The East’s No. 1 seed couldn’t — for lack of a better word — keep pace with the Pacers in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Indiana dispatched the Cavaliers in five games, stunning many experts and league Insiders who were so dismissive of the Pacers‘ chances prior to the series and seemed to forget they reached last year’s Eastern Conference Finals.

Now, it’s back to the ECF against an opponent to be determined — the Knicks hold a 3-1 lead going into Wednesday’s Game 5 over the Jayson Tatum-less Celtics.

After his team’s season-ending 114-105 loss Tuesday night, Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson was asked: How are these other teams going to deal with the Pacers?

“I mean they beat the Knicks last year the same way. They wore them down. Did the Knicks get injured? I think there were a few…” Atkinson said. “It’s just, mad respect. It’s like a college team, I say that in a really good way. They press for 48 minutes and they run faster than anybody in the league. We have the data, it’s, I wish I had a graph. It’s the league (hand gesture to middle), we’re kind of up there (raises hand level) and probably six or eight, and they’re up here (hand up above his head).

“And to their credit, they’ve recruited to that style of play. They surrounded their best player with that, but I do think we have a team that’s capable of doing that too, we just have to figure out… But if you’re playing the Celtics or Knicks, it’s a totally different, the Heat, it’s a different type of game. This game, this team, we couldn’t match it.”

The Pacers are a bit of an anomaly, playing as many as 11 players when most teams shrink their rotations in the playoffs. The switch to a full-court, pressing defense has completely changed the team’s defensive outlook, and on offense, their ball-movement and hyperkinetic offense is a non-stop headache.

“It’s tough to prepare for that pace,” Cavs star Donovan Mitchell said in prior to Game 2. “It’s tough to replicate that in practice. Obviously, going through it, getting a feel for it is obviously good. They’re unique. They’re the only team that really runs like that in the playoffs.”

Indiana players and coaches call it the “wear down effect.” And it did just that to the Bucks in Round 1, and the East’s top team in Round 2.

“It’s hard to play at our pace over a seven-game series,” Tyrese Haliburton said after Game 5. “It’s hard to play at our pace in a one-game series. I think we’re doing a great job of playing our way, controlling what we can. I really feel like that’s important. Coach has been stressing that the last few years. It’s not just about one game, it’s how can you wear on teams for 48 minutes every game every day. I feel like we did that with our physicality, we did that with our pace, many different ways.”

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