Knicks Only Have One Advantage Over Pacers in ECF

The only advantage the New York Knicks hold over the Indiana Pacers heading into their Eastern Conference Finals matchup is their defense according to IndyStar's Dustin Dopirak.

Dopirak ranks the Pacers' offense, depth, and coaching as superior to that of the Knicks, despite offseason changes that saw the third-seeded Knicks add Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges to their squad. The Pacers have won the last three playoff matchups between the teams, including last season, when the Pacers took a Game 7 victory from a depleted Knicks team at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks took the 2024-25 season series 2-1.

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"Just as is the case with the offense, Pacers and Knicks have nearly identical numbers with different styles," said Dopirak. "The Pacers use 11 players to facilitate full-court man-to-man pressure to wear teams down. The Knicks depend heavily on three ace defensive wings that allow them to switch and have answers for any and all top perimeter scorers. And yet both teams finished the season with the exact same defensive ranking at 113.3 points allowed per 100 possessions. The Knicks were technically 13th and the Pacers 14th, but there was no real separation there. The Knicks held opponents to 111.7 points per game while the Pacers gave up 115.1 but the difference was largely a product of pace."

The Knicks were largely without forward OG Anunoby in their last postseason matchup, as the NBA Champion strained his hamstring in Game 2 of the series. After Anunoby's exit, the Knicks lost four of the next five games.

The forward finished 7th in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2022-23, when he led the NBA in steals, and received All-Defensive second team for his efforts that same season.

"The 6-7 Anunoby combined with the 6-4 [Josh] Hart and 6-6 Bridges give them a lot of options to handle every position 1-4," said Dopirak. "Anunoby will likely be asked to deal with former teammate [Pascal] Siakam and either Bridges or Hart could cause problems for [Tyrese] Haliburton. [Miles] McBride is also an effective defensive heckler off the bench, and he caused problems for Haliburton last season. Mitchell Robinson also gives them some rim protection off the bench, though that's not as much of Towns' strength."

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With largely similar defensive numbers, the Pacers will look to the league's seventh-best offense to get the job done against the Knicks. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle is using 10, and sometimes more, players in each playoff game, and will hope that the depth and energy his team provides will be enough to repeat last year's result for this matchup.

For more news and notes on the Indiana Pacers, visit Indiana Pacers on SI.