points in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime in the playoffs were 0-1,414 since 1998, according to Elias Sports Bureau — now they are 1-1,414.
“Well, I would like to not keep being in this situation,” Haliburton said. “But we’re just a group that has spent a lot of time with each other. … I think that just gives us all confidence in each other.
“I’ve seen people joke about us. We’re like a college team with how close we are and how we’ve been together. We’re all super young. But man, it’s special. I love playing with these guys.”
Indiana pulled off the win despite 43 points from Jalen Brunson and 35 from Karl-Anthony Towns. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle emphasized the series was only getting started.
“It’s a long series,” Carlisle said. “We’re not going to get too excited about this. We’ve got things to clean up. They got things to clean up. Game 2 is going to be another war.”
