INDIANAPOLIS — The temptation, after Tyrese Haliburton scored just eight points on seven shots in a disappointing Game 5 loss, was to call for the Indiana Pacers to adjust the sliders for Game 6 by overindexing on the kind of aggression that’s easy to see in the box score — to counteract the New York Knicks’ stepped-up ball pressure with hunted shots and hero ball.

That’s not what Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle called for, though.

“As a team, we have to be aggressive, and we have to have a level of balance,” he said after Game 5.

Which is to say: They needed to play Pacers basketball.

The many-hands-make-light-work approach that has produced one of the NBA’s most potent offenses. The insistence on pipe-bursting, full-court ball pressure that has made the Pacers one of the NBA’s most improved defenses. The commitment to running 12 deep — and to all 12 of ’em running, off makes and misses — that makes them tough to handle on the second night of a back-to-back in February, but that makes them an absolute nightmare to deal with every other night for two weeks in late May.

It’s a play style that elevates collective effect over individual impact — one that makes the Pacers different and special, has made them one of the best teams in the NBA for nearly six months … and now, has made them Eastern Conference champions.

Eleven Pacers played before garbage time in Saturday’s 125-108 Game 6 win, and seven of them scored in double figures. Andrew Nembhard changed the game with his defense on Knicks star Jalen Brunson, snatching six steals and getting his offensive game unstuck with 14 points on 6-for-12 shooting. Backup center Thomas Bryant, who’d seen his minutes dwindle in favor of Tony Bradley’s superior ability to battle Knicks center Mitchell Robinson on the glass, got an opportunity to return to the fold with Bradley nursing an injured hip; he made the most of it, drilling three huge 3-pointers, blocking a shot and finishing with 11 points in 13 minutes. Obi Toppin provided his trademark irrepressible energy and above-the-rim finishing against the team that drafted and then traded him, chipping in 18 points, six rebounds and three blocks. (That last stat drew a surprised smile after the game from Haliburton, who chided Toppin for having “all that athleticism, but just [not using] it on the defensive end sometimes.”)

“We’ve preached depth this whole year,” said Haliburton, who didn’t need to dominate the ball or the shots to bounce back from his quiet Game 5, tallying 21 points, 13 assists, six rebounds, three steals and a block. “We keep talking about it, and it’s not just a word we use for fun. This is our identity, and this is who we are, and I thought we did a great job of utilizing that. We had many different people step up.”

Including, of course, Indiana’s superstars, who knew they had to turn in more forceful and productive outings back home in Game 6 than they had at Madison Square Garden in Game 5, and who answered the call.

Pascal Siakam kept the offense afloat early, scoring 16 first-half points to stake Indiana to leads after the first and second quarters of a tight, tense elimination-game first half contested entirely within two possessions, with neither team able to gain more than six points of separation. He tilted the run of play in the Pacers’ favor shortly after intermission, having a hand in three straight buckets — a pick-and-pop 3, a setup for an Aaron Nesmith 3 in transition and a transition leak-out and beautiful reverse finish through contact — that amounted to a 9-0 run to put Indiana up 13 early in the third and giving it the separation it needed to push the Knicks past their breaking point.

Siakam would finish with a game-high 31 points, five rebounds, three assists, three blocks and a steal — another monster performance in an Eastern Conference finals where the Knicks never really found a great answer for him, where he made abundantly clear why Pacers brass felt he was the missing piece they had to go all out to get at the 2024 trade deadline and of which he was voted the Most Valuable Player.

“It’s cool,” Siakam said of the Larry Bird Trophy, which he brought with him to his postgame news conference. “I didn’t know they had a trophy for that, but I’m excited.”

Not as excited, though, as he is to get another chance to play for a much bigger gold trophy, six years after he hoisted it with the 2019 Toronto Raptors.

“I was telling the guys — I mean, like, for me, you know, I got there when I was in Year 3, and I thought I would get back there a lot. And it didn’t happen,” Siakam said. “So it’s a hell of an opportunity, and you don’t know when you’re gonna get it again. So I think we have to have a mindset of going out there and, at the end of the day, just giving everything we’ve got and knowing that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Haliburton didn’t get many good shots early, going without a field goal until he sprinted into a pull-up 3 four and a half minutes into the second quarter. But he kept reading the game, kept moving the ball and his body, and kept trusting that the deposits that he and the Pacers had put in over the course of the game and the series — all those miles they put on the Knicks’ legs, all the mental and physical strain they’d put on New York’s players with their frenetic, relentless motion — would eventually pay off.

And then, in the fourth quarter, the dam burst, with Haliburton slicing the Knicks’ pick-and-roll coverage to ribbons, repeatedly getting into the paint to either finish for himself or set up a rolling Obi Toppin for a layup or dunk. Haliburton scored or assisted on 19 points in the fourth, capping it with a 32-foot bomb in the final minute to push the lead to 20 — a coup de grâce to pack up the Knicks and send them back to New York and to send the Pacers to the NBA Finals.

