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Speaking of 3-1 comebacks, on this date back in 2016, we saw Klay Thompson light up the Thunder for 41 points and 11 3-pointers in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. You’ve got to watch the highlights today.
Don’t Pace Yourself
Indiana has new superstar, on brink of finals
If you’re still not accepting Tyrese Haliburton as a superstar in this league, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. He’s one of the best players in the world. And he just put up one of the most transcendent games ever as the Pacers beat the Knicks 130-121 to take a 3-1 series lead in the Eastern Conference finals.
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Haliburton had 32 points, 15 assists, 12 rebounds, four steals and zero turnovers whilst shooting 11-of-23 from the field, 5-of-12 from deep and 5-of-6 from the free-throw line in 38 minutes. That performance has never happened before in a playoff game. Nor the regular season either. Drop your basketball-reference search down to 10 assists instead of 15 with 30 points, 10 rebounds, four steals and zero turnovers, and you get two players (Jimmy Butler in 2024 and Nikola Jokić in 2019) who have done that in the regular season.
Haliburton basically played a perfect, high-volume basketball game, and the Knicks couldn’t do anything about it. He scored at the rim, in the midrange and from beyond the arc. He dimed up seven different teammates for a total of 35 points off of his 15 assists. For the series, he’s averaging 24.3 points, 11.0 assists, 7.0 rebounds, 2.5 steals and 1.5 turnovers. Those numbers are out of this world. He has 44 assists and six turnovers in the four games! That’s a 7.3:1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
That doesn’t make sense against even the worst team in the league, let alone in the conference finals. It’s why the Pacers are about to go back to their first NBA Finals since 2000, when they needed to get through — guess who — the Knicks in the ECF in order to get there before facing the dominant, impossible Lakers.
By plenty of measures, the Knicks didn’t play a bad game:
- Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and OG Anunoby combined for 80 points on good efficiency.
- They hammered Indiana on the boards.
- New York made 42.9 percent of its 3-pointers.
- They were 33-of-38 from the free-throw line.
The Knicks were just never in control. Even when they made a run and cut the lead down, the Pacers took the game where it needed to go next. Indiana forced 17 turnovers (for 20 points) and scored 22 fast-break points. Pascal Siakam had 30 as Bennedict Mathurin added 20 off the bench.
This Pacers team is dangerous, and if people are still thinking they’ve made it this far because of another team’s misfortune, that’s just completely off. The only misfortune those opponents have had is having to play Indiana.
The Last 24
Can the league fix a very dumb rule?
🏀 Foul up three. John Hollinger says the solutions to teams fouling up three aren’t so simple. I disagree, but he makes good arguments.
🗽 One more trick? The Knicks are on life support. How do they extend their season?
👀 Trade rumors? I know it’s the playoffs, but we have something juicy: Zion Williamson trade rumors.
📲 Let’s watch! Take a fun look at Jalen Brunson’s superpower: His brakes.
🎧 Tuning in. Today’s “NBA Daily” discusses whether Tyrese Haliburton has proven his doubters wrong.
How Do You Do It?
What does a 3-1 series comeback look like?
We have two 3-1 series leads in the conference finals right now. And they look very different in the Eastern and Western conferences. As we discussed above, the Pacers just went up 3-1 on the Knicks in the East. They’ll head to Madison Square Garden for a chance to close it out on the road on Thursday, but even if they don’t get it there, they can still come back to Indianapolis on Game 6 for a chance to close it out.
That’s not how it looks in the West. The Thunder have taken a commanding lead on the Timberwolves, and they’re hosting the closeout Game 5 tonight in OKC. A daunting road awaits the Wolves.
You can talk yourself into the Knicks having a decent chance here because of the potential number of home games. And by “talk yourself into,” I mean you can at least limber up for some mental gymnastics here. For the Wolves’ situation, inevitability is a locomotive, and they’re tied to the train tracks by an old-timey villain with a wispy mustache in a silent movie before the “talkies” were invented.
According to LandOfBasketball.com, teams have been 283-13 when up 3-1 in a series. Of the 13 teams that have come back from down 3-1 to win the series, only four of them have happened in the conference finals or later. (Two of those happened in the same year.) Those four comebacks:
- 1979: Washington Bullets over the San Antonio Spurs in the East finals.
- 1981: Boston Celtics over the Philadelphia 76ers in the East finals.
