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The New York Knicks kept their season alive Thursday night by dominating the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The past three games have featured a much deeper rotation from head coach Tom Thibodeau, and they have gotten incredible value from some of the bench players.
Knicks’ Landry Shamet has provided a major spark off the bench
Landry Shamet, in particular, has been a true revelation. Despite a strong showing at the end of the regular season, he was out of the rotation entirely during the Detroit Pistons series, along with the second round against the Boston Celtics.
However, he has since re-entered the rotation as New York looks for a spark, and Shamet has provided exactly that. In Game 5, he was arguably the biggest difference maker in the second unit with five points in 14 minutes. His activity on defense also made a huge difference as the Knicks held the Pacers to under 100 points for the first time this postseason.
Across the three games Shamet has appeared in this series, he is a +22, which is the second-highest by a Knicks player this series. He has come back into the rotation and provided the spark that they had been missing in the first two games of the series.
Shamet’s impact makes the Knicks look a lot deeper
He has given the Knicks some aggressive three-point shooting and active defense, two things that they badly needed from their second unit. The bench has long been a concern for New York all year, but with Shamet stepping up in the biggest moments for them, they suddenly look to be a much deeper team.
Taking advantage of the bench playing well is a strength for the Knicks, and players like Shamet have been able to provide relief to some of the Knicks’ main starters. Thibodeau has been criticized for the lack of bench usage throughout the playoffs, but he has changed his ways and banked on them providing an impact at a huge part of the year.
The Knicks now have an opportunity to force a Game 7 back home if they win Game 6 on the road. To pull off the seemingly improbable series comeback, New York will be leaning on guys like Shamet to provide an impact.
More must-reads:
- Mavs' Kyrie Irving shares update on ACL injury recovery
- Jerry Jones again proves he shouldn't be making decisions for Cowboys
- The 'Most 1,000-rushing yard NFL seasons' quiz
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TODAY'S BEST
Key Pelicans player suffers scary injury during FIBA AmeriCup
New Orleans Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado had to be stretchered off the court while playing for Puerto Rico at the FIBA AmeriCup 2025. The injury happened with a little over two minutes remaining in overtime of the quarterfinal matchup against Argentina after Alvarado fell on his back fighting for an offensive rebound. The 27-year-old laid on the court for several minutes, visibly in a considerable amount of pain. Medical staff at the arena brought out a neck brace and then placed him on a stretcher before taking him off the court. Before exiting the game, Alvarado had a game-high 25 points, although Puerto Rico ultimately lost, 82-77. The Pelicans, who begin training camp on Sept. 24, have had quite the bad luck when it comes to injuries to key players, and they will be hoping that Alvarado's injury wasn't as bad as it appeared to be. The team already got unfortunate news in July when it was announced that first-round draft pick Derik Queen had to undergo wrist surgery and will be re-evaluated in October. Other key Pelicans players including Dejounte Murray, Trey Murphy and Herb Jones are also coming off of surgeries of their own, so time will tell just how healthy the Pelicans are before the start of the season.
Jerry Jones again proves he shouldn't be making decisions for Cowboys
When it comes to major decisions for the Dallas Cowboys it is always going to be Jerry Jones' way or the highway. The problem with that philosophy, however, is that the Jerry Jones way has proven to be a failure for more than 30 years. It's long past time for him to give up control of the team and hire a real general manager to fix the mess he keeps creating. All of that is back on the front-burner again following Thursday's conclusion of the Micah Parsons saga, with the All-Pro superstar getting traded to the Green Bay Packers for defensive tackle Kenny Clark and two first-round picks. In a vacuum, it's not a terrible return. Clark is a legitimate starter on the defensive line -- and a very good player -- and two first-round picks are always going to have some value. But professional sports does not exist in a vacuum. There is always more context at play, and the context here is that an in-his-prime superstar (Parsons), that is one of the biggest game-changers in the league, and a player that was trying to make it work in Dallas, is now playing for somebody else because Jones could not get out of his own way. From the very beginning Jones bungled this contract negotiation, doing the one thing he does best — making himself and Cowboys drama the focal point, and what is best for the team a secondary matter. It's the Jerry Jones way. And it's a losing way. This situation did not have to end up the way it did. There was a perfectly reasonable outcome that would have seen Parsons remain in Dallas throughout the prime of his career and continue to be a focal point of its defense. All it would have taken was a common sense approach and an owner whose concern for the organization outweighed their ego. Every major negotiation with the Cowboys ends up getting drawn out into chaos. It's all part of Jerry's desire to keep him and his team at the top of the headlines. It usually results in him having to pay a player more money than he otherwise would have. And even that may not be a problem for Jerry because he gets to talk about how he negotiated and paid out this huge contract. This time, however, the plan finally burned him. If you want to reach, or if you want to carry Jones' water for him, you might be able to put together a somewhat coherent argument as to how this can work out. Maybe those two first-round picks will pan out in the future. Maybe Clark is a great fit in the middle of Dallas' defensive line. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. The more maybe's you throw in, the more likely it is they are not going to all pan out. Clark is good, but he's not Parsons. He is not as disruptive, he is not as good and he is going to be 30 years old this season while Parsons is still only 26. Two first-round picks looks good on paper, but the Packers are a pretty good team — and will be even better with Parsons — and those picks will likely be in the back half of the first-round. You hope to find a good player with at least one of them, if not both. The odds that either one is as good as Parsons are long. Since winning their last Super Bowl during the 1995 season the Cowboys have consistently been one of the NFL's most mediocre franchises. Never truly awful, but never good. They will make the playoffs semi-regularly, but never go anywhere. They have the longest NFC Championship game drought in the conference. They never get close to the Super Bowl and have not been bonafide contenders in literal decades. A sane owner would look at those results and would have fired multiple general managers for that run. Jones has no one to fire because he is the general manager. And he likes the way he is doing things. The problem is it doesn't work. It hasn't worked. And it won't work. History has proven that.
