Knicks vs. Pacers was too absurd for words, so Tyrese Haliburton settled for a choke sign and some pineapple

Haliburton, after stunning Madison Square Garden, went into shoe-selling mode

NEW YORK -- "Damn, what a f---ing game," Tyrese Haliburton said in the visitors' locker room at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Then the Indiana Pacers star grabbed a slice of pineapple from the postgame spread.

Haliburton looked like he couldn't believe what had just happened, just like the rest of us. The Pacers trailed the New York Knicks by 14 points with less than three minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Just to force overtime, Indiana wing Aaron Nesmith had to ascend to a higher plane in crunch time and Haliburton needed to make a game-tying, buzzer-beating, foot-on-the-line 2 at the end of regulation. The shot hit the back of the rim, bounced straight up and dropped through the net.

"It's gotta be the shoes, man," Haliburton announced to no one in particular after the 138-135 overtime win in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. "Go get 'em. On sale now."

Tyrese Haliburton is the perfect NBA villain, and Knicks fans got a front-row seat to his latest show

Sam Quinn

Haliburton's Pumas are not the primary reason for the Pacers' shocking come-from-behind victory. Three times this postseason, Haliburton and his team have done the (seemingly) impossible: the series-clinching Game 5 against the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round and Game 2 against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round, both of which ended with Haliburton game-winners, and now this. 

The more that they give the finger to their late-game win probability, the harder it is to explain.

Before these playoffs only one team in the play-by-play era (i.e. since 1995-1996) had ever come back from a seven-point deficit in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime in a playoff game. Indiana has done this three times in 23 days. And its latest ridiculous rally was even more unlikely than the two that preceded it: Before Wednesday, teams that led by 14-plus in the final 2:45 of the fourth quarter in the play-by-play era were 994-0, per Josh Dubow of the Associated Press.

One possible explanation for the Pacers' apparent superpower: Each comeback makes the next one seem more realistic. According to reserve center Thomas Bryant, they didn't directly discuss their recent heroics after the Knicks went on a 14-0 run in the fourth quarter. "We try not to," he said, "because that's very hard to do every time." They didn't have to reference those wins against Milwaukee and Cleveland, though, to have been aided by them.

"We'd choose not to be in those positions," Bryant said. But they knew "that we've been here before, and we can somehow get out of this."

To coach Rick Carlisle, Indiana's ability to execute well at the end of games goes back to getting reps in the regular season. No team had a better point differential in the clutch in 2024-25.

"A lot of the games early where we were struggling were games we had to pull out," Carlisle said. "They were clutch games when we weren't playing particularly well. And it's a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets."

Haliburton, who finished Game 1 with 31 points and 11 assists in 42 minutes, went back even further. He said he went through a "baptism by fire" after the Pacers traded for him at the 2022 deadline.

"We would be in these moments where I would have to take these shots," Haliburton said. "And I would miss them, and nobody would care. Pacer fans would, but we weren't very good, so it didn't matter, we weren't a playoff team or anything."

Experience, Haliburton said, is the best teacher. Myles Turner described the team as "battle-tested." One can't exactly expect a team to go on historic runs all the time, but he has ceased being surprised by it.

"It's to the point where I'm just used to it," Turner said. "I have so much confidence in this group."

Another possible explanation: Indiana's style of play is conducive to comebacks. Instead of accepting the cliché that the game slows down in crunch time, the Pacers simply keep playing their way: pressuring the ball full-court, running off makes and misses and causing as much confusion as possible in the halfcourt. Their opponent, meanwhile, might be running on fumes, as everything Indiana does is designed to tire the other team out over time.

"It's hard for me to discredit and say that the wear-down effect wasn't there," Haliburton said. "I think from everything you're seeing, that's a part of it, and I think that's a part of our identity: How can we wear on teams for 48 minutes? Obviously picking up full court, as well as our offensive pressure, getting downhill, moving, playing fast. I thought that we did a good job offensively of playing our style."

Indiana was outrebounded in Game 1, but it didn't let the Knicks grab any offensive boards late in the fourth quarter and it came up with a couple themselves in OT. Haliburton also noted that New York "missed a couple free throws there down the stretch, had a couple short misses there at the end of the game."

In part because of their physically demanding style, the Pacers lean into their depth. Before Nesmith erupted for 20 of his 30 points -- including six straight made 3s -- in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter, he had been subbed out twice in the period. Ben Sheppard, who didn't play at all in the first three quarters, logged seven minutes in the fourth, which "allowed Aaron a chance to rest a little bit," Carlisle said. "So he came back in the game fresh, and he had his legs."

Another possible explanation: In difficult situations, Indiana is able to stick together because it has, uh, stuck together. Haliburton drew a straight line from the front office keeping last year's roster together to the resilience of the team.

"We're just a group that has spent a lot of time with each other," Haliburton said. He added that they've been through big streaks in both directions and they all have confidence in each other. "We feel like we know where everybody's going to be," he said. "We have high expectations for each other, but I think we also hold each other accountable at the same time."

Haliburton said his confidence comes from knowing that his teammates and coaches want him to take last-second shots, as do Pacers fans. "I think everybody's living and dying with it at that point," he said. During fourth-quarter timeouts, the Pacers showed "great contagious emotion for each other," Bryant said, even when they were down by 16 points (with 7:22 left) and 14 points (with 3:44 left). They were "clapping it up" and "talking to each other, giving each other confidence," Bryant said.

"We talked in the huddle about, 'Keep working the game. Keep trying to make it hard on these guys. Find good looks,'" Carlisle said. 

Indiana was "very much teetering on the edge," Carlisle said, but it managed to stay the course. After going on the heater of a lifetime, Nesmith said, "I didn't really realize what I was doing in the moment, I was just trying to win the basketball game." In other words, he was in a flow state, unconscious. The last three minutes were "kind of a blur, to be honest with you," he said. "Just fighting, scrapping for every loose ball, boxing out, making shots, making plays and doing whatever we can to win."

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Initially, the Pacers thought Haliburton's buzzer-beater was a 3. Otherwise, they wouldn't have jumped onto him in jubilation and he definitely wouldn't have channeled Reggie Miller's choke celebration. After finding out they needed to play five more minutes, they had to "grab everybody by their jersey, their neck, their arm, whatever it takes," Turner said. "Just get 'em in the huddle, tell 'em, 'Let's go, man. It's not over. We gave ourselves a chance.'"

The plan going forward is not to rely on making "hellacious shot for three minutes straight the rest of the series," Turner said. Indiana will take wins however it can get them, though, and, if it finds itself facing another daunting deficit in crunch time, it will continue to play its game. If the Pacers' previous comebacks hadn't already made it abundantly clear, the series opener at MSG showed that this can pay off spectacularly.

"Instant classic," Turner said.