After the collapse of game 1, Knicks have to prove again that they were made for this moment

Athletic has a live report on Pacers against Knicks Game 2 from the final of the NBA Eastern Conference 2025.

New York – The most sloppy game of a historical collapse did not even lead to a disaster. Everything it did was showing the most disturbing properties of New York Knicks.

A team that had fought against the final of the Eastern Conference-a one that ended a playoff series in the first round with a franchise-modified dagger by Jalen Brunson, and then the defending champions with double-digit comebacks-could not be included in the basketball.

With 12.4 seconds before the process on Wednesday evening, the Kracher Aaron Nesmith from Indiana Pacers stretched the second of two free throws to narrow the leadership of the Knicks, which were only two and a half minutes earlier to one point. Then New York forgot how to work.

Josh Hart took the ball out of the net and looked for a quick pass to his Point Guard, as he often does. The 30-year-old’s constant energy extends beyond the hunt for loose balls. Hart believes to cross the pace, especially if he knows that a press comes in full start, as it takes place in the last 47 minutes, 48 ​​seconds of Indiana, from Indiana. There would be no doubt about the strategy during such a tight goal with so little time when the Pacers needed either theft or a foul.

Brunson grazed the baseline with two defenders who draped him. Nevertheless, the rest of the team did not follow.

Mitchell Robinson, not known for his ball capabilities, sprinted in the other direction as it should have been. Karl-Anthony Towns jogged with his back after hard from the low block and then turned too late. As long as the Knicks did not give away the ball, the Pacers had to double someone, and cities that were not even the center in this line -up is a deadly free thrower. But he was not ready to get a passport. OG Anunoby, which was outside the 3-point arch during Nesmith’s free throws, was stuck in the same place at the same place of Tyrese Haliburton, the naked All-Star-Point Guard.

On a night in which everyone, including hard and Brunson, contributed to the collapse, at least the two understood this moment.

Hardly meant that every teammate returned, but nobody was there. He pressed a hectic passport to Brunson, who was lucky after the Pacers caught him in the corner. When Brunson hiked outside the borders, the two-time all-star tried to fire a ball in front of Nesmith, but missed and watched a Baltimore ran into the hands of Anunoby that the Pacers fouled.

If you are a Knicks or Pacers fan, it would take a brutal blow on the head to forget the rest. Anunoby only made one of two free throws. Haliburton followed with a toe-on-line fadeway, which drove from the back of the edge and the sky before the basketball gods kissed in the tires and the game held on the summer, and the Pacers won 138-135.

The Knicks have committed five sales in the last five and a half minutes of the game. Brunson threw anunoby away from a ruthless court in the last 30 seconds of regulation. He gave the ball a few more times in the extension. The crime stuck when Indiana catched him down on the route aggressively.

Mikal Bridges disappeared. The speed and talent of the Pacers overwhelmed the Knicks, who acted as if a 1-0 lead was a guarantee.

Nesmith achieved 17 points in the last 194 seconds of regulation, including five 3-point services. The cities lingered too far behind while protecting screens and giving the Pacers Sharpshooter too much space. Anunoby committed the same sin. Nesmith lost hard on another jumper. The cities stopped on another before they even made contact with a choice, did not move his feet and hardly outlined a free hand over his hip, even though it was still far from Nesmith. He would have turned his palm into heaven just as well, as if he were Nesmith’s Butler: “Here are her three points, sir.”

A game after the greatest performance of your season, a 38-point detection of the Boston Celtics, to switch to your first conference final in 25 years.

But that wasn’t new. In fact, this is her identity. Whether in victory or in the defeat, the Knicks too often require a kick in the butt – even in the regular season when they fought against the elite competition.

You have repeated the same plea in the playoffs.

“We have to play 48 minutes,” they say.

Head coach Tom Thibodeau leaves the line after most games. Also Brunson. The cities said it how hard.

The trend is often the conversely after Wednesday. The kinks, as they did three times against the Celtics, will see in deep holes, recognize that they have to set up the intensity and then scrap their way back. Her post-season run was a number of life calls, then answered alarm calls, then pressed snooze keys and then repeated the same process.

After a few unlikely comebacks in Boston to start the semi-finals of the Eastern Conference, they stopped communicating in game 3 about the defense, not properly leading their pick-and-roll reporting and taking a 22-point fist into their mouths.

They destroyed the Celtics in the second half of the next game, the same match that ended in the Achilles injury of all-NBA striker Jayson Tatum. With the chance to crush the series two days later, they appeared in Boston and lost with 25th different people with the kinks that they had no feeling about what would come that night. The day after the loss, the players gathered in the training facility for an emergency meeting.

The Knicks did not hit the moment, not communicated again, did not play with enough urgency and did not seriously prepare for game 5. And they shared as much that day.

You have resolved your problems during the game 6 Boston and competitive for most of Game 1 against Indiana … until they were not.

Perhaps the breakdowns sound another alarm on Wednesday. The cycle that has been raised since the beginning of the season could continue.

The Knicks were able to return to Madison Square Garden on Friday with a new dedication for details. Like the clutch player of the year, Brunson could handle crunchtime, not like a sales fine. Defensive communication could increase again. Urgency could take up. The players were able to hit their free throws that Anunoby and cities did not get by the wayside. They were able to remember the simple tasks, such as the return to the return success for an inbound game that could derail their season if they went wrong.

Even if the kinks become the 1996 Chicago Bulls for one night, the trend could reset – because the kinks sometimes look like champions and sometimes forget what champs look like.

(Photo by Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart: Jesse D. Garrabrant /Nbae about Getty Images)