- 2016: Golden State Warriors over OKC Thunder in the West finals.
- 2016: Cleveland Cavaliers over the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.
The good news for the Knicks is three of those four had home-court advantage in the series during their comebacks. If you’re the Knicks and you also have the most clutch player of the season, that feels decent. Haliburton on the other side of that definitely will scare you a bit, though.
In those previous series, the Bullets just outlasted the Spurs in their final three games. The Celtics did that to the Sixers, but they also forced a ton of turnovers (62 in three games), and they got a lot of free-throw attempts (38 per game). That was their recipe for the comeback.
In a much more modern setting, the Warriors overcoming the Thunder in their series was a lot different. Remember these were the 73-9 Warriors. They forced a lot of turnovers to win Game 5 at home. Then, Klay Thompson went off for 42 points in Game 6 to bring it back home again. The Warriors forced some cold shooting from 3-point range by OKC in Games 6 and 7 (combined 10-of-50). And Steph Curry was brilliant in all three games to complete the comeback.
The Wolves hoping to draw any inspiration from the Cavaliers winning the Finals with the historic 3-1 comeback could be tricky. Anthony Edwards is great. He’s not LeBron James in 2016. The Wolves’ supporting cast does not include a Kyrie Irving or a Kevin Love (funny enough). Game 5 had Draymond Green suspended from the Warriors for too many flagrant foul points in the postseason. Repeatedly attacking opponents’ golden states will do that.
Games 5 and 6 were double-digit wins for Cleveland, and we all remember Game 7 in all of its historic glory. As I try to go over each series and figure out if there’s a formula, there probably isn’t — after all, the 3-1 comeback rate is 4.4 percent. It’s a lot of trying to force turnovers, get to the free-throw line, pray and maybe hope a key opponent tries to attack your Larry O’Briens, if you know what I mean.
The story of the greatest players in NBA history. In 100 riveting profiles, top basketball writers justify their selections and uncover the history of the NBA in the process.
The story of the greatest players in NBA history.
When To Heal
Bucks’ time to make big trade is a flat circle
The Damian Lillard Achilles tear and first-round ousting of Bucks immediately had the vultures circling around the organization. There are 29 teams in the NBA interested in trading for Giannis Antetokounmpo. (I am not reporting that. I am not conveying intel to you, the reader. We can all just assume the two-time MVP, one-time Finals MVP and 30-year-old wrecking ball of a forward is on the radar of every front office in the league. Yes, even the Hornets. We can use common sense to know every team would love to acquire a player of his caliber.)
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At the same time, we have no idea if he’s even going to be available at any point. The Bucks could decide to hit the reset and start weaving a complicated rebuild, due to not having control of their own first-round picks before the year 2031. So, tanking out and trying to go get the next superstar in the draft to build up their franchise to a title contender doesn’t make sense.
Antetokounmpo may decide he wants a trade. He may request one. He may not and try to ride this out until the Bucks can find more help or get the 34-year old Lillard back to full strength (likely around the time he’s 36 in 13.5 months at the earliest). Regardless, the Bucks can’t just rely on getting another superstar that easily.
Rob Peterson wrote about how much this situation could draw parallels to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, from 1969 when he entered the Bucks organization out of UCLA to 1971 when he brought the franchise a championship to 1975 when he ended up on the Lakers. From Rob’s article:
“Do something radical and resist the urge to send the greatest player in franchise history to another NBA team because you think a surfeit of draft picks and a couple of rebuilding seasons is better in the long term.
If the Bucks trade Giannis, the franchise could wander through an interminable, title-less winter for decades.
How do Bucks fans know this? They have lived it already. Making them go through it again could be too much to ask.”
It reminds me of Kevin Garnett in Minnesota to a degree, although the Wolves never won a championship with KG … or period. They couldn’t surround him with any real supporting cast for more than a season. But when they finally moved on from The Big Ticket, it took a long time before an actual star, who could deliver tangible results, came to the organization in the form of Anthony Edwards. That was a 13-year gap and zero titles to reminisce on in the interim. It felt like an eternity.
The Bucks have already lived through a 38-year gap between Abdul-Jabbar leaving and Antetokounmpo arriving. A 50-year gap between titles. Maybe this situation is dire in front of them, but now imagine it without Antetokounmpo. Yikes.
(Photo: Trevor Ruszkowski / USA Today Network via Imagn Images )
This news was originally published on this post .
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