Pacers Report Cards: Grading every Pacers player's second-round performance
By Mueez Azfar
Myles Turner
Stats: 7 Games, 31.6 MPG, 16.1 PPG, 6 RPG, 1.9 APG, 0.6 SPG, 2.3 BPG, 1.9 TOV, 2.4 FPG 53.8/48.3/78.9 Splits on 65.4% TS
After a phenomenal first-round series against Indiana, Myles Turner was expected to bring that same sweet shooting and defensive ability to the New York series. However, one thing that would be called into question was his rebounding and toughness.
He's not known for much in the rebounding department, especially this season since he spent most of his time helping on the perimeter, which is part of the reason why his block numbers were so low, the hope was that Turner could change his act and be more aggressive down low to help the Pacers win some rebounding battles, which would be tough against a team like the Knicks, who owned the offensive boards.
Unfortunately, this did not work out in Games 1 and 2, as Turner only pulled down two rebounds in the first game and scored a mere six points and grabbed seven rebounds in Game 2 as the Pacers dropped both games to trail 0-2 in the series.
At that point, something needed to change, While Turner had a solid Game 1 scoring-wise, he could not rebound the ball to save his life and his production fell off a cliff in Game 2. Thankfully, he picked it up in the following two games, notching a 21-point, 10-rebound double-double in Game 3 and finishing a perfect 5/5 from the field in Game 4 to help tie up the series.
Game 5, however, was a rocky road for Turner. While he scored 16 points and led a short Pacers comeback attempt at the start of the second half, it was not to be, and Turner's most memorable moment from this game was being out-rebounded by Donte DiVincenzo for a putback dunk and his altercation with DiVincenzo shortly after. It was clear that Turner's play style and aggressiveness needed to change if the Pacers were to dig themselves out of the hole they jumped in after Game 5.
Thankfully, Myles Turner completely changed up his approach in the final two games. In Game 6, we saw a much more aggressive Turner, as he boxed out Isaiah Hartenstein as much as he could, and kept the Knicks from owning the boards, grabbing eight rebounds of his own and scoring 17 points. To finish it off, Turner matched that point total in Game 7 with 17 points and grabbed five rebounds as well as four blocks to secure the series win.
Myles Turner's series is a story with three parts. The first two games were rather unremarkable, as, despite the nice scoring in the first game, he was clearly not doing enough to propel the Pacers to victory. The next two games were a story of redemption, as Turner picked up the scoring slack to help Indiana win two more games.
Finally, the fifth game served as a wake-up call for the final two, which put the Myles Turner Indiana needed all series on display, as he played like a true big man with the sweet-shooting touch everyone knew and loved him for.