Try as they might in Game 5, the Pacers just were not able to summon the same juice they seemed to have at their disposal throughout Game 4 of their Eastern Conference finals series against the Knicks on Thursday night, and dropped a 114-96 decision to cut their series lead to 3-2.
The Knicks got off to a 6-0 lead in the game and never looked back, winning wire-to-wire thanks in large part to a 14-2 second-quarter run from which Indiana never recovered.
While the often-overlooked Pacers got quiet performances from stars Tyrese Haliburton (eight points on 2-7 shooting and six assists) and Pascal Siakam 15 points, 5-for-13 shooting), in his postgame press conference, Siakam appeared to vow that would not be the case going forward.
"It's always been us against the world," Siakam said. "And I don't expect that to change. And it's something that I always told my teammates--like, we're here and no one wants us here. We broke any barrier that was there. We broke that and we got here. We're up, 3-2, in the series and we have an opportunity to go back home and show what we're made of.
"I have no doubt in my teammates, I have so much faith in them. And I know we're going to give it everything we got."
The Pacers were outplayed in every facet of the game, shooting just 40.5% from the field while the Knicks shot 49.4%. The Pacers committed a whopping 20 turnovers, their most of this series, and were outrebounded, 45-40.
Game 6 will be back in Indiana on Saturday night. The Pacers have not lost two games in a row since March 10, a string of 34 games.