Knicks vs. PACERS: An infinite rivalry in the NBA

Welcome to The history of a perfect rivalry. Of heroes and villains. Of epic and tragedy. The duel between Knicks and PACERS He had, has and will have everything. Blood, sweat and tears.

Do we travel in time? From Market Square Arena to Madison Square Garden on a journey of introspection.

Reggie Miller. John Starks. Mark Jackson. Patrick Ewing. Spike Lee. Jalen Brunson. Tyrese Haliburton. Pieces of a puzzle that cover one with another to tell an infinite story.

Adjust your belts. It is time to return.

The origin of the rivalry: John Stark’s header to Reggie Miller (1993)

Pure theater. Action and reaction. The anger of Starks and the Dramaturgy of Reggie. In the fluorescent era, in the era of VHS, things were genuine. Starks runs the court, heads to Miller and the infinite escort, villain and hero depending on where he looks at him, stretches his arms as a complaint, he is surprised and laughs. Patrick Ewing, New York Alfa Macho, shouts Starks on his face for his childhood error.

This is how frustration works. This is the origin of a duel that we carry in hearts until today. In that key, the Knicks had arrived first after winning 60 games in regular series. The Pacers were the eighths. They all thought it would be a procedure for the Knicks, especially because they won the first two games, but the strange thing came later.

Reggie Miller account in the documentary ‘Winning Time’, of the 30×30 series, of AM850, who promised that “would embarrass Starks” after receiving a negative prior to the start of the game when trying to shake hands. When Starks nodded, Miller pretended innocence: “What? “I was surprised that John did that in front of the referee.”

The Pacers won that game 116-93. Miller made 36 points, top scorer of the match. Starks was expelled. The Knicks won the fourth game and took the series.

The seed had been placed. The fruit of rivalry would be created year after year until a tree of infinite ramifications grow.

Reggie Miller’s hanged to Spike Lee! (1994)

Few images are more cinematographic than Reggie Miller’s gesture to Spike Lee, legendary New York film director and fanatic number one of the Big Apple team.

Fifth match of the East Finals. The Pacers enter the last quarter losing 70-58. Spike Lee, in the front row, makes a carafal mistake: it makes a sign of drowning to Miller. And Reggie, old fox, disguises Wilt Chamberlain, dispatches 25 points in the defining period, the Pacers won 35-16 the last quarter and closes their form with 39. On the path of its feat, it returns the gesture to Spike Lee to register the cameras. Again and again. At each point. That image will live forever in the mind and heart of all NBA fans.

Miller is interviewed at the close of the game. They ask about Spike Lee and his answer is infinite: “Spike Who?”

“It’s his greatest fan. He can’t blame him for that, but sometimes he speaks too much and puts others in motion,” says Reggie. “I think it was one of those nights tonight.”

In spite of everything, the Knicks would take the series after winning the sixth game in Indianapolis and the defining at Madison Square Garden.

Eight points in nine seconds: the feat of Reggie Miller (1995)

What happens in 18.7 seconds is so spectacular that it deserves to be counted in detail. The Pacers are 105-99 behind on the scoreboard. It looks like a story judged … but no. They take from the side, Mark Jackson finds Reggie, who scores a triple from 45 degrees.

105-102. Anthony Mason takes out of court, but is wrong and gives the ball to … Miller. He grabs it, goes back at maximum speed to behind the line of three, launches and converts with 13.2 seconds to be played. They are the same.

The Pacers miss Starks. The shooter erns the two free, Patrick Ewing takes the offensive rebound of the second launch and fails. Starks need Miller, who does not write the two free. Eight points in nine seconds.

There is time to win or at least tie, but Greg Anthony slips. The Pacers win 107-105 on one night that will be remembered forever.

“I really thought we had no chance to win,” Larry Brown, Indiana coach, then confesses. “But I will not tell you! Until I finish, you always have to try. Although I never thought it would happen in this way.”

“Mason drowned, he gave it to me, I sported a triple … John Starks drowned, we made a great play,” a euphoric Miller told Dan Hicks from NBC. “We believe we can sweep this team! This is for you, Indiana!” Shouted Reggie.

The truth is that Indiana did not sweep, but she did win in seven games. In the decisive, at Madison Square Garden, Ewing missed an unusual tray to win.

“Ding Dong, the witch has died,” shouted the rapporteur of the Pacers.

From the hand of Reggie Miller, the Pacers are again executioners of the Knicks (1998)

We could define this play as a New York escape. He made two postseason that did not face each other, but the third without seeing himself was the defeated.

Reggie, always reggie. Five seconds remain in regular time. Game 4. The Pacers had won the first two in the Market Square Arena. The Knicks, the third in the Garden. Miller rises and writes a fundamental triple to go on extra time.

In the Overtime, the Pacers take the triumph 118-107, supported by the 38 reggie points. Indiana wins the 4-1 series and in the fifth game, Mark Jackson makes the first Triple-Doble of Indiana in the history of Playoffs.

