Jeff Van Gundy watched tape of last June’s Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals yesterday between the Knicks and Pacers. It was an unpleasant experience, naturally, but at least there was some solace taken.
While the Knicks are in the championship hunt, the Pacers are not the Pacers any longer, not one of the Beasts of the East. Indiana is far removed from last season’s top-seeded club that rolled to the Finals, ended Patrick Ewing’s Knick career in bitter fashion and gave the Lakers a war, losing in six games.
For the first time since Reggie Miller extinguished the Knicks in Game 6, the Knicks and Pacers meet at noon today at the Garden to resume what has been one of the NBA’s most ferocious rivalries. But can the same raging passion surface with these new-look Pacers (19-21), who come in with a sub-.500 record, scrambling to make the playoffs?
Glen Rice was not on the Knicks’ team that got blitzed in six games by the Pacers, but he, too, struggled against Indiana. In the Finals as a Laker, Jalen Rose burnt Rice, leading to Phil Jackson limiting Rice’s minutes.
Asked if he was surprised the Pacers broke up their team, Rice said yesterday, “When you have a team that went as far as they went last year, you want to keep them together. It was a total shock.”
They are not totally unrecognizable now that new coach Isiah Thomas no longer is experimenting with his younger players. Miller is still there and Rose is their primary star, now playing point guard in a big backcourt alignment. And the Pacers have won three straight, holding their last three opponents to under 80 points. Their disappointing record can also be partly attributed to Rose missing 10 games with an ankle injury.
“They made changes but they still have a very formidable team,” Van Gundy said. “They were adjusting to find out who they were going to play,” Van Gundy said. “They’ve gone back to starting their more veteran players. They’re playing well now. That’s the important thing for us.”
Ewing guaranteed the Knicks would make it back to Indy for a Game 7, but it never happened as Miller shot them down in the fourth, burying impossible bombs from the right wing. “We took a lot of bad shots in the fourth quarter and (Travis) Best was in the paint the whole quarter,” Van Gundy said. “We defended Reggie well at times. A lot of times, what a game comes down to is great players making well-defended shots.”
The Pacers did not re-sign point guard Mark Jackson, who landed in Toronto. They shipped rebounding stud Dale Davis for young center Jermaine O’Neal and saw center Rik Smits retire. There’s heavy speculation that Smits will come out of retirement for the playoffs, if they make the playoffs.
“I don’t know if it would work, it’s never been tried,” Van Gundy said. “His size and ability to shoot, to go along with Rose posting and their pick-and-roll game, he’d be a good addition.”
The Pacers are big enough without Smits. “They’re underrated, how much size they already have,” Van Gundy said. “They’re going to start a point guard (Rose) who is bigger than our power forward (Larry Johnson). Their size is a great attribute. They’re a big, big team.”
The Knicks won’t try anything fancy in matching up with Rose at point guard. Van Gundy will keep his starting lineup intact. “It will be a tough matchup for Charlie (Ward),” Van Gundy said.
Van Gundy won’t hesitate to use Rice on Rose when he shifts to small forward. “He’ll be on him,” Van Gundy said. “Glen really right now is defending perimeter as well as anyone we have.”
The Knicks won’t have suspended starting center Marcus Camby for the second straight game, yet O’Neal will be available for the Pacers despite throwing an elbow at Atlanta’s Lorenzen Wright Thursday after Wright put his hands around O’Neal’s throat.
O’Neal was ejected, but the league did not suspend him. Perhaps league VP Stu Jackson was too tuckered from watching the Camby tape to investigate O’Neal. Camby was amused that O’Neal wasn’t suspended, but admitted he hadn’t seen the tape.
Thomas, who drafted Camby when he was a Toronto executive, has put his stamp on the Pacers in his first season as a head coach, making them more defensive-oriented.
“They’re a much-improved defensive team,” Van Gundy said. “Last year they beat you with shooting and offense. They’ve held teams to 42 percent (shooting). It’s a much, much improved defensive team.”
