On May 11, Beijing time, in the just-concluded Eastern Conference semifinals G3 game, the Pacers narrowly defeated the Knicks at home and won the first win of the series. In this game, the Knicks are already full of injuries, and in the last game, the Knicks strained OG Anunoby's thigh and withdrew from the game, so that the main players of the Knicks' injuries have been able to get together to play cards. Randle, Mitchell Robinson, Anunoby, and Bojan Bogdanovic, an outside spear, have long been out for the season. Now that the Knicks can play these guys, Brunson is also dragging a wounded leg and insisting.
Although the series led 2-0, many people were not optimistic about the Knicks' advancement, and many said that even if the Knicks reached the Eastern Conference Finals, they would lose quickly due to personnel shortages. Looking at it now, it is not easy for them to advance to the Eastern Conference finals, the rotation of personnel on the Pacers' side has always been very reasonable, Carlisle has always been a coach who "turns stones into gold", and in 2011, he led the then Mavericks all the way through and defeated the Heat Big Three to win the championship, and many marginal people played a huge role at that time, so Carlisle's employment strategy, we can see, is that everyone is a soldier, everyone has to contribute, and he is a typical coach who pays attention to "sustainable development".
Knicks coach Thibodeau, on the other hand, is the coach with the shortest rotation in the NBA and the one who prefers to use key players. Hart played 43 minutes today and had a nearly five-minute break, which turned out to be his first break since the series! Many people believe that the Knicks are full of injuries and have a lot to do with Thibodeau's coaching style, and there was an anonymous vote before the players chose a coach who they least wanted to play for, and Thibodeau took the lead and ranked first without suspense. It's true that Thibodeau is strict in governing the army, but in fact, playing under him is really very challenging, either you can't play, sit on the bench, or you can't get off the court, and you are tired to death.
For this G3 game, in fact, the Knicks' hope of winning is still quite big, because Warriors veteran DiVincenzo is in good shape today, hitting 7 three-pointers and 7 of 11 three-pointers, with super high efficiency, scoring 35 points in the game, creating a new playoff career high. DiVincenzo exploded, Hart also continued to be in good shape, Hart grabbed 18 rebounds in the whole game, tying the playoff career record, he and DiVincenzo are Brunson's right-hand men, these two play well, then the Knicks have a very good chance of winning, but, this year, Brunson's state is really not good, his legs are weak, he can't move defenders, it is indeed a great impact of injuries, and he is really too tired, the guard who weighs so much, plays by rhythm and body, plays for more than 40 minutes per game, and it is really unbearable.
On the Pacers' side, their strategy is to drag the series to Game 6 or even Game 7. The Pacers can use a lot of people, today the Pacers star star Haliburton is also "not pretending", in fact, since the last game, Haliburton has focused on improving the proportion of individual offense, the last game he shot 11 of 18 and cut 34 points, today it is 26 shots and 14 of 35 points and 7 assists, the playoffs can play such a high efficiency, Haliburton is really worthy of the league's new talent, the future is bright. 34 points + 35 points! The small giants are no longer pretending, the Warriors veterans are bombarding 35 points, and the Big Apple is in danger! After the Pacers won this game, although the big score was still 1-2 behind, they were the side that waited for work, and the Knicks wanted to work hard, but the result was "then declining, three and exhausted", it was originally "a tired division, full of injuries", and then so "tired", then the balance of victory may slowly tilt towards Indiana.