CLEVELAND – Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam were the headliners in the Pacers’ Game 5 closeout win against the Cavaliers in Cleveland.
The accolades are well deserved. After all, Haliburton scored 31 points and stuffed the stat sheet with eight assists and six rebounds. His five threes in the second quarter helped Indiana cut into a lead that swelled to 19 points early on.
Siakam was the team’s second-leading scorer with 21 points. He also added eight rebounds as Indiana won 114-105 to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight year.
But basketball is a team sport–and the Pacers couldn’t have won without some key contributions from other players.
Nesmith, Turner and Nembhard
Take Andrew Nesmith, Indiana’s do-it-all forward. While he struggled from three-point range (1 of 7), he excelled on the defensive end and pulled down a team-high 13 rebounds in 37 gritty minutes on the floor.
“One of the keys for us to beat this team was rebounding and I knew that. And I knew I had to be great on the boards,” Nesmith said. “I made it a point of emphasis for myself to be better this series.”
And then there was Myles Turner. The Pacers center scored at least 13 points in each previous playoff game against the Cavs, including a 23-point performance in Game 2.
On Tuesday, Turner scored just 10 points. But he finished with eight rebounds and was credited with five blocks, providing rim protection and solid defense when the Pacers needed it most.
Case in point: Cavs star Donovan Mitchell had the chance to put Cleveland up by 10 in the third quarter with what appeared to be a wide-open layup. But Turner hustled back on defense and got the block. Cleveland collected the rebound and Andrew Nembhard—we’ll get to him in a minute—also hustled back and blocked Max Strus.
After some back-and-forth, including turnovers by Darius Garland and Turner on the ensuing possessions, Turner hit a shot to cut the lead to six.
Statistically, Turner had an off night on the offensive end. But he also provided the dagger at the end, connecting on a three-pointer with 23 seconds left to give the Pacers a nine-point lead and end any hopes of a Cleveland comeback.
Nembhard finished with 18 points, 6 assists, 3 rebounds, a steal and a block. He poured it on late.
As the Cavs made a push in the fourth quarter, drawing within a point multiple times, Nembhard was clutch, scoring 9 points on a pair of threes and a three-point play.
His final assist came on Turner’s dagger.
Bryant’s ‘greatest minutes’
No Game 5 writeup would be complete without a mention of Thomas Bryant. The Pacers traded for Bryant in December to provide depth at an injury-riddled center position. He’s certainly had his ups and downs in a Pacers uniform.
On Tuesday night, though, they were mostly ups. After getting blocked by Cleveland’s Evan Mobley in the third quarter, Bryant sprinted back on defense and stole the ball from Darius Garland. He raced down the court for a wide-open dunk to give the Pacers a six-point lead.
Less than a minute later, Bryant scored again on a dunk off an assist by Haliburton to push the lead to eight. A minute after that, he added a three-pointer.
In 11 minutes of game action, Bryant scored 9 points, grabbed a rebound and had a steal. He was one of only two bench players on the positive side of the plus/minus stat at +4.
Coach Rick Carlisle called Bryant’s play “some of the greatest minutes you can ask of a backup center.”
“We’re a resilient team,” Bryant said. “It feels great to get the win and establish that camaraderie with my teammates.”
He added, “I’m just happy I was able to make the read on the defensive end in order to help our team get the steal and a bucket, too.”
Surviving a ‘hellacious game’
“Winning a closeout game on the road is extremely difficult,” Carlisle said. “Cleveland threw a hellacious game at us. We were down 19. Ty’s run of shot-making in the second quarter got us back into it, and we just had a lot of guys that played extremely hard and we just said, ‘Hey, let’s hang in this thing, try to wear them down and see if we can outlast them.’ And essentially, that’s what happened.”
Carlisle credited the Pacers with bringing effort and energy against one of the NBA’s top teams.
“The winning team writes the script. I just have to give our guys credit—they earned this. [Cleveland] is one of the best teams in the league, injuries, dings or no dings,” he said. “They had a great year. I’m sorry that their season had to end like this, in a way.”
The Cavs finished the regular season 64-18 to earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference. They were 34-7 at home and swept the Miami Heat in the first round. They couldn’t, however, solve the resilient Pacers.
“They kind of had the perfect season and then we came along, and we’re hot at the right time,” Carlisle said.
“It was a balanced effort,” Haliburton said. “We’re different than every other team in the NBA. We don’t have just one guy who scores all the points. We defeat teams in different ways. We move the ball, the ball is flying, we’ve got different guys making shots, making plays. We’ve preached our depth for the last couple years and it’s paying off now.”
The star guard knew the Pacers would encounter a desperate Cavs team determined to keep its season alive.
“We didn’t panic after that rough start to the first quarter. We knew they were going to throw a punch,” he said. “We talked about that. We knew that they were going to throw a haymaker there, but I thought we weathered the storm the right way and got going from there.”
Nesmith thought the team started out
“Fight, chip away, do the little things. I thought we didn’t start the game with enough fight,” Nesmith said. “We are able to flip a switch and chip away little by little in that second quarter and we were able to make a run, and we kept going up.”
Eastern Conference Finals await
The Pacers have a chance to recharge as they await their opponent in the Eastern Conference Finals. They could know as soon as tonight, when the New York Knicks try to close out the Boston Celtics on the road in Game 5.
The defending champs are reeling after losing star Jayson Tatum to an Achilles injury in Game 4. If the Knicks win, it would set up a rematch from last year’s playoffs, when the Pacers upset New York in the second round.
Here’s the schedule for the Eastern Conference Finals:
- May 21: Game 1 on TNT, 8 p.m. ET (game could move to May 19)
- May 23: Game 2 on TNT, 8 p.m. ET
- May 25: Game 3 on TNT, 8 p.m. ET
- May 27: Game 4 on TNT, 8 p.m. ET
- May 29: Game 5 on TNT, 8 p.m. ET (if necessary)
- May 31: Game 6 on TNT, 8 p.m. ET (if necessary)
- June 2: Game 7 on TNT, 8 p.m. ET (if necessary)