INDIANAPOLIS — This is the kind of game tape you burn and never speak of again.
It’s the kind of game that forced Tom Thibodeau — in unprecedented fashion — to wave the white flag with 2:32 left in the third quarter of the Knicks’ Game 4 blowout loss to the Indiana Pacers on Sunday.
Jalen Brunson, when healthy, appeared in every fourth quarter the Knicks played this season except one, when the Knicks entered the last period of their April 11 victory over the Boston Celtics up 29 points.
Brunson watched from the sidelines as his Knicks coughed up their lead in the final period and left Boston with a nine-point victory.
He watched from the sidelines, again, as the Pacers steamrolled his Knicks for a 121-89 victory to tie the series at two games apiece. The Knicks, who had not lost a game by more than 24 points this season, never came within 28 points of the Pacers in the second half.
Thibodeau pulled Brunson, who had 18 points on 6-of-17 shooting through 31 minutes, and subbed in Shake Milton, the midseason acquisition who hadn’t logged a minute on-court since April 4. Shortly after, at the 44-second mark of the third period, he pulled starting guard Donte DiVincenzo and subbed in DaQuan Jeffries, who had only logged 46 total minutes on the season.
Josh Hart’s night ended at the 8:17 mark of the third quarter, and Thibodeau hooked Isaiah Hartenstein with 6:54 left in the period before throwing in the towel by sending the league’s leading playoff scorer to the bench with under three minutes to go in the third.
“We were in such a big hole. I made a change because I wanted to add speed to the game to see if we could make a run there,” Thibodeau said after the game. “So once we got to a certain point, it just made sense to do what we did. And I wanted to look at other guys too.”
And at the top of the fourth quarter, Thibodeau pulled the plug on Precious Achiuwa, opting to ride third-string center Jericho Sims the rest of the way.
Thibodeau likely would have pulled Miles McBride, too, if he had another set of legs to throw on the court.
He didn’t.
It’s the state of a Knicks team wearing thin against a Pacers team running nine-to-10 players deep.
The Knicks were already without Julius Randle (shoulder), Bojan Bogdanovic (ankle) and Mitchell Robinson (ankle) before OG Anunoby left the second half of Game 2 with a left hamstring strain.
As of Sunday afternoon, Anunoby had not progressed past pool work to running on-court. He is unlikely to clear the benchmarks necessary to play in Game 5 back at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.
“It’s not just OG,” Thibodeau said. “OG was gone for a good chunk of the season. So that’s no excuse. Just get it done.”
The Pacers blew the Knicks out of the water with a 34-14 first quarter, then outscored the Knicks, 35-27, in the second. The Knicks’ 41 points scored in the first half tied for they fourth-fewest points they have scored in any half this season.
“[They] played with energy, got in the open floor, hit shots, shot the ball really well in the first half — well, throughout the game,” said Brunson. “But we got in a hole early and clearly just didn’t get out of it.”
As for Brunson, it’s been a year-and-a-half since the last time he watched from the sidelines in defeat: the Knicks’ Nov. 13, 2022 blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, who led by 16 at the end of the third quarter before Thibodeau rode Immanuel Quickley for the duration of the fourth.
The Knicks were down 16 in the first quarter on Sunday, and dead legs against an energetic Pacers team were to blame.
“We can talk about fresher legs, and you can give us all the pity that we want: Yeah we’re shorthanded, but that doesn’t matter right now,” said Brunson. “We have what we have and we need to go forward with that. So there is no ‘we’re shorthanded.’ There is no excuse. There’s no excuse whatsoever. If we lose, we lose. That’s what that was.”
Brunson finished with 18 points but no other Knicks starter scored more than eight. After scoring 14 points in Game 1, Alec Burks scored another 20 off the bench on 5-of-11 shooting from the field.
McBride added another 16 points on 6-of-17 shooting from the field, but it wasn’t enough to put a dent in the offensive onslaught the Pacers hung on the Knicks on Sunday.
Now, the Knicks have some time: Sunday’s game tipped off at 3:30 p.m., and Game 5 back in New York doesn’t start until 8 p.m. on Tuesday night.
While Anunoby’s status remains unclear — if not outright unlikely — the core Knicks will welcome the additional hours of rest they can use to recover from a heavy workload to start the playoffs.
Hart, for example, logged 42 or more minutes in eight consecutive playoff games before his day ended with 24 minutes on Sunday.
DiVincenzo also logged four straight games with 44 or more minutes before an early hook in Game 4.
“It’s the playoffs. Everybody across the league, the top guys, are all playing high minutes, and I think for us there’s been different waves throughout the season [with] high minutes and low minutes,” DiVincenzo said. “I think when the playoffs come, everybody’s best is gonna be out there, and they’re gonna play. I think for us it has nothing to do with the minutes. It’s more of getting our mental state right to be who we are, and that’s what we need to do for next game.”
The Pacers out-rebounded the Knicks, 52-43, and recorded 31 assists to New York’s 18.
The Pacers initially listed All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton as questionable with three different ailments, but Haliburton finished with 20 points, six rebounds and five assists.
Six different Pacers scored in double figures, including former Knicks forward Obi Toppin (14 points, 6-of-11 shooting) and T.J. McConnell, who double-doubled with 15 points and 10 assists off the bench.
The Knicks don’t have the luxury of a deep bench with the injuries they’ve piled, but they won’t use it as an excuse for why this series is even headed back home for Game 5.
“We have who we have in that locker room,” said Brunson. “So yes, we are down guys, but the people who go out there, we have the utmost faith in every single one of them who go out on that court. So as a team we need to stick together, we need to be better, and that’s just it going forward.”
