JALEN BRUNSON RETURNS FROM FOOTBALL INJURY, SPARKS KNICKS PAST PACERS FOR 2-0 LEAD IN EASTERN SEMIFINALS

AP Photo 

 NEW YORK (AP) — Jalen Brunson left the locker room on an injured leg, walked onto the court and sent the Madison Square Garden crowd into a frenzy, just as Willis Reed had exactly 54 years earlier.

As the roars turned into “MVP! MVP!” chants, Brunson tried to block out the pain in his body and the noise all around him as he warmed up at halftime.

“It was really cool to hear, but I just knew that I had to get my mind in the right place to figure out how I was going to attack the second half,” Brunson said.

He shook off his right foot injury to score 24 of his 29 points in the final two quarters, leading the New York Knicks to a 130-121 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday night for a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

On the anniversary of Reed's dramatic emergence from the locker room before Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals to lead the Knicks to their first title, Brunson had missed the entire second quarter while the Pacers surged ahead to a double-figure lead.

Reed's teammates have said they didn't know if he would play that night. Brunson's had no doubt.

“I mean, he’s a warrior. That’s all I got,” Donte DiVincenzo said. “There was no doubt in my mind that he’ll be back. All season long, no matter what is thrown at him, injury bug or whatever, he always bounces back. And we knew the severity of the game and everything, so we knew, everybody had confidence he was coming back."

Brunson fell short of becoming the second player in NBA history to score 40 or more points in five straight playoff games, but he gave the Knicks everything they needed to move halfway to their first Eastern Conference finals appearance since 2000.

“He’s a great leader, so I think the players all have respect for that, when a guy goes out and is willing to give whatever he has, and so that says a lot about him," Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said.

OG Anunoby added a career playoff-high 28 points before leaving with a left hamstring injury in the third quarter for the injury-riddled Knicks, who have already lost three key players to season-ending injuries.

But they got Brunson back and received huge efforts again from his two Villanova teammates. DiVincenzo scored 28 points and Josh Hart had 19 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists for the No. 2-seeded Knicks.

Tyrese Haliburton rebounded from a poor Game 1 with 34 points, nine assists and six rebounds for the Pacers, who finished the game without coach Rick Carlisle after he got two technical fouls and was ejected.

“Small-market teams deserve an equal shot,” Carlisle said during a postgame complaint about the officiating. “They deserve a fair shot no matter where they are playing.”

The series moves to Indiana for Game 3 on Friday and Game 4 on Sunday.

Former Knicks forward Obi Toppin added 20 points in another strong effort by Indiana’s reserves, but the Pacers hurt themselves by shooting just 10 for 17 (59%) from the free throw line.

Knicks fans profanely jeered Pacers Hall of Famer Reggie Miller, an enemy from the heated 1990s era of this playoff rivalry who was calling the game as part of TNT’s crew, during a delirious finish to what had been a nervous first half, when Brunson was missing for the entire second quarter.

He had made a 3-pointer for a 24-13 lead in the first quarter, giving the Knicks 10 baskets in their first 14 shots in a blistering start. But after Toppin made one for the Pacers on the other end, Brunson began waving to the bench for a substitution as he ran down the court on offense. That was early in an 11-0 run by Indiana to tie it, and it was tied again at 36 after Toppin made three free throws with 0.3 seconds remaining.

The Pacers then made 15 of 22 shots in the second quarter in Brunson’s absence, outscoring the Knicks 37-27 to take a 73-63 lead.

Brunson would only say he felt some discomfort and that once he warmed up, he knew he was going back into the game.

“I had a decision to make and I made a decision,” Brunson said.

Indiana’s lead was 79-70 before the Knicks stormed ahead with a 14-0 run, with Brunson contributing a three-point play during it as New York went ahead 84-79.

Anunoby was hurt soon after, appearing to injure his hamstring while trying to finish a fast-break layup, but Brunson guided the Knicks through the finish with 14 points in the fourth quarter.

With All-Star Julius Randle gone to shoulder surgery and key reserves Mitchell Robinson and Bojan Bogdanovic lost in the playoffs, the Knicks have been relying on their starters to play major minutes — all 48 of them for Hart in both games of the series.

So they can't afford to play without Brunson, who finished fifth in the voting for MVP that Nikola Jokic won Wednesday.

He had joined Jerry West, Michael Jordan and Bernard King as the only players with at least four straight 40-point games in the playoffs, and came in as the leading scorer in the postseason with 36.6 points per game.

Brunson ended up getting fairly close to that despite playing only 32 minutes, saying afterward that teammates were teasing him with Reed jokes.

