Highlights from the Knicks’ Game 1 win over the Pacers on May 6, 2024.

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Jalen Brunson had 43 points for his fourth straight game with 40 or more, including four free throws in the final 12.1 seconds to seal the 121-117 Game 1 victory.

Brunson also became the first player in NBA history to record 40-plus points and five or more assists in four straight playoff games. 

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The complete-game pitcher in baseball largely went by the wayside with Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay, but Josh Hart is bringing back the age of the workhorse in these NBA playoffs. 

Hart was on the court for the entirety of the Knicks’ Game 1 win over the Pacers, the third time he went the distance in the team’s first seven postseason contests.

The do-it-all wing also logged 48 minutes in Game 2 against the 76ers, and he played all 53 minutes in the Knicks’ overtime loss in Game 5 of that series. 

“I would say it’s because he saves it from not practicing. He competes during the games,” longtime teammate Jalen Brunson joked when asked where the 6-foot-4 Hart’s energy is derived. “So yeah, I don’t know, man. 

“The dude’s crazy. It’s how he’s wired.” 

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The Pacers blew a late lead after the officials blew at least one late call, and perhaps another. 

Indiana trudged out of the Garden with a series-opening loss to the Knicks, stewing after a couple of last-minute calls, one at least questionable and the other downright wrong. 

Aaron Nesmith incorrectly got whistled for a kicked ball that actually went off his hand with 52 seconds left.

Then seconds later Myles Turner got called for an illegal screen, which the Pacers challenged.

Those two plays helped send the Pacers to a 121-117 Game 1 loss at the sold-out Garden. 

“You can clearly see [I didn’t kick it],” Nesmith said afterward. “It is what it is.” 

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Isaiah Hartenstein matched his total for 3-pointers from the entire regular season with a buzzer-beating heave to pull the Knicks within six points just before halftime of their 121-117 Game 1 victory against the Pacers on Monday night at the Garden.

The 7-foot center was 1-for-3 from beyond the arc during 75 regular-season appearances before splashing a 46-foot half-court shot from the far side of the Knicks’ logo at the end of the second quarter of the second-round opener.

Hartenstein said he’s dropped in buzzer-beaters in the NBA, but “not from half-court, that was my first.”

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Tom Thibodeau often has noted that most teams reduce their playing rotations in the playoffs, but the Knicks only used seven players in the final two games against the 76ers after veteran reserve Bojan Bogdanovic went down with a foot injury in Game 4. 

Thibodeau has used his standard “we could” response when asked in the past few days whether he expected to expand his rotation — most likely the addition of Precious Achiuwa — beginning with Monday’s series opener against the Pacers at the Garden. 

Achiuwa played four minutes in the first half as the Knicks’ eighth man, but Thibodeau leaned heavily on his starters again in a 121-117 Game 1 victory. 

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Tyrese Haliburton is the engine that drives Indiana.

And right now it’s misfiring. 

The All-Star came into the Eastern Conference semifinals nursing a bad back and mired in an extended shooting slump.

And he hit bottom in Monday’s Game 1 loss to the Knicks, dragging the Pacers down with him. 

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Forget the Met Gala — it’s Round 2 at the Garden, and the Knicks’ biggest fans are showing out.

Several Yankees stars, past and present, showed their support, with Giancarlo Stanton, Nestor Cortes and Gleyber Torres spending their night off rooting for the orange and blue in Game 1 of the Knicks’ series against the rival Pacers.

Famed Yankees closer Mariano Rivera was seated courtside among several celebrity staples, including actor Tracy Morgan — wearing a massive golden eagle bracelet — “Saturday Night Live” Weekend Update anchor Michael Che, director Spike Lee and “Shameless” star Emmy Rossum.

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It feels impossible. It appears implausible. It seems, at the very least, unsustainable. Maybe it’s all of those three things. Maybe there will come a night, or a team, that has an answer for Jalen Brunson, that outduels the basketball grunge band known as the New York Knicks. Maybe it’ll be the Pacers, as early as Wednesday night. 

We’ll have to see on Wednesday. 

For now, the Knicks are 1-0 up in this series thanks to an impossible and implausible 121-117 win over Indiana. They won this one the way they won all four of the games against Philadelphia in the first round, playing a little rope-a-dope the first 40 or so minutes, then closing. 

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Even Mets owner Steve Cohen, whose team opened a three-game series against the Cardinals with a 4-3 win, was at the Garden for Game 1 between the Knicks and the Pacers.

While Myles Turner said that the Pacers are looking forward to the “Last Two Minute” report getting released, he was careful to avoid directly criticizing the referees for his offensive foul in the final minute of the game. He did admit postgame to reporters that it’s always ideal when “players decide the outcome of the game,” though.

Turner was whistled for an illegal screen with 12.1 seconds remaining. The Pacers challenged it, and it was still considered a foul. That prevented Indiana from generating a shot that could’ve resulted in them taking the lead — instead allowing for Jalen Brunson to hit three free throws down the stretch that sealed their Game 1 win.

“You can't leave the game to be decided by the refs,” Turner said, “so we have to take accountability as well.”