“I’m so proud of Tyrese, bro. For real, man,” Pacers center Myles Turner said. “Y’all seen — you know, when it comes to being a superstar, bro, you got to take everything that comes with it. The highs and the lows, the good and the bad. And you know, from how the season started, to how he was getting trashed, and everybody was basically trying to turn their heads to him, he just kept his head down and kept working, man. Even going into this playoffs, the whole ‘overrated’ thing — I mean, obviously, we know that’s dead now. There’s not much you can say now.”

Haliburton’s playmaking and pace, Siakam’s ceaseless sprinting and gap-filling offensive play, and the strength-in-numbers approach carried the offense. What killed the Knicks, though, was Indiana repeatedly forcing them into costly mistakes — 17 turnovers leading to 34 Pacer points, as the team’s season-long commitment to cranking up the tempo and maintaining vise-grip pressure eventually claimed yet another victim.

“Our defense is something we’ve been working on steadfastly for over a year and a half,” Carlisle said. “I mean, really. The year started last year with, really, a different set of rules. We were playing small and even faster. It wasn’t a team that had great defenders. But we’ve gotten better defenders, we’ve gotten bigger, we got Pascal, and the guys co-signed on the importance of defense, and everybody has participated in the growth.”

For Turner, the growth started in the summer of 2015, when he came to Indiana as a reedy 19-year-old. A decade full of ups, downs, trade rumors, frontcourt partners and frustrations later, the longest-tenured Pacer is on his way to his first NBA Finals.

“When the buzzer was sounding, it was just … nothing but joy, man,” Turner said. “Just pure excitement. Just pure validation. Just all the years, all the hate, all the love — everything in between, bro. It just made so much sense in that moment. To be honest, man, I don’t know what I was thinking. It was just pure exuberance and joy.”

The Pacers get to feel that exuberance and joy for a night. And, if their coach has anything to say about it, maybe not even that much exuberance.

“This is no time to be popping champagne,” said Carlisle, who will participate in his sixth NBA Finals — three as a player on the mid-1980s Boston Celtics, one as an assistant on Larry Bird’s staff with the 2000 Pacers, and now two as a head coach after winning the 2011 title with the Dallas Mavericks. “You know, when you get to this point of the season, you know, it’s two teams and it’s one goal. It becomes an all-or-nothing thing, and we understand the magnitude of the opponent.”

That opponent — the Oklahoma City Thunder — has been nothing short of the best team in the NBA since the season’s opening tip. They feature the MVP of the league in point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, an All-Star running buddy in Jalen Williams, a fearsome two-headed monster on the inside in Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein, and the NBA’s most ferocious core of perimeter defenders. They’re young, they’re fast, they play with relentless intensity and apply incredible pressure.

Sounds familiar.

“I think it’s a new blueprint for the league, man,” Turner said. “I think the years of the superteams and stacking is just not as effective as it once was, you know? I mean, since I’ve been in the league, this NBA is very trendy. It just shifts. But the new trend now is just kind of what we’re doing. OKC does the same thing. You know: young guys, get out and run, defend, and you know, use the power of friendship.”

Whether that power will be enough to get the Pacers past the 68-win juggernaut they’re about to face remains to be seen; they’ll enter the series as serious underdogs. That’s just fine by them, though. They’re used to it.

From last year’s run to the Eastern Conference finals being dismissed as a fluke born of injuries to the teams along its path, to a brutal injury-marred 10-15 start to this season, to largely being viewed by national pundits as merely the foil to the Cavaliers and Knicks in this postseason, the Pacers have plenty of practice being overlooked. They’ve learned not to concern themselves with the paltry predictions of others; they’re not afraid to dream bigger.

“I thought we just did a great job of staying together as a group and not worrying about outside noise,” Haliburton said. “Internally, we had expectations to be here. This isn’t a surprise to any of us, because of what we wanted to do. … I just thought we did a great job, like I mentioned earlier, just being as present as possible — not living in the past, not worrying about what’s next. Just worrying about what’s now.”

What’s now, for Indiana, for the first time in a quarter-century, is the NBA Finals. They won’t win it on the strength of overwhelming star power. Keep on maximizing the output of a group that’s proven to be greater than the sum of its more-impressive-than-you-might-think parts, though — keep on playing Pacer basketball — and they’ve got a shot.

“You know, we’re a team that is an ecosystem,” Carlisle said. “We’re very dependent on the collective ingredients for the whole team to function at its best.”

INDIANAPOLIS — The temptation, after Tyrese Haliburton scored just eight points on seven shots in a disappointing Game 5 loss, was to call for the Indiana Pacers to adjust the sliders for Game 6 by overindexing on the kind of aggression that’s easy to see in the box score — to counteract the New York Knicks’ stepped-up ball pressure with hunted shots and hero ball.

