The Indiana Pacers had to win Game 6 in Indy if they wanted their season to continue. After getting embarrassed in Game 5 in New York, it was nice to be able to travel home and play in front of a sellout crowd. It clearly helped because the Pacers blew out the Knicks 116-103.
Indiana played with much more energy from the start of the game. You could tell that they really put an emphasis on crashing the boards better and limiting offensive rebounds. That's exactly what the Pacers did. Myles Turner did an excellent job of blocking out Isaiah Harenstein, especially early.
Turner is actually our first stud. While he only had seven rebounds, his ability to keep Hartenstein off the boards was huge. Hartenstein only had six total boards after having 12 offensive rebounds in Game 5. Turner also added a couple of highlight dunks and had 17 points.
The Pacers got a great effort from Pascal Siakam as well. Siakam led the way in the first half, being the aggressive player that they wanted to see when they traded for him. He had 25 points, seven rebounds, and five assists in this game. No one on the Knicks could guard him.
While Tyrese Haliburton isn't one of the "studs" his aggressiveness was noticed. He was not afraid to get the ball in this game like he was against New York in Game 5. Not too many guys played poorly, but one guy does keep missing wide-open threes.
That player is Aaron Nesmith. He was 0-4 from three in this game. That means he's just 5-21 in this series against the Knicks. That's 23.8%. Most of his shots are wide-open too. I'm not sure what's going on because he was an excellent long-range shooter during the regular season.
Nesmith did still shoot 50% for the game because he made all his twos. But the Pacers are going to need him to hit those open threes in Game 7 if they want to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.