Welcome to the controversy: the four -point play by Larry Johnson (1999)

It is today that you are still talking about this play. Yes, it is true, it was exciting for the Knicks, but the claim of the Pacers has logic: they gave continuity to a foul that began before the shot.

We already talked about the post Michael Jordan era in Chicago. Patrick Ewing injures Achilles in the second game and will not play again in the remainder of the season. The pivot game, the third, is defined in a surreal way.

The Pacers are 91-88 above. There are few seconds to finish. Larry Johnson, from the left margin of the attack, receives lack of Antonio Davis, continues the action and puts a triple. The referee gives continuity, is triple and lack, with the chance for the knicks to win. Very, very controversial. Johnson completes the four -point play and is celebration for New York. It will be the inflection point of the tie, because the Knicks will win the following two games and will get into the NBA finals, an instance in which they would lose in front of San Antonio Spurs in what was the first Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan championship trophy.

The Pacers reach the NBA finals with Larry Bird in the bank (2000)

It is already a classic between both franchises. They look and growl before seeing the ball in the air. And if there is a ticket to the final in between, much more. The Pacers, now, play in their new stadium, the consecut Fieldhouse, today known as Gainbridge Fieldhouse. They win easy in the first two games and the Knicks respond with triumphs in Madison Square Garden. Indiana wins the fifth game.

The sixth, in New York, is another Miller exhibition with Larry Bird, from the bank, witness. Shirts in complicity, one on the court, the other in the bank. Reggie scores 34 points and shines in the decisive room to take off on the scoreboard: the Pacers beat the Knicks 4-2 and in the finals they fall for the same difference against Los Angeles Lakers, with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant as stars.

The triumph in the sixth, iconic match is the last playoff game of Reggie Miller at Madison Square Garden.

The Hibbert to Carmelo and the Indiana (2013) classification lid (2013)

13 years pass to face Knicks and Pacers. Similar t -shirts, new faces. Carmelo Anthony plays in the Knicks. In the Pacers, Paul George, Lance Stephenson and Roy Hibbert. The Pacers win the first game in New York, the Knicks match at home. Indiana stays with the next two at home and New York defeats in the fifth game.

The sixth game means the passage of the Pacers to the East Finals. Melo turns 39 points that night, but a key moment defines the victory for Indiana. The Knicks are 92-90 above. There are five minutes left. Anthony gets down the bottom line and tries a dump, but Hibbert appears and puts a monumental cover that lifts everyone from the seat. It is an incredible poster, but also a mood inflator. The Pacers, from that moment, make a partial of 16-7 to finish the game-and the series-106-99.

The Pacers and their record in the seventh game in the MSG (2024)

It now happens more than a decade without both franchises being crossing. Therefore, the coaches are others and the players, too. But do not turn off the fire of rivalry. They are already Jalen Brunson in the Knicks and Tyrese Haliburton in the Pacers. The first two games are for the Knicks, the next two remain in the hands of the Pacers, with Andrew Nembhard in the role of hero in the third – and transcendental – the tie party, and A lesson in the room.

The fifth crushes New York at home. The sixth crushes Indiana in his fief. Result? Everything will be resolved in a seventh and decisive game in the basketball temple called Madison Square Garden.

The stadium is a hotbed. The Pacers, a team of young people with little experience. It seems that it will be a party in the Big Apple. It seems for everyone, except for Indiana players, who are concentrated and give a basketball class: 70 points in the first half. 67.1% in field shots throughout the game, a record for the NBA that exceeds 67.0% of Boston Celtics in 1990. Something else: 76.3% in the first half is, at that time, the best percentage of a first half in the last 25 years of the League.

The Pacers won on their visit 130-109, with 26 points from Haliburton, 20 from Paskal Siakam and 20 of Nembhard.

Brunson vs. Haliburton: The conference finals between Knicks and Pacers, 25 years later (2025)

The crossing of Playoffs 2025 will then be the rematch expected by the Knicks. There is still the bad taste of that defeat before its people in 2024. But more than a particular crossing, it will be the synthesis of all the previous crosses: the header of Starks to the eight points in nine seconds of Reggie Miller. Of the controversy of the shot of Larry Johnson to the drowning of Spike Lee. The Hibbert cover and the record with Haliburton as an emerging star.

Everything together, in a duel of gunmen who was born to never die again. Now, Coach Tom Thibodeau, Jeff Van Gundy’s assistant at the 2000 Knicks, will be in front of Rick Carlisle, Bird Assistant in the Pacers in the same series. RIC Brunson, in those New York Role Base, today, shouting his son Jalen, aspiring King of New York. What the wind took, today brings it.

The Knicks have not won a championship for 52 years. The Pacers never raised a Larry O’Brien trophy.

The infinite rivalry, loaded with epic, with ecstasy and tragedy in equal parts, write one more chapter. With cinematographic dye, the curtain opens.