Knicks use balanced effort to cut Pacers in gritty road win

The Knicks left their shooting woes in 2020, kept a solid defense, and found their finishing touches.

After a brutal New Years Eve filming night against the Raptors in Tampa, the Knicks bounced back and relied on their defense late to close the Pacers for a 106-102 victory on Saturday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

After briefly losing their lead in the middle of the fourth quarter, the Knicks (3-3) used an 11-0 streak and ended the game 13-6 to secure the victory.

“That’s what it is – all we have to do to win is the only thing that matters,” said Julius Randle, who pulled off a big late flight that led to a dunk during the decisive run. “We did a great job getting saves on the straight and then on the offensive side, just playing for each other.

RJ Barrett, who was among the main culprits on a cold night of filming Thursday, found his rhythm and led the way with 25 points. Randle got off to a rough start on Saturday – he was held scoreless until the last minute of the first half – and finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists.

Randle’s defense against Domantas Sabonis, Mitchell Robinson’s big night (16 points, nine rebounds) and an aggressive Elfrid Payton (19 points) helped the Knicks dominate the Pacers (4-2) in the paint, edging them 56 -26 and rebounds them 51-32.

“It was a big concern, the way they put the ball in the paint and score in there,” said coach Tom Thibodeau. “It’s everyone related. … [The Pacers put] huge pressure on your defense. It forces you to do more than one thing, so there are often two, three, four, five efforts on a game and that’s what it takes to win.

Sabonis racked up 32 points in the Pacers’ season opener over the Knicks, but was held to 13 points on Saturday night. Malcolm Brogdon caught fire from downtown, leading the Pacers with 33 points, but the Knicks didn’t let him spoil their otherwise robust defensive effort.

After shooting a brutal 3-for-36 over the arc in Thursday’s loss, the Knicks started Saturday’s game 3-for-4 deep and finished 12-for-27.

Barrett emptied the first 3 he picked up in the first quarter, breaking a slippage of 21 straight misses over the arc in his previous four games. He scored 2 for 2 minutes later, picking up where he left off in Indiana after shooting 3 for 3 so far in the season.

After Barrett’s 0-for-8 showing from 3 on Thursday, he spent an hour on Tampa court taking more shots. It seemed to help him get out of his funk as he finished the shot 4 on 5 of 3 on Saturday.

“I just did some extra work, but I really fired the same shots that I fired in the last two games,” Barrett said. “They came in tonight.

Although Randle didn’t score before sinking into a layup with 43 seconds left in the first half – after starting 0-for-6 with four turnovers and four assists – Robinson helped take the relay. The cross was active around the rim, cleaning up offensive rebounds and going 6-for-6 for 12 points in the first half.

The Knicks were trailing 51-50 at halftime, but came out strong to start the third quarter, setting the tone for how they would end the game on the back of their defense.

“We feel like we’re giving ourselves a chance to win every night and that’s what we’ve done so far,” said Randle. “The most important thing is to finish the games. Going into the third quarter, I tried to let the guys know that Indiana is a huge third quarter team. … So we had to be aggressive, come in and fight and that’s what we did.