That’s not what Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle called for, though.

“As a team, we have to be aggressive, and we have to have a level of balance,” he said after Game 5.

Which is to say: They needed to play Pacers basketball.

The many-hands-make-light-work approach that has produced one of the NBA’s most potent offenses. The insistence on pipe-bursting, full-court ball pressure that has made the Pacers one of the NBA’s most improved defenses. The commitment to running 12 deep — and to all 12 of ’em running, off makes and misses — that makes them tough to handle on the second night of a back-to-back in February, but that makes them an absolute nightmare to deal with every other night for two weeks in late May.

It’s a play style that elevates collective effect over individual impact — one that makes the Pacers different and special, has made them one of the best teams in the NBA for nearly six months … and now, has made them Eastern Conference champions.

Eleven Pacers played before garbage time in Saturday’s 125-108 Game 6 win, and seven of them scored in double figures. Andrew Nembhard changed the game with his defense on Knicks star Jalen Brunson, snatching six steals and getting his offensive game unstuck with 14 points on 6-for-12 shooting. Backup center Thomas Bryant, who’d seen his minutes dwindle in favor of Tony Bradley’s superior ability to battle Knicks center Mitchell Robinson on the glass, got an opportunity to return to the fold with Bradley nursing an injured hip; he made the most of it, drilling three huge 3-pointers, blocking a shot and finishing with 11 points in 13 minutes. Obi Toppin provided his trademark irrepressible energy and above-the-rim finishing against the team that drafted and then traded him, chipping in 18 points, six rebounds and three blocks. (That last stat drew a surprised smile after the game from Haliburton, who chided Toppin for having “all that athleticism, but just [not using] it on the defensive end sometimes.”)

“We’ve preached depth this whole year,” said Haliburton, who didn’t need to dominate the ball or the shots to bounce back from his quiet Game 5, tallying 21 points, 13 assists, six rebounds, three steals and a block. “We keep talking about it, and it’s not just a word we use for fun. This is our identity, and this is who we are, and I thought we did a great job of utilizing that. We had many different people step up.”

Including, of course, Indiana’s superstars, who knew they had to turn in more forceful and productive outings back home in Game 6 than they had at Madison Square Garden in Game 5, and who answered the call.

Pascal Siakam kept the offense afloat early, scoring 16 first-half points to stake Indiana to leads after the first and second quarters of a tight, tense elimination-game first half contested entirely within two possessions, with neither team able to gain more than six points of separation. He tilted the run of play in the Pacers’ favor shortly after intermission, having a hand in three straight buckets — a pick-and-pop 3, a setup for an Aaron Nesmith 3 in transition and a transition leak-out and beautiful reverse finish through contact — that amounted to a 9-0 run to put Indiana up 13 early in the third and giving it the separation it needed to push the Knicks past their breaking point.

Siakam would finish with a game-high 31 points, five rebounds, three assists, three blocks and a steal — another monster performance in an Eastern Conference finals where the Knicks never really found a great answer for him, where he made abundantly clear why Pacers brass felt he was the missing piece they had to go all out to get at the 2024 trade deadline and of which he was voted the Most Valuable Player.

“It’s cool,” Siakam said of the Larry Bird Trophy, which he brought with him to his postgame news conference. “I didn’t know they had a trophy for that, but I’m excited.”

Not as excited, though, as he is to get another chance to play for a much bigger gold trophy, six years after he hoisted it with the 2019 Toronto Raptors.

“I was telling the guys — I mean, like, for me, you know, I got there when I was in Year 3, and I thought I would get back there a lot. And it didn’t happen,” Siakam said. “So it’s a hell of an opportunity, and you don’t know when you’re gonna get it again. So I think we have to have a mindset of going out there and, at the end of the day, just giving everything we’ve got and knowing that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Haliburton didn’t get many good shots early, going without a field goal until he sprinted into a pull-up 3 four and a half minutes into the second quarter. But he kept reading the game, kept moving the ball and his body, and kept trusting that the deposits that he and the Pacers had put in over the course of the game and the series — all those miles they put on the Knicks’ legs, all the mental and physical strain they’d put on New York’s players with their frenetic, relentless motion — would eventually pay off.

And then, in the fourth quarter, the dam burst, with Haliburton slicing the Knicks’ pick-and-roll coverage to ribbons, repeatedly getting into the paint to either finish for himself or set up a rolling Obi Toppin for a layup or dunk. Haliburton scored or assisted on 19 points in the fourth, capping it with a 32-foot bomb in the final minute to push the lead to 20 — a coup de grâce to pack up the Knicks and send them back to New York and to send the Pacers to the NBA Finals.

“I’m so proud of Tyrese, bro. For real, man,” Pacers center Myles Turner said. “Y’all seen — you know, when it comes to being a superstar, bro, you got to take everything that comes with it. The highs and the lows, the good and the bad. And you know, from how the season started, to how he was getting trashed, and everybody was basically trying to turn their heads to him, he just kept his head down and kept working, man. Even going into this playoffs, the whole ‘overrated’ thing — I mean, obviously, we know that’s dead now. There’s not much you can say now.”