Isaiah Hartenstein finished with 14 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists for the Knicks, forced to play 39 minutes after the Knicks announced Tuesday that Robinson would miss at least six weeks with a stress injury to his left ankle.

The Knicks paid tribute to Reed's return, one of the most memorable moments in NBA and Madison Square Garden history, during the first quarter. His No. 19 jersey, hanging in the rafters, was spotlighted, and Hall of Fame teammate Walt Frazier came onto the court for an ovation.

- BRIAN MAHONEY

KNICKS SET FOR SECOND ROUND AGAINST THE PACERS, AN OLD-SCHOOL PLAYOFF RIVAL WHO PLAY A NEW-AGE GAME

AP Photo 

 NEW YORK (AP) — Back when the New York Knicks would annually march on in the playoffs, they'd almost always run into the Indiana Pacers.

With the teams set to renew their playoff rivalry Monday in the Eastern Conference semifinals, it's easy to think back to those rough and rugged tussles in the 1990s. But while the matchup may be old school, Jalen Brunson and the Knicks are bracing for an opponent who plays a new-age style.

Tyrese Haliburton runs the NBA's highest-scoring offense, with Indiana putting numbers on the scoreboard that make the ones in the past Knicks-Pacers contests look like a different sport, not just a different century.

“I guess whenever you have the original teams from back then, there’s always going to be some type of history," Brunson said. "But you have two good teams who play very, I don’t want to say different, but like, they play their own style of basketball. And so it’s going to be a grind of who’s going to go out there, who’s going to want it more who’s going to try to go get it.”

Brunson led the No. 2-seeded Knicks past Philadelphia in the first round, sending the Knicks into the East semifinals in consecutive seasons for the first time since making nine straight trips between 1992 and 2000.

He scored 40 or more points in the final three games, just the seventh player in NBA history with three straight 40-point games in the playoffs. The league's No. 4 scorer in the regular season tops all players in the postseason with 35.5 per game.

Indiana's big numbers come as a team. The Pacers led the league with 123.3 points per game, sixth highest in league history, and also were tops in field goal percentage and assists. They reached 140 points 11 times, an NBA record.

The sixth-seeded Pacers haven't slowed down too much in the playoffs. They averaged 113 while knocking off No. 3 Milwaukee and reached at least 120 in all four victories during the six-game series.

The Knicks and Pacers met three straight times from 1993-95 — exchanging Game 7 victories in the latter two — then again from 1998-2000, with the last two of those in the Eastern Conference finals. Indiana won the most recent meeting, ousting the No. 2-seeded Knicks in the 2013 East semifinals.

Neither team ever reached 120 points in any of the 41 games.

“It’s just a very intense matchup, that’s really the simple truth about it,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. "There’s a lot of stuff with Reggie Miller for five or six years and I know in 2013 there was another matchup. We’re going to have to be very resilient and we’re going to have to be very together.”

THIS SEASON

Indiana went 2-1 against New York and was right at its season average with 123.3 points per game, including 140 in a Dec. 30 victory when the Knicks were short-handed after a trade. Brunson averaged 35.7 points.

BRUNSON VS. HALIBURTON

The point guards were U.S. teammates last summer playing in the Basketball World Cup, then went on to have their best NBA seasons. Both were All-Stars, with Haliburton the Eastern Conference starter in his home arena en route to leading the league with 10.9 assists per game.

EX-RAPTOR VS. EX-RAPTOR

Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby were starters in Toronto to begin the season before the forwards were traded, with Anunoby going to the Knicks in December and Siakam to Indiana in January. The Knicks are 24-5 with Anunoby in the lineup and may need him now to defend his former teammate, who opened the playoffs with consecutive games of at least 35 points and 10 rebounds.

BRUNSON VS. CARLISLE

Brunson began his career in Dallas playing for Carlisle, who praised his former player's character and said they had a great three years together. Brunson was asked if he had extra motivation after an ESPN podcast referenced his frustration in getting only 10 minutes of playing time in a Game 7 loss to the Clippers in 2021.

"In all honesty, I said this last time, you’re in the playoffs now, there is no extra motivation," Brunson said. “It is what it is, the past is the past. Rick, he welcomed me into this league and he helped me become the player and he helped me grow from day one. So a coach has got to make decisions that suit their team. So whatever happened, happened and we’re moving forward from there.”

OBI'S OPPORTUNITY 

Obi Toppin was the Knicks' first-round pick in 2020 and became a fan favorite, though rarely got extended playing time behind All-Star Julius Randle. He scored a career playoff-high 21 points off the bench in the clinching victory over Milwaukee and now heads back to his original NBA home.

“They’re one of the most physical teams in the league," Toppin said. "They’ve had that identity for many years and we’ve got to come in there and match that physicality and play our style of basketball, and I think we’ll be good at that.”

