'There's going to be a lot of smoke in there': Pacers renew playoff rivalry with Knicks

INDIANAPOLIS -- During Saturday's practice, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle took time to give his players a history lesson in the rivalry they're about to take part in.

He told them about John Starks and Patrick Ewing and Spike Lee and Larry Johnson. About Roy Hibbert, and of course about Reggie Miller – about the choke sign and eight points in 9 seconds, and his one and only NBA Finals trip that had to go through a series with New York.

The Pacers will meet the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals starting at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Madison Square Garden, marking the eighth time the teams have met in an NBA playoff series. The last meeting was 2013, though, and the previous six all came in an eight-season period between 1993 and 2000, so the defining period of the rivalry came when many of the Pacers were either toddlers or in grade school. Carlisle wanted to make sure his players had a sense of what they're facing.

"It's just a very intense matchup," Carlisle said. "That's really the simple truth about it. There's a lot of stuff with Reggie Miller obviously for five or six years. The 2013 matchup that they had. It's always great competition. It's an important time of year when you get to the second round of the NBA Playoffs. We're going to have to be very resilient and we're going to have to be very together."

All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton was an infant when the Pacers won the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals over the Knicks to reach their only NBA Finals, and he was in middle school for the last meeting when Roy Hibbert's block of Carmelo Anthony helped shift the momentum of Game 6 of the 2013 Eastern Conference semifinals. However, the 24-year-old Haliburton considers himself a basketball historian and considers Carlisle even more of one, so he knows it’s only fitting that his first playoff run with the Pacers includes a Knicks series.

"I'm just excited to be a part of it," Haliburton said. "I think me being with the Pacers and being a part of the long-term future here, it was only (a matter of time) before we were going to play these guys. It's kind of part of it. ... There's a lot of competition. There's going to be a lot of smoke in there. Obviously a lot of their former guys are coming to a ton of games. I'm sure we'll have a lot of our former guys coming to games too. There's no secret that that's a rivalry. So for me to be a part of it, I think is a lot of fun and I think it's just going to be fun to add another (chapter to that story)."

The classic Pacers-Knicks matchups in the 90s were chippy with the origin of the animosity going back to slights between John Starks and Reggie Miller in the 1993 first-round series, which included Starks head-butting Miller. In this series, the teams' stars come in with healthy existing relationships. Pacers forward Pascal Siakam and Knicks forward O.G. Anunoby played together for years with the Raptors. Haliburton played with Knicks guards Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart with Team USA during the FIBA World Cup last summer and developed a very close relationship with both. Haliburton said Brunson was actually one of the first people he called after the Pacers secured a playoff spot on the season's final day.

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"Those are two of my good friends, we talk all the time," Haliburton said. "... Being out there with those guys with USA, I guess I was kinda substitute Dante (DiVencenzo) with (former Villanova teammates) Mikal (Bridges) and Jalen and Josh. I kinda got roped into being in that group. It was fun. We have a group chat we talk in all the time. Those are good friends of mine. Excited to play against them. Excited for all the shenanigans of who Josh Hart is as a human being. Excited to play against those guys."

There are more connections beyond that. Carlisle coached Brunson with the Mavericks and he also played for the Knicks in 1987-88 on a team coached by Rick Pitino that made the playoffs. And of course, the Pacers acquired forward Obi Toppin from the Knicks in a trade this offseason. Toppin had some disagreements with coach Tom Thibodeau in terms of playing time, but he's a Brooklyn native and life-long Knicks fan, and his brother Jacob is on the Knicks roster on a two-way deal.

Toppin, of course, knows what the Garden is like in the playoffs, and knows the importance of the Pacers staying focused within that.

"We understand what type of crowd is gonna be there," Toppin said. "Celebrities are gonna be there. We just have to lock in to our main things and play our type of basketball."

They know they are dealing with a Knicks team that is very locked in after winning a thrilling series with the 76ers and also winning the last five games of the regular season to finish 50-32 with the No. 2 seed in the East.

Brunson has been particularly spectacular. After finishing fourth in the NBA in scoring with 28.7 points per game in the regular season, he's been on even more of a tear in the playoffs. He averaged 35.5 points per game against the 76ers, the most of any player in the first round, while also dishing out 9.0 assists. That was partially due to high volume shooting as he attempted 29.2 field goal attempts per game and shot 42.9% from the floor, but the Knicks need him for scoring and he provided it, scoring at least 40 points in each of the last three games.

"There's no betting against that guy," Carlisle said. "I don't know if anybody saw this coming, what he's achieved in two years there, but if you know him and you know his character, you're not surprised. You're not shocked. ... He's obviously a highly-skilled player, but he has an indomitable will to accomplish what the naysayers don't think he can. He's just one of those types of guys."

Brunson was trouble for the Pacers during the regular season − scoring 28, 40 and 39 points respectively in their three outings − but they managed to dodge Anunoby. The former IU star was acquired from the Raptors on Dec. 30 but wasn't available for the game against the Pacers that night, and he was dealing with an elbow injury in the other two games. However, the Knicks were 20-3 in the regular season when Anunoby was available, and he's averaging 15.0 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game in the playoffs.

"He fits in so perfect with what they do," Haliburton said. "He's a Thibs guy, right? He guards the best player, guards his (expletive) off, crashes the glass like crazy. Makes open shots. What more could you ask for in today's game?"

Anunoby is one of several that fit in with Thibodeau's style of play, based on tough defense and hard rebounding. Brunson is the only player averaging over 20 points per game in the playoffs, but they grabbed 37% of available offensive rebounds in the first round, the highest rate of any team in the playoffs. The rivalry returns in a less personally nasty place than it was in the '90s, but the Pacers are dealing with a Knicks team that is just as gritty as those were.

"He's a great player, we have to be ready to compete against him and all of those guys," Haliburton said of Anunoby. "They all play so hard. All their wings, all their bigs. Jalen's obviously a great player. We gotta be ready to go."