Haliburton’s playmaking and pace, Siakam’s ceaseless sprinting and gap-filling offensive play, and the strength-in-numbers approach carried the offense. What killed the Knicks, though, was Indiana repeatedly forcing them into costly mistakes — 17 turnovers leading to 34 Pacer points, as the team’s season-long commitment to cranking up the tempo and maintaining vise-grip pressure eventually claimed yet another victim.

“Our defense is something we’ve been working on steadfastly for over a year and a half,” Carlisle said. “I mean, really. The year started last year with, really, a different set of rules. We were playing small and even faster. It wasn’t a team that had great defenders. But we’ve gotten better defenders, we’ve gotten bigger, we got Pascal, and the guys co-signed on the importance of defense, and everybody has participated in the growth.”

For Turner, the growth started in the summer of 2015, when he came to Indiana as a reedy 19-year-old. A decade full of ups, downs, trade rumors, frontcourt partners and frustrations later, the longest-tenured Pacer is on his way to his first NBA Finals.

“When the buzzer was sounding, it was just … nothing but joy, man,” Turner said. “Just pure excitement. Just pure validation. Just all the years, all the hate, all the love — everything in between, bro. It just made so much sense in that moment. To be honest, man, I don’t know what I was thinking. It was just pure exuberance and joy.”

The Pacers get to feel that exuberance and joy for a night. And, if their coach has anything to say about it, maybe not even that much exuberance.

“This is no time to be popping champagne,” said Carlisle, who will participate in his sixth NBA Finals — three as a player on the mid-1980s Boston Celtics, one as an assistant on Larry Bird’s staff with the 2000 Pacers, and now two as a head coach after winning the 2011 title with the Dallas Mavericks. “You know, when you get to this point of the season, you know, it’s two teams and it’s one goal. It becomes an all-or-nothing thing, and we understand the magnitude of the opponent.”

That opponent — the Oklahoma City Thunder — has been nothing short of the best team in the NBA since the season’s opening tip. They feature the MVP of the league in point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, an All-Star running buddy in Jalen Williams, a fearsome two-headed monster on the inside in Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein, and the NBA’s most ferocious core of perimeter defenders. They’re young, they’re fast, they play with relentless intensity and apply incredible pressure.

Sounds familiar.

“I think it’s a new blueprint for the league, man,” Turner said. “I think the years of the superteams and stacking is just not as effective as it once was, you know? I mean, since I’ve been in the league, this NBA is very trendy. It just shifts. But the new trend now is just kind of what we’re doing. OKC does the same thing. You know: young guys, get out and run, defend, and you know, use the power of friendship.”

Whether that power will be enough to get the Pacers past the 68-win juggernaut they’re about to face remains to be seen; they’ll enter the series as serious underdogs. That’s just fine by them, though. They’re used to it.

From last year’s run to the Eastern Conference finals being dismissed as a fluke born of injuries to the teams along its path, to a brutal injury-marred 10-15 start to this season, to largely being viewed by national pundits as merely the foil to the Cavaliers and Knicks in this postseason, the Pacers have plenty of practice being overlooked. They’ve learned not to concern themselves with the paltry predictions of others; they’re not afraid to dream bigger.

“I thought we just did a great job of staying together as a group and not worrying about outside noise,” Haliburton said. “Internally, we had expectations to be here. This isn’t a surprise to any of us, because of what we wanted to do. … I just thought we did a great job, like I mentioned earlier, just being as present as possible — not living in the past, not worrying about what’s next. Just worrying about what’s now.”

What’s now, for Indiana, for the first time in a quarter-century, is the NBA Finals. They won’t win it on the strength of overwhelming star power. Keep on maximizing the output of a group that’s proven to be greater than the sum of its more-impressive-than-you-might-think parts, though — keep on playing Pacer basketball — and they’ve got a shot.

“You know, we’re a team that is an ecosystem,” Carlisle said. “We’re very dependent on the collective ingredients for the whole team to function at its best.”

When the dust finally settles from the Knicks’ season-ending loss to the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, a considerable chunk of the summer chatter will center around the job security of head coach Tom Thibodeau.

The debates among fans and pundits haven’t cooled down. Some believe the veteran coach deserves another season to guide the Knicks’ current core, while others contend a fresh face sharing a new philosophy is needed for the franchise to finally reach championship heights.

Thibodeau’s seat isn’t as hot as it used to be — there were rumblings about his future back in April, before the Knicks faced the underdog Pistons in the first round of the playoffs. A disappointing finish to the 2024-25 season can’t erase their overachievements, and captain Jalen Brunson emphatically believes his coach is fit to continue leading the group.