Post-Ashton Jeanty era gets off to brutal start for No. 25 Boise State
There had to be at least some expectation that the Boise State Broncos were going to take a small step backwards in 2025. They probably just did not expect it to happen so soon in the season, and so emphatically. The No. 25 ranked Broncos were absolutely humiliated on Thursday night, losing 34-7 to an unranked South Florida team that was just 7-6 a year ago. It was a rude awakening for what might be ahead for Boise State following the departure of Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty. Jeanty's historic season helped carry the Broncos to an 12-1 regular season, with the only regular season loss being a three-point defeat to Oregon early in the season. They ended up in the College Football Playoff where they lost their first game to Penn State. But with Jeanty on to the NFL (a first-round pick by the Las Vegas Raiders) there was always going to be a huge hole for them to replace. Not only in terms of production and skill, but also in their identity. They had none of that power-running identity on Thursday. Not only did they allow 34 consecutive points to South Florida, but the Broncos also managed to rush for only 122 yards on 38 carries, coming out to just 3.2 yards per attempt. They averaged 6.1 yards per carry in 2024, tied for the second-highest mark in college football. On one hand, losing an early season game isn't the end of the world, especially in the era of expanded playoffs. Boise State could still run the table the rest of the way with a very manageable schedule and play its way back into playoff contention. It's also not uncommon for teams to struggle early in the season. There is no preseason in college football and everybody is just coming in cold right into real games. Sometimes teams take a while to get moving. But this is not a particularly good South Florida team, and for Boise State to come out so flat and be so uncompetitive in the opener is a bad sign for what might be ahead.
Ranking U.S. Ryder Cup pairings by how much you would hate to play with them
If you're an avid golfer, you know the anxiety-inducing feeling of showing up to your local muni as a twosome on a busy Sunday afternoon. The twosome you get paired with can make or break your entire weekend. Since captain Keegan Bradley finalized the U.S. Ryder Cup roster on Wednesday, let's have some fun by ranking the three worst duos you would hate to be paired with on the golf course. 3. Cameron Young and Harris English Getting paired with Young and English would be a bore fest from the first tee to the 18th green. The introductory handshakes and the occasional "nice shot" would be the only interactions you get from them all day. You'll spend the entire round debating whether they're 25 or 45. At some point, you'll ask your buddy if they're even friends. Sure, it would be a treat to watch Young bomb majestic high draws 350 yards and English drain multiple 30-footers with ease, but that's where the fun would stop. The over/under for the number of smiles cracked between the two of them might be set at 2.5. 2. Collin Morikawa and Sam Burns Morikawa just doesn't seem like a good hang this year. From multiple quarrels with the media to a handful of caddie switches in the span of a few months, Morikawa has been too high-strung and paranoid in 2025. He'd be quick to blame you for a poor drive because you blinked too aggressively in his backswing. No thank you. Burns is on the other end of the spectrum in that he'll keep to himself and pretend not to know Morikawa very well. He'll throw out a "Sorry about him, he's having a tough year" to ease the tension, but his personality isn't bubbly enough to offset Morikawa's bad vibes. 1. Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele Cantlay would be the absolute worst-case scenario as a random pairing. You'd think his minute-long pitter-patter over the ball on the first tee was a one-time exercise to ease his nerves, but you quickly realize it's a steady feature of his pre-shot routine. Even though he's hitting the fewest shots, he's taking the longest time to hit them. The groups behind you start to pile up. At one point, the impatient union worker behind you hits into your group to send a message. Cantlay doesn't care. Five hours later, you finally finish up on 18. The group that was in front of you all day is already on their second beverage at the clubhouse bar. In an age when pace of play is just as important as your final score, Cantlay would be a nightmare pairing.
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