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For the New York Knicks, it was about playing harder, even if not really much better.
Saving their season would be more about effort than execution.
”Tonight it was just one of them days where you just got to leave it out there on the basketball court,” Carmelo Anthony said.
Now they have to do it two more times.
Anthony scored 28 points and the Knicks avoided elimination in the Eastern Conference semifinals with an 85-75 victory over the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 on Thursday night.
Reserves J.R. Smith and Chris Copeland each had 13 points for the Knicks, who trail 3-2 and will need a victory Saturday in Indiana to force a seventh game back here Monday. They are trying to become the ninth NBA team to overcome a 3-1 deficit to win a series…
Paul George had 23 points, six rebounds and six assists for the Pacers. They played without point guard George Hill because of a concussion and committed 19 turnovers…
George battled foul trouble and couldn’t contain Anthony quite as well as he had while the Pacers easily won the previous two games…
David West had 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Pacers, who were trying to reach the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2004…
The Knicks went back to their regular lineup, reinserting Pablo Prigioni, after going with a bigger group in Game 4 in a futile effort to match Indiana on the boards. The smaller group did a better job, getting outrebounded only 43-40.
— Reported by Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press