“Is that a real question right now?” Brunson said after the Game 6 loss to the Pacers on Saturday night. “You just asked me if I believe he’s the right guy? Yes.”

The Knicks didn’t play a disciplined brand of basketball with a long-coveted trip to the NBA Finals up for grabs. They comitted a whopping 93 turnovers across six games against the Pacers, and conceded 23.3 points on average from those blunders alone. Throughout the series, Indiana was tougher and more resilient.

Of course, not all fingers can be pointed toward Thibodeau for the Knicks’ shortcomings. His job is restricted to the bench and sideline. But there isn’t a single Knicks fan who could seriously argue Thibodeau coached a better series than Pacers veteran Rick Carlisle. In a battle of wits and scheme, it was practically no contest.

But the Knicks still earned their ticket to the Eastern Conference Finals with mental fortitude and timely starpower, and even Carlisle recognizes how Thibodeau has helped reshape the franchise’s image since assuming the head coaching job in 2020.

“The Knicks were an unreal opponent,” Carlisle said. “Tough-minded, always coming at you. After the game, they showed great class with all the interactions I had with those guys. I mentioned the job that Thibs has done there. He’s turned the culture completely flipped from where it was.”

Thibodeau, who turned 67 in January, signed a three-year contract extension with the Knicks last summer that keeps him with the team through the 2027-28 season. Only time will tell if he sticks around for the handful of seasons remaining on his deal.

Jalen Brunson was asked if he has confidence that Tom Thibodeau is the right coach for the Knicks moving forward:

“Is that a real question right now? You just asked me if I believe if he’s the right guy. Yes.” pic.twitter.com/FRjCO8genL

— Knicks Videos (@sny_knicks) June 1, 2025

The closest battle at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Saturday wasn’t the Indiana Pacers’ game against the New York Knicks. It was Pascal Siakam vs. Tyrese Haliburton for Eastern Conference finals MVP.

The Pacers finished off the Knicks in emphatic fashion in Game 6 in a 125-108 win. After the game, Siakam was named MVP for the series, and it turned out he beat Haliburton for the honor by a single vote.

Five journalists voted for Siakam, while Haliburton got four votes.

Across six games in the series, Siakam averaged 24.8 points, 5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1 turnover per game while shooting 52.3% from the field. Haliburton averaged 21 points, 6 rebounds, 10.5 assists and 1.7 turnovers per game while shooting 45.5% from the field.

Both players came up huge in Game 6, with Siakam scoring 31 points to lead all scorers, and Haliburton posting 21 points and 13 assists.

Haliburton did contribute what will be the most lasting moment of the series, as his bouncing buzzer-beater in Game 1, and ensuing choke gesture to channel Reggie Miller, to send the game to overtime gave Indiana all the momentum it needed to stay ahead of New York.

However, Siakam came up bigger in the rest of the Pacers’ wins, posting at least 30 points in Games 2, 4 and 6. As the voting reflected, both players had a standout showing in the series, and will need to be even better in the NBA Finals if they want to take down the heavily favored Oklahoma City Thunder.

Steven Ryan via Getty Images

The Pacers acquired both players in blockbuster trades, and the franchise’s current era revolves around them. The Pacers blew up a core that had previously reached the playoffs by sending star big man Domantas Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Haliburton, then a promising but unproven point guard.

Once Haliburton started to emerge as an All-Star, the Pacers sought out a co-star and paid heavily for one with Siakam, sending a trio of players and a trio of first-round draft picks to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for a big man who helped win a championship in 2019.

The postseason has so far been a small-market success story. Its next chapter begins Thursday in OKC (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC).

LOS ANGELES — In a game where Mookie Betts didn’t play and Shohei Ohtani had just two singles, the Dodgers crushed the Yankees 18-2 on Saturday afternoon. 

There was a common theme in L.A.’s series-clinching victory against the Bronx Bombers. And unlike Game 1 where the reigning NL MVP showed the world who the best player in the sport was with two homers, Saturday’s victory showed the other side of what makes the Dodgers so dangerous.

Their uncanny depth.

Because of Betts missing his second game due to a fractured toe, it opened the door for Hyeseong Kim to get his first start of the season at shortstop. Kim, who signed a three-year, $12.5 million deal this offseason, is another versatile player, something the Dodgers have coveted in recent years.

Filling the shoes of Betts isn’t easy, but Kim did his best impression. After starting his afternoon with a walk, he delivered one of the game’s big blows, crushing a two-run homer as part of a six-run second inning for the Dodgers. The South Korean utilityman would go on to add two singles and a double finishing the game 4-for-4.

“His nickname is ‘The Comet’ for a reason,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

It was Kim’s sixth career multi-hit game and the first four-hit game of his career. 

He also did well defensively. First, he turned an unassisted double play diving to beat Austin Wells to second base while playing shortstop. He later headed out to center field and threw out Yankees superstar Aaron Judge attempting to stretch a single into a double in the sixth inning.

