The Indiana Pacers were unable to close out their Eastern Conference Finals series Thursday night, falling 111-94 to the New York Knicks in Game 5 at Madison Square Garden.
Following the defeat, head coach Rick Carlisle pointed to a lack of intensity and execution from his team.
“Well, we obviously didn’t play with the level of force that we needed to,” Carlisle said during his postgame press conference. “We lost the rebound battle. We lost the turnover battle. We didn’t shoot well. They had a lot to do with it, so give them credit.”
Indiana never led in the contest and trailed by as many as 20 in the third quarter, unable to recover from a poor start.
“To start the game, we just didn’t have the right level of force, the right level of attitude necessary in this environment,” Carlisle noted. “There were stretches during the game where we got a little bit of traction, but never enough.”
Tyrese Haliburton, who had been key in the Game 4 win, took only seven shots and finished with eight points and six assists.
Asked if the All-Star guard should have been more aggressive, Carlisle said, “Yeah, we as a team have to be aggressive, and we have to have a level of balance. I’ll take responsibility for that, and we’ll see where we can improve.”
The Knicks outscored the Pacers 60-34 in the paint, and Carlisle cited effort and physicality as areas of concern.
“It’s just really overall disposition, posture, force, intensity— all that just simply was not good enough,” he said.
Aaron Nesmith played just under 16 minutes and was limited to three points. Carlisle explained that his rotation choices were driven by in-game performance and health.
“He got off to a bit of a slow start. Maybe he was slowed a little bit by the ankle,” the coach said. “Mathurin got a game going, so that dug into Aaron’s minutes.”
Despite occasional open looks, Carlisle acknowledged the Pacers failed to convert efficiently on offense.
“We had stretches where we had good shots and didn’t convert, but overall it wasn’t good enough.”
New York’s Jalen Brunson scored 32 points and spearheaded a 12-0 run in the third quarter that effectively put the game out of reach.
The Pacers will have a second chance to clinch a Finals berth when they host Game 6 in Indianapolis on Saturday night.
“We weren’t at the level compete-wise that we needed to be,” Carlisle said. “We’re going to have to play much better.”
