NEW YORK — Tyrese Haliburton scored 26 points and the Indiana Pacers had one of the most sensational first halves in Game 7 history with a 130-109 victory over the New York Knicks on Sunday to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 10 years. .
The Pacers made 29 of their 38 shots in the first half, a 76.3% shooting percentage that was the highest in the postseason since 1997, when the NBA began keeping detailed play-by-play breakdowns throughout all four quarters. They led 70-55 at that point and pulled away whenever the Knicks tried to make a run in the second half.
The sixth-seeded Pacers set an NBA playoff record by finishing 67.1 percent in the game and advanced to face top-seeded Boston in a series that begins Tuesday. Indiana last reached the conference finals in 2014, losing to Miami.
Jalen Brunson left in the second half with a broken left hand, the latest injury for the Knicks team that was decimated by them.
They brought OG Anunoby back on Sunday after he missed the previous four games with a strained left hamstring, but he clearly wasn’t moving well and was taken out of the game after just five minutes.
Pascal Siakam and Andrew Nembhard scored 20 points each and Aaron Nesmith was 8-for-8 en route to 19 for the Pacers.
Donte DiVincenzo made nine 3-pointers and scored 39 points for the Knicks who were trying to reach the conference finals for the first time since 2000 but couldn’t overcome losses from Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson and Bojan Bogdanovic before losing Anunoby and finally Brunson.
Brunson finished with 17 points and nine assists, shooting 6 of 17 after scoring 40 or more points five times this postseason. Alec Burks came off the bench for 26 points.
The third Game 7 between the franchises — the Knicks won in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals and the Pacers notched a 97-95 victory the following year in the Eastern Semifinals — was a chance for the Pacers to showcase the offense that led the NBA. with 123.3 points per game.
They scored 39 points in the first quarter, the most in a Game 7 in the play-by-play era, looking exactly like the team that set an NBA record this season by reaching 140 points 11 times.
The Pacers made 10 of their first 11 shots — it would have been 11 of 12, but Myles Turner’s dunk attempt bounced off the basket — and didn’t slow down much the rest of the half. Knicks fans who screamed and chanted before the game groaned as the Pacers made shot after shot, no matter how well the Knicks defended them.
The Pacers led 39-27 after shooting 16 of 21 from the field (76.2%) and 7 of 9 from 3-point range (77.8%) in the first quarter. Indiana then went 13-17 (76.5%) in the second quarter as the lead grew to 22 points.
The Knicks cut it to 70-55 at halftime, then scored the first seven of the half as part of a 12-3 start to the second half that cut it to 73-67. But with the Pacers leading by seven, the Knicks committed three consecutive turnovers that helped Indiana increase the lead to 84-70.
Josh Hart suffered an abdominal strain for the Knicks, scoring 10 points and eight rebounds.
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