“There’s just something about him,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “That youthful enthusiasm, that joy, he’s just happy to be out there. Happy to be on the team, and guys feed off the energy. And he takes really good at-bats. He competes.”

It wasn’t just the Dodgers’ 9-hole hitter who provided L.A.’s spark Saturday. The bottom of the order was a driving force in routing the Yankees.

Muncy has come alive over the past three weeks. In the Dodgers’ victory over the Yankees, the third baseman continued his recent hot streak. Muncy had one of the best games of his career, hammering three-run homers in the second and fifth innings, and finishing the game with seven RBI. The first homer was the 200th of his career.

“It’s pretty cool,” Muncy said of his milestone. “To hit as many as I’ve hit in a Dodger uniform … it’s a blessing for sure. It’s a number that I’m definitely proud of. Hopefully I still got a lot more in me.”

Not only did the Dodgers superstars not have to do the heavy lifting in their rout of the Yankees, the combination of Kim, Muncy, Andy Pages and Tommy Edman went a combined 12-for-19 with four homers, nine runs and 12 RBI.

The Dodgers will go for the sweep of the 2024 World Series rematch on Sunday with an opportunity to make a statement not only to the Yankees, but to baseball that they’re still the team to beat, even if they don’t own the game’s best record. 

“That’s a good club. Good club over there,” Roberts said. “So I’m just happy with the process and how we’re taking the field and going about playing baseball.”

On Saturday, the Indiana Pacers wrapped up the Eastern Conference finals, finishing off the New York Knicks’ season and dashing any hopes New York had of winning its first championship in 50 years. Despite the loss, Knicks guard Jalen Brunson feels strongly his team can win it all next season.

Brunson was asked after the game if he believed this Knicks team could make a championship run next season. In his response, the guard was incredibly clear about his faith in the team.

“The most confidence. Overconfident. Seriously,” Brunson said. “There’s not an ounce of any type of doubt that I’m not confident with this group.”

Brunson gave it everything he had, averaging 30.6 points in the six games series against the Pacers. Still, the East finals loss was, on the whole, a disappointing ending for a Knicks team that had so much potential. 

New York made multiple key offseason moves to build a strong contending roster heading into the 2024-25 season. The team re-signed starting forward OG Anunoby, the second most expensive player on the roster, to a new five-year, $212.5 million extension in July. In September, the Knicks sent Julius Randle, a three-time All-Star, to the Minnesota Timberwolves, receiving veteran center Karl-Anthony Towns in return as part of a three-team trade.

While neither the Pacers or the Thunder had to pay the luxury tax this season, the Knicks did put a lot of money on the line. New York had the fourth-highest payroll in the league with $188,877,651, going more than $18 million over the tax threshold. Towns was the most expensive player on the team, earning $49.2 million this season; Anunoby was the second most expensive, earning $36.6 million this year.

Along with Mikal Bridges, the team’s four star starters all had good seasons. Brunson led the team, averaging 26 points per game, while Towns averaged a double-double. Anunoby and Bridges both averaged double-digit points, while logging more than 36 minutes per game.

Josh Hart, who moved to the bench midway through the East finals, finished the season with 13.6 points and 9.6 rebounds per game, nearly averaging a double-double of his own. The Knicks finished third in the East with a 51-31 record.

Those numbers held relatively strong throughout the postseason, too, as New York earned well-fought series wins over the Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics in the postseason before falling to the Pacers.

In the end, it wasn’t enough. New York will once again be watching the NBA Finals from home. If you take Brunson’s word for it: There’s always next year.

With a blowout victory Saturday night against the New York Knicks in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Indiana Pacers clinched a berth in the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Thunder defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games of the Western Conference finals.

Here are three things to know about the 78th edition of the NBA Finals …

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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Tyrese Haliburton

Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the first point guard to win MVP since Russell Westbrook won the award for the Thunder in 2017. The 6-foot-6, 200-pound Gilgeous-Alexander is a surgical superstar, knifing his way to his spots, drawing contact along the way. Some people call him a free-throw merchant when he might be the most complete scoring guard since Michael Jordan — at least since Kobe Bryant.

Gilgeous-Alexander averaged a league-leading 32.7 points per game (on 52/38/90 shooting splits) in the regular season, adding 6.4 assists, 5 rebounds, 1.7 steals and a block a night. He is averaging a 30-6-7 in the playoffs, numbers matched en route to an NBA Finals only by Jordan, LeBron James and Nikola Jokić.

In the other corner is Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton, a supreme playmaker who has been every bit as good in these playoffs. His style could be described as chaotic if it were not so mistake-free, and the Pacers as a team have adopted it. His 32 points, 15 assists and zero turnovers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals were a prime example of the kind of impact he is capable of having as both a scorer and facilitator.

