The Indiana Pacers misplaced Recreation 3 of the Jap Convention Finals.
The Indiana Pacers suffered a 106-100 Recreation 3 loss towards the New York Knicks, giving up a 20-point lead.
Karl-Anthony Cities was lights-out to steer New York, ending with 24 factors (20 in fourth quarter) and 14 rebounds within the wake of Jalen Brunson’s foul troubles.
Tyrese Haliburton scored 20 factors and 7 assists in Indiana’s shedding effort.
There’s a chance the Pacers will enter Recreation 4 with out considered one of their essential gamers.
Aaron Nesmith went down with an obvious proper ankle sprain. He left the courtroom and went to the locker room with round 6:06 to go within the third quarter, after he tweaked his foot on an offensive drive towards Brunson.
He managed to return to the bench earlier than the tip of the third quarter, however solely reentered the sport with about seven minutes remaining in regulation, ending the evening with eight factors, seven rebounds, and two steals.
“He went again to the coaching room, bought it checked out, and I imagine he bought it re-taped,” Rick Carlisle mentioned in postgame about Nesmith’s damage.
“He was doing issues within the hallway to get shifting once more. Then I bought phrase that he was good to return in, that he was shifting with out limitation at that time. So relatively than wait, we determined the perfect factor to do was get him again in there, so he didn’t stiffen up any extra.
“Down the stretch, he appeared to maneuver okay to me, simply from the attention check standing there, however I haven’t studied the movie but. Clearly, we’ll know extra tomorrow.”
Nesmith has been the X-factor for Indiana within the 2025 NBA Playoffs. Earlier than getting into Recreation 3 towards the Knicks, the versatile ahead was averaging 15.7 factors per sport on 54.1 p.c subject purpose taking pictures whereas draining a scorching 54.4 p.c from three-point vary.
He was the driving drive of the group’s historic Recreation 1 comeback win towards the Knicks, exploding for 30 factors and draining a complete of six threes and not using a miss within the fourth interval, to assist the Pacers drive extra time.
The Pacers have been nonetheless main 70-57 previous to Nesmith’s damage exit in Recreation 3. Then they struggled because the Knicks unleashed a livid late-game comeback behind Cities’ heroics.
“I imply, look. You lose a man like that, it impacts your potential to shut 1 / 4,” Carlisle mentioned when requested if Nesmith’s non permanent go away considerably impacted the Pacers down the stretch. “Perhaps there’s an element there, you recognize.
“However look, we’re not going to make excuses. We’ve come again from large leads, and as we speak, we misplaced a lead. No matter who’s on the market, we’ve bought to have the ability to assault higher and do the issues vital to keep up it and end the sport.
“We simply didn’t. We merely didn’t execute in addition to we wanted to.”
The Pacers have their fingers crossed that Nesmith will stay good and able to go regardless of ankle points for Recreation 4 on Could 27.