TYRES MAXEY SAVES SIXERS FROM ELIMINATION WITH HUGE FINISH IN OT WIN THAT CUT'S KNICKS' LEAD TO 3-2

AP Photo 

 NEW YORK (AP) — Tyrese Maxey made his Madison Square Garden memory, engineering a season-saving comeback with a rapid-fire flurry that evoked memories of Reggie Miller.

Not that he was thinking about his own legacy as those 3-pointers fell through the net.

“Going through my mind right there was just, find a way to survive,” Maxey said.

The 76ers did. Now they're thinking about advancing.

Maxey saved Philadelphia from elimination with seven points in the final 25 seconds of regulation, finished with 46 and led the 76ers to a 112-106 overtime victory over the New York Knicks on Tuesday night in Game 5 of their first-round series.

The Sixers trailed by six points with 28 seconds left in regulation before Maxey pulled out a comeback that had team trainer Kevin Johnson talking to him about Miller's eight points in nine seconds for Indiana in an out-of-nowhere comeback at Madison Square Garden in 1995.

Asked to describe the feeling, Maxey settled on “mandatory.”

The All-Star guard converted a four-point play with 25 seconds remaining to cut it to two, and after Josh Hart's free throw, pulled up from 35 feet to tie it at 97 with 8.1 seconds left in front of a stunned crowd that was set to celebrate the Knicks' second straight trip to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Joel Embiid finished with 19 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists for the Sixers, who will host Game 6 on Thursday night.

Jalen Brunson scored 40 points for the Knicks, who were thinking about a possible Game 1 of the second round at MSG on Saturday night. Instead, it could be Game 7 of this series, which seemed all but over.

“It was a tough way to lose because you get up six, eight and then we had a couple turnovers and we’ve got to just be better,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Play tougher with the lead, use good judgement. Fourth quarter is different, understand the difference. So we can do better and we will.”

It was the second desperate rally to avoid what seemed like certain defeat in what has been a razor-tight series between Atlantic Division rivals. The Knicks won Game 2 after trailing by five points with under 30 seconds remaining.

Embiid, who has been ailing and missed shootaround with a headache, didn’t score like usual after coming into the game with an NBA-leading 35 points per game in the playoffs. But Maxey picked up the load, making seven 3-pointers while adding nine assists.

“I think that considering that our No. 1 option was struggling, for him to say, ‘All right, I got to put this team on my back and go,’ I just kept encouraging him, like, to take his chances, take his shots, make plays,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said. “And he certainly did it and got in a rhythm and made a whole bunch of them.”

Maxey had the most points by a Sixers player in a win to stave off elimination, surpassing Hall of Famer Allen Iverson's 44 in a Game 7 win against Milwaukee in the 2001 Eastern Conference final.

Maxey's last 3-pointer got the 76ers on the board in overtime after Brunson scored the first five points. That triggered a 9-0 run that Embiid capped with a three-point play with 1:40 remaining for a 106-102 lead, and after Brunson’s 3 tied it at 106, Kelly Oubre Jr. made the tiebreaking basket with 1:02 to go and Tobias Harris followed with two free throws.

Harris had 19 points and Oubre scored 14.

Hart had 18 points and OG Anunoby 17 for the Knicks, who won Game 4 at Philadelphia and didn't appear like they were heading back there. But the Sixers' rally to win by six meant the No. 7 seeds have outscored the Knicks by two total points in the series.

Embiid was the target of the loud and long boos before the game even started, Knicks fans angry after his flagrant foul on Robinson in Game 3 in Philadelphia. They had plenty of chances to jeer him after Embiid also had nine turnovers in a sloppy performance.

But thanks to Maxey, Embiid might be playing in front of that MSG crowd one more time.

“It’s not hostile," Embiid said of the taunts that were frequently profane. “I mean, I love New York. New York is one of my favorite cities in the world. I have (had) a place here for the past five years. I just love New York. And then the fans, when you play against a team, they’re always going to pick that guy and they seem to have picked me, which is fun. I love it.”

Embiid shuffled slowly through the locker room a little more than an hour before the game, resting his head in his hand while he briefly sat before going to warm up. He may have lacked energy, but the 23-year-old Maxey, the winner of the NBA's Most Improved Player award, seems to have a limitless amount.

Robinson returned after missing Game 4 with a sprained left ankle, but the Knicks announced before the game that Bojan Bogdanovic would miss the rest of the playoffs and have surgery on the left foot he injured in Game 4.

The Knicks, who have flourished when Embiid is resting in the series, started a 22-5 run while he was out in the second quarter and went up by 10 points in the period. They were ahead 70-69 going to the fourth.

- BRIAN MAHONEY