Kristian Winfield: Knicks lost Game 2 to Pacers because they couldn't stop one play

NEW YORK — T.J. McConnell is bringing the ball up the floor.

It’s a tie game, 81-81, on the first possession of the fourth quarter in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, and the Pacers have begun the flurry of pick-and-roll actions that will decide the game. And the Knicks cannot keep pace.

“I know one time I [messed] up the coverage. I just think we just didn’t help each other after a couple more times,” Mikal Bridges would say after the game. “They found the right plays. We just have to follow the game plan and help each other.”

On the first go-round, McConnell calls his own number. Myles Turner steps up to screen Bridges, who’s guarding the point of attack — but sags what feels like a mile off Indiana’s reserve guard. McConnell accepts the pick, pulls up from the foul line with acres of space, and drains it before Karl-Anthony Towns can meaningfully contest.

Pacers 83, Knicks 81.

What follows is a sequence of slow-motion collapse — a series of unfortunate events that snowball into a nightmare. Each possession unfolds the same: Turner sets the screen, the Knicks miscommunicate or mistime the coverage, and Indiana capitalizes. Over and over. And just like that, New York stares down an 0-2 series hole — the kind of deficit fewer than 8% of NBA teams in history have come back from.

“Don’t worry about that. I told y’all about history: We’re not here to repeat it; we’re here to make it,” Towns said at his locker after the game. “If I learned anything, especially last year, as quick as you win two games is as quick as you lose two games. So just bank on my experience, and we just got to execute at a higher level.”

On the very next possession — just seconds after Towns knocked down a pair of free throws to tie the game at 83 — the Knicks’ defense crumbled like a house of cards.

And again, it was the same basic action — a simple screen-and-roll — that unraveled everything. Because when the Pacers find a scab, they pick at it until it bleeds.

Turner set another screen for McConnell at the top of the key. This time, Towns jumped the pick, trapping McConnell alongside Bridges well behind the arc. But Turner slipped the screen and rolled free to the paint. Towns, late to recover, was a step behind. Mitchell Robinson rotated off Pascal Siakam to protect the rim. Cameron Payne left Ben Sheppard wide open at the top of the key to help.

McConnell, cool amid the chaos, dished to Sheppard.

Both Towns and Payne lunged to contest the open shooter. Robinson, caught in between two Pacers, darted back to Siakam, then reversed course toward Turner at the rim — but it was too late. Turner flushed the dunk. Robinson was whistled for the foul. Payne threw up his arms in frustration. Towns was caught in no man’s land.

“We had some blown coverages, and [suddenly] I think we were down six or nine, 10,” said Josh Hart, who watched from the bench as the unraveling began. “In the playoffs, a lot of games are determined by a possession or two. We can’t have those lapses. Two games in a row we did. We’ve got to figure it out.”

But “one or two possessions” sells the damage short.

The Knicks were out of sync for several straight minutes, and by the time they came up for air, they were staring at a nine-point hole.

Bridges answered Turner’s and-one with a smooth turnaround to trim the deficit to 86–85. But like clockwork, the Pacers went right back to their bread and butter: pick-and-roll with a twist.

Turner slipped another screen — and this time, both Robinson and Bridges stayed with McConnell at the top of the key. Turner floated to the right elbow, completely unbothered. No Knick defender within a broomstick’s reach.

Bank shot. Clean. Pacers 88, Knicks 85.

Then came the compounding error: Miles McBride, trying to push back in transition, drove coast-to-coast and lost the ball out of bounds beneath his own basket. A critical turnover in a critical stretch.

“Defensively, I just remember there were a couple possessions where we had two on ball, they got a layup, Turner got the bank shot, a pick-and-pop. Just the rotations weren’t there,” said Jalen Brunson, who, somewhat inexplicably, opened the fourth quarter on the bench.“There are things we need to obviously help each other out [with] when it comes to defensive rotations, and they weren’t there.”

Here came the Pacers again. Same action, same effect. Only this time they shifted the screen: Turner sprung McConnell free in the deep right corner. Towns jumped to cover Turner. Bridges chased McConnell, who sliced into the middle of the lane. And again, the Knicks had two on the ball — again Bridges and Robinson, this time deep in the paint — leaving someone wide open.

That someone? Ben Sheppard. Top of the key. Unbothered. Cash.

Pacers 91, Knicks 85. Timeout, Tom Thibodeau, frustrated and disappointed by his team’s defensive miscues.

“It comes down to a couple things. Going into the fourth quarter, it’s a tie ballgame,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said after the game. “And we just gotta make better plays, more winning plays.”

It was a tie game. But the Pacers generated offense. Meanwhile, Karl-Anthony Towns is leaning into a side-step two off the side of the backboard, and Cameron Payne’s buzzer-beating heave clanks off the shot clock.

Then here come the Pacers. Again.

This time, the scoring action unfolds on the opposite side of the floor. Turner is screening for McConnell again in the right corner. On the weak side, Sheppard and Siakam work in tandem — with Sheppard cutting behind Siakam from the wing to the paint. Payne, whose responsibility appears to be Sheppard, gives Siakam a two-hand shove. Mitchell Robinson, who seems to be on Siakam, hesitates, then crashes to help on Sheppard’s cut.

That one beat — with both Payne and Robinson committing to the perimeter before recovering to Sheppard — leaves Siakam wide-open at the exact spot he started.

McConnell sees it and hits him. Siakam drains the 3.

Pacers 94, Knicks 85 — a game decided in the opening three minutes of the fourth quarter, against a team that kept running the same action until the Knicks finally broke.

“Obviously they do a really good job of moving the ball, forcing you into those mistakes, and we have to be more sound defensively to guard the first action, second action, but also the third action,” Hart said. “We’re down 0-2, now we’re going to a tough place in Indiana. We gotta go and fix it. We can’t have blown coverages, no matter how late it is in the shot clock.”