{"id":53589,"date":"2025-05-24T09:16:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T09:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/53589\/"},"modified":"2025-05-24T09:16:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T09:16:16","slug":"pascal-siakam-smokes-knicks-for-playoff-high-josh-hart-defense-awol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/53589\/","title":{"rendered":"Pascal Siakam smokes Knicks for playoff high; Josh Hart, defense AWOL"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

NBA Finals predictions: Are the Thunder and Knicks locks for the NBA Finals?<\/p>\n

The For The Hoops crew make their picks for the NBA Finals. The Thunder vs. Knicks seem to be a popular pick, but are we counting the Timberwolves and Pacers out too early?<\/p>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 The Indiana Pacers<\/a> are going home with a commanding 2-0 lead<\/a> in the NBA’s<\/a> Eastern Conference finals after again silencing the Madison Square Garden crowd with a 114-109<\/a> victory over the New York Knicks<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

Pascal Siakam led the Pacers with 39 points as all five Indiana starters scored in double figures. The Knicks will try to come back from an 0-2 deficit to make it to the Finals. These very Pacers pulled off the trick last season against the Knicks in the semifinal round and won Game 7 in New York to advance to the Eastern Conference finals.<\/p>\n

Game 3 is in Indianapolis<\/a> on Sunday (8 p.m. ET, TNT).<\/p>\n

MORE: 2025 All-NBA team: MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic\u0301 headline first squad<\/a><\/p>\n

MORE: Celebs at Knicks vs. Pacers: Russell Wilson, Ciara at Game 2. See stars at Madison Square Garden<\/a><\/p>\n

Winners and losers from Pacers vs. Knicks Game 2WINNERSPascal Siakam<\/p>\n

The Pacers’ power forward came out strong, scoring 23 points in the first half to handle the early scoring load as Indiana took an early 10-point lead. He finished with 39 points (15-of-23 FG, 3-of-5 3-point FG) and carried the team for the majority of the game until the rest of the starters picked it up in the second half. Siakam, who helped lead the Toronto Raptors<\/a> to the 2019 NBA championship, set a playoff career high. Tyrese Haliburton, who only scored two points in the first half, finished with 14 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

MORE: Story behind Ben Sheppard’s mustache: Pacers guard says, ‘I feel like it\u2019s part of me now’<\/a><\/p>\n

LOSERSKnicks’ home-court advantage<\/p>\n

Just like the world champion Boston Celtics<\/a> did in the semifinals, this time it was the Knicks’ opportunity to squander the first two games at home and find themselves having to win four of the next five games to advance to their first NBA Finals since 1999. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the reserves couldn\u2019t keep the game close, and Jalen Brunson, who had 36 points and 11 assists, couldn’t bring the Knicks back.<\/p>\n

Knicks’ interior defense<\/p>\n

The Pacers’ ability to get to the paint almost at will hurt the Knicks, especially in the fourth quarter. Indiana took advantage of New York\u2019s smaller guards, and when they weren\u2019t scoring with uncontested layups or getting fouled, the Pacers’ outside shooters capitalized.<\/p>\n

Josh Hart<\/p>\n

The do-everything guard for the Knicks was a non-factor, getting into foul trouble early and never finding his groove. He finished with six points on 2-of-3 shooting and six rebounds in 29 minutes of action.<\/p>\n

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news \u2014 fast.\u00a0Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA Finals predictions: Are the Thunder and Knicks locks for the NBA Finals? The For The Hoops crew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[740,7,45,75,46,1630,113,126,304,1628,1634,70,85,6,11,239,191,67,61,134,114,258,279,34,65,132,681,259,66,83,1629,64,63,82,680,476,303],"class_list":{"0":"post-53589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-boston","11":"tag-boston-celtics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-garden","14":"tag-indiana","15":"tag-indiana-pacers","16":"tag-knicks","17":"tag-madison","18":"tag-madison-square-garden","19":"tag-national","20":"tag-national-sports","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-nba-playoffs","23":"tag-new","24":"tag-new-york-knicks","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-overall","27":"tag-overall-positive","28":"tag-pacers","29":"tag-pascal","30":"tag-pascal-siakam","31":"tag-playoffs","32":"tag-point","33":"tag-positive","34":"tag-raptors","35":"tag-siakam","36":"tag-sports","37":"tag-sports-news","38":"tag-square","39":"tag-the","40":"tag-to","41":"tag-to-the-point","42":"tag-toronto","43":"tag-toronto-raptors","44":"tag-york"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114562058380648867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}