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Haliburton averaged 18.6 points (47/39/85), 9.2 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 2.1 combined steals and blocks a game in the regular season. He has increased his production in the playoffs, averaging a 19-6-10, numbers matched en route to an NBA Finals only by Jokić, Magic Johnson and Bob Cousy. 

No two players have been more valuable to their teams in this postseason than Gilgeous-Alexander and Haliburton, and their contrasting styles will be on display opposite each other on an NBA Finals stage.

It did not go well for Haliburton during the regular season, as the Thunder swept the season series, 2-0. Gilgeous-Alexander outscored him in their first meeting, the day after Christmas, 45-4. It was one of SGA’s highest-scoring outputs of the season and one of Haliburton’s lowest. Haliburton was involved in just 8.3% of Indiana’s scoring opportunities, his lowest usage rate in any single game this season. The Thunder will force the ball from his hands, similar to how they just handled Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards.

Things did not go much better for Haliburton in the second meeting in late March. Gilgeous-Alexander outscored him in that one, 33-18. Only one other time this season has Haliburton had fewer assists than the three he had that night. His usage rate (17.1%) was again well below his season average (21.6%), and whenever his usage rate is that low the Pacers are 7-13 across both the regular season and the playoffs.

It is important to note Haliburton rarely defended Gilgeous-Alexander and vice-versa. Andrew Nembhard drew the bulk of the assignment for the Pacers against SGA, who scored 27 points on 11-for-18 shooting over 12:38 opposite Indiana’s primary defender, according to the NBA’s tracking data. The Thunder netted 124.3 points per 100 possessions over that span, equivalent to the best offense ever.

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Indiana’s offense vs. Oklahoma City’s defense

Indiana is known for its fast-paced brand of basketball, which has generated 117 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs, 1.1 points better than the Oklahoma City Thunder and the best of any team but the 64-win Cleveland Cavaliers, whom the Pacers eliminated, 4-1 — with a more effective offense.

Forget for a moment that Oklahoma City played at a faster pace in the regular season and focus on the Thunder’s defense for a moment. On that end they held opponents to 104.7 points per 100 possessions, best in the NBA. The difference between them and the second-best defense was equal to the difference between the second-best defense and the eighth-best outfit. Which is to say: The Thunder are a wagon.

Led by Haliburton, the Pacers play fast and efficiently, a deadly combination, which means they rarely turn the ball over. Their turnover rate during the regular season (13.1%) ranked as the league’s third-best, behind only the Thunder and the Boston Celtics, and they have been better with the ball in the playoffs.

Oklahoma City’s defense, however, has forced more turnovers than any other team in the NBA, both in the regular season and the playoffs. Their pressure is relentless. They won the turnover battle in their two games against the Pacers in the regular season, 24-13, outscoring them off those turnovers, 27-10.

They have Lu Dort, a member of the All-Defensive first team. Cason Wallace and Alex Caruso could have cracked that roster, too, if either had been Oklahoma City’s primary point-of-attack defender. They have Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, a pair of stars who’ve taken to defense. And they have Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren, two of the game’s best rim protectors. It is an embarrassment of defensive riches.

It is concerning, then, that the Pacers owned a 105.7 offensive rating when Haliburton was on the floor against the Thunder in the regular season. That figure would rank as the NBA’s worst offense if averaged over a full season. Haliburton’s offense was worse against only one team this season, the Charlotte Hornets, who snuck up on Indiana for a pair of victories — two of the Pacers’ worst losses of the season.

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Battle of the small markets

Few NBA teams are in smaller media markets than the Pacers of Indianapolis and the Thunder of OKC. We will hear plenty about this, as if we should care about how many people are watching along with us.

The television ratings will not be a referendum on the popularity of the league. Nor will they do much to impact the league’s bottom line, as the NBA’s new TV rights package — an 11-year, $76 billion deal with ESPN, NBC and Amazon — is set to begin next season. The NBA, for all the hullabaloo, is doing just fine.

We should be concerned with whether we get to see competitive basketball at the league’s highest level, and this has a chance to be that. The Thunder and Pacers are two teams who like to get up and down. There will be a lot of offense. One team boasts a historically great defense, and that is why the Thunder are favored to win the series, according to BetMGM. But do not underestimate Indiana’s hard-hat guys — Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith and Myles Turner among them — or their ability to make this a feisty series.

We should care about how these teams built sustainable winners in their small markets, for variety among the league’s contenders should be a good thing. Indiana built from the middle, remaining competitive, stacking quality draft picks, making moves on the fringes, and they nailed their two big swings, identifying Haliburton as their franchise savior and Pascal Siakam as a complementary star.

The Thunder similarly identified Gilgeous-Alexander as the future of their franchise, acquiring him, along with five first-round draft picks, in exchange for Paul George. Two of those picks became Williams, an All-Star, and Wallace, a rotational mainstay. They tanked for two seasons, landing Holmgren in the process, stockpiling draft picks, and team president Sam Presti has made far more good decisions than bad ones.

Funny enough, the Pacers built from trading George, too. George, who led the Pacers to two Eastern Conference finals but never an NBA Finals, begot Domantas Sabonis, who begot Haliburton. All the Philadelphia 76ers have to do to reach the NBA Finals, then, is trade George. We are kidding, of course.

But there are multiple paths to the NBA’s biggest stage, even for small markets, and that is a positive.

It took the Knicks less than a year to acquire OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns.

The mission was clear: Put significant talent around the scoring proficiency and playmaking acumen of point guard Jalen Brunson.

For the most part, it’s worked. They wouldn’t have made the Eastern Conference finals if it hadn’t.

Yet, in the process of gathering this All-Star team of starters, the Knicks relinquished depth — virtually all of it.

That lack of depth ultimately put them at a disadvantage against the Pacers, who kept throwing bodies at the stretched-out Knicks and wore them down in six games.

In the middle of it all stands Tom Thibodeau, the highly competent yet superbly stubborn head coach who played all of his starters more than 35 minutes per game in the regular season.

(Before you ask, no he did not scale down those minutes in the playoffs. To the surprise of absolutely no one, he went in the opposite direction.)

As New York now heads into the offseason, it at least has its ducks in a row in regard to its collective talent level. The Knicks’ best players are in place, and they are dangerous when applied accurately.

What the organization needs now is a heightened focus on the bench and to identify role players who can help the starters get more rest and perhaps elevate them to a higher level in pursuit of a title.

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2024-25 finish

Record: 51-31, third in the Eastern Conference. Lost to the Indiana Pacers in six games in the East finals.

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Highlight of the season

The nine-game winning streak in December, when the Knicks played like a well-oiled machine. Some will argue they beat up on bad teams, but that’s what they were supposed to do, and during that stretch it seemed near impossible for them to play down to the level of competition.

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Players signed for next season

Karl-Anthony Towns
OG Anunoby
Jalen Brunson
Mikal Bridges
Josh Hart
Mitchell Robinson
Miles McBride
Tyler Kolek
Pacome Dadiet

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Key free agents

Precious Achiuwa (UFA)
Landry Shamet (UFA)

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Projected salary

$194,354,847

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Draft picks

No. 50

Draft focus: Look, at No. 50 it’s hard to find someone to crack the rotation. But it’s not impossible. If the Knicks target the best defender left on the board, that player stands a reasonable chance of endearing himself to Thibodeau, potentially leading to minutes.

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Roster-building tools

Due to New York’s expensive roster, it doesn’t have a lot of leeway financially. It could use the tax MLE, but that would hard-cap it, possibly preventing the Knicks from making additional moves.

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Needs and goals

Obviously, the Knicks are looking to build on this season. They’ve fully embraced a win-now approach, and that’s not changing anytime soon. If they succeed in adding some quality depth, they could be a powerhouse next season.

Things got fiery between the Minnesota Twins and Seattle Mariners on Saturday. After a controversial strike turned into a heated argument with the umpire, Twins shortstop Carlos Correa and manager Rocco Baldelli were both ejected in the seventh inning.

The Mariners went on to win, 5-4, in 11 innings, with second baseman Cole Young getting the game-winning RBI in his major league debut.

After a borderline pitch to third baseman Brooks Lee was called a strike, Correa stepped out of the on-deck circle, seemingly expressing his opinion to home-plate umpire Austin Jones. Jones promptly ejected Correa, infuriating the shortstop, who had to be held back from Jones by his teammates.

Meanwhile, Baldelli, similarly furious, came over to argue his case. Jones quickly ejected him as well.

Twins first baseman Ty France, a former Mariner, stepped in for Correa in the batting order. Lee moved to take over Correa’s position at shortstop.

Minnesota took an early 3-0 lead in the second inning. But in the third inning, Cal Raleigh got the Mariners on the board with a two-run homer — his 22nd of the year, tying him with Shohei Ohtani at the top of the league.

Seattle shortstop J.P Crawford then hit another two-run bomb to give the Mariners the lead, celebrating with a nasty bat flip — and taking out a chunk of the scoreboard in the process.

But the Twins didn’t let Seattle end things there, with Trevor Larnach getting an RBI single in the top of the ninth to tie things up at 4-4.

After another scoreless inning, the Mariners finally finished the game in the 11th. Young hit a bouncing shot in the infield that was easily fielded by France, but his throw didn’t reach home plate in time. Pinch-runner Miles Mastrobuoni slid in for the winning run and the 5-4 Seattle victory.

Overall, it was a banner debut for Young, who became the first MLB rookie to record a walk, hit and walk-off in his major league debut since then-Kansas City Royals second baseman Samad Taylor in 2023, per Alex Mayer of the Mariners. And in a wonderful full-circle moment, Taylor now with the Mariners’ organization, and actually replaced Young at second base for the Tacoma Rainiers.

The Twins and Mariners will complete the three-game series on Sunday.