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2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Pacers – They’re Not Even TRYING to Win

This is a total gimme, as the Pacers aren’t even TRYING to win, as they are one of the MOST incentivized teams in the NBA right now to lose games, as they need to get a Top 4 pick to add a top player to next year’s squad on TOP of Zubac (they traded Zubac for their pick this year, so long as it is Pick #5-9. If it is #1-4, or 10-30, the Pacers make the pick, and the Clippers get an unprotected 2031 Pacers pick).

So, well, come on, the Pacers are going to try to lose out from here on out.

So this game will be a joke.

But a joke that the Knicks will win, which pleases me!

Feeling great about 58!

216 replies on “2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Pacers – They’re Not Even TRYING to Win”

It almost feels like preseason in that I’m the most excited about seeing Diawara and Alvarado, and secondarily Kolek and Huk.

Is it me, having lost all ability to judge anything anymore, or is Wally less annoying than he used to be?

Maybe Wally has been marginalized a bit, and was probably told something after the Hali fiasco.

I have kind of felt like Wally has been a bit better this year, although there was a moment where he and Alan were discussing the Bridges shove the other night where we went full Cro- Magnon.

Wally is probably pissed Alan has taken the lead

Btw, Tears for Fears has I hoped made a huge amount of money for letting the NBA butcher that song

If Alvarado and MCConnell both dive for a loose ball there might be a rift in the space time continuum

Wish you’d told us what that was ahead of time, ess. I could have done without seeing that open up on my browser. Even after 2 seconds, I felt dirty.

Interesting that you can access that, though.

Hopefully Pacers sit Siakam for the entire 4th quarter to give the Knicks a chance to win this game.

Who supposedly is guarding Siakam?

“Guarding.” What does this mean? There’s no such a thing tonight!

Doubt we lose this game but it would be nice if we could beat a current bottom feeder wire to wire.

Doubt we lose this game but it would be nice if we could beat a current bottom feeder wire to wire

They just did vs Washington or the 50 point win vs Brooklyn

No OG, no Mitch, no Deuce…no bueno.

Z-man, Do you really think we need those to beat this tanking Indiana team? How about some elementary seriousness, defensive effort, and professionalism?

Btw, Tears for Fears has I hoped made a huge amount of money for letting the NBA butcher that song

Shout?

Well going into the half with the lead is nice, but I don’t think we’re holding them under 100 tonight…

We’ve got a current 86.5 percent chance of winning this, according to ESPN.

I was at that Wizards game. They did close it to 12 points at 44-32, but yeah, we were back up almost 30 a couple of minutes later. Still didn’t seem as easy as it might have been.

Ever since seeing Becoming Led Zeppelin I’ve been a bit obsessed with them. My latest fetish is watching “first listen” videos of various folks hearing Dazed and Confused for the first time. In my opinion, while it’s not my favorite Zep song to listen to, it might be the one I think is the most revealing of their sheer talent, individually and collectively. You can see it in the faces of some of the listeners…like holy shit, this was from 1969? This was their first album?

Okay back to the game…

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I like both, maybe Everybody wants to rule the world a little more. And Mad world is great too.

Led Zeppelin >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tears for Fears

Only 75.8 percent chance now. F Nesmith.

We will probably win this game in the end, but this game is proof that we aren’t gonna win shit on the playoffs.

Pacers trying to do what we were talking about… get a lead before the 4th, and then blatantly take the best players out of the game! 😀

We will probably win this game in the end, but this game is proof that we aren’t gonna win shit on the playoffs.

Of course! Because a regular season game against a tanking team is what the analysts use to predict the playoffs. 😀

We will probably win this game in the end, but this game is proof that we aren’t gonna win shit on the playoffs.

Wow, that’s a little extreme dontcha think? Extrapolating anything from this game is a bit of a stretch.

For as good as the Knicks have played offensively tonight they’ve missed a shitload of wide ass open 3pters.

This has been the most unprofessional performance by the Knicks since the embarrassment on MLK Day.

Yeah, Mo has come down to earth. Defense is, uhh, sporadically excellent, otherwise pedestrian.

This guy who got a huge back tattoo of the Mount Rushmore of the Knicks is more committed than I am. Probably on Posting and Toasting.

Wilson Chandler looks good and also like a member of the Wu Tang Clan in a Chappelle show skit

Pacers turning into the kd curry warriors from three. Our defense could def be better but these guys can’t miss!

Indiana is the team with the worst offensive rating in the NBA. They dropped 94 points on us in three quarters. Do I need to say more?

They have hit 6 more 3s than the Knicks in just 5 more shots. It’s a miracle this is close.

Town being unable to hit a 3 or a layup this season isn’t ideal.

Edit: that was before this shot.

He thinks that he’s the best shooting big man in the history of basketball. He’s said as much.

Fucking TJ

MO!!!!

Mo is like the 5’9 guy in your pickup game who takes every shot. Absolutely no conscience

Nah, I’m done with this team as currently constructed.

Jalen – defensively challenged
Mikal – pretty average player who cost us 5 firsts
KAT – waaay too many stupid plays (both ends)
OG – is hurt A LOT
Hart – fine for his salary
Deuce – legit
Shamet – shoulder is a timebomb
The rest – meaningless

You could tell at the start of the game that KAT thought he was in for a huge night.

Huff has been good though. KAT has been…… frustrating.

I blame this on KAT. He should be leading this unit and can’t help himself elbowing other players.

I suspect the Knicks came into this game already thinking about tomorrow’s game with the 76ers and now have this battle on their hands.

Alvarado is plain bad on defense. He is out of position a lot, and drops back even on one-to-one plays. This is disastrous. I don’t think he will get Kolek’s minutes if he plays like this.

“Alvarado is plain bad on defense”

I think we have to give him some time to get comfortable before concluding anything.

KAT should not be an all star this year. Maybe not making the team would have knocked some sense into him. He just keeps doing same mistakes over and over.

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Maybe as Knicks fans we should be in favor of bad teams tanking so we get some extra wins.

Relax, guys, this is 4-D chess. We’re out tanking the Pacers to increase the odds of their pick transferring to the Clippers.

I think we have to give him some time to get comfortable before concluding anything.

This is fair. That he does not know where to be much of the time is indicative. I hope this it is and nothing else. I hope.

KAT should not be an all star this year. Maybe not making the team would have knocked some sense into him. He just keeps doing same mistakes over and over.

I agree. Some of the voting is reputation. He hasn’t been as good on offense in this system.

Nembhard must have horrible BO or something because no Knick wants to get within 5 feet of him on defense

Thank God Towns made both. I’m not sure I could handle social media tonight and tomorrow if he missed.

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Very disappointing to experience this after the Boston performance on Sunday. I hope we win in OT but this is unacceptable no matter what. Blame the coaching staff, blame whoever and whatever, but the fact of the matter is that the team did not come mentally ready for the game. The worst offense in the league dropped 124 points on us and it could have been more. They were getting whatever they wanted most of the time. The jerseys alone won’t win it.

This has been a really hard game to follow by hitting refresh on the ESPN game cast

Hubert, are you trapped in 2007? Do we need to send help?

Knicks making it really hard on the Pacers to to tank this game

Not calling a TO to advance was a tank play

Quietest I’ve ever heard the garden. I wanted people to talk somewhat normally! That was downright eerie. Now stomp them.

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Rough my dude,

It’s a regular season game in February. Enjoy the unintentionally dramatic game!

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Adam Silver is supposed to walk into tthe Pacer’s locker room and penalize them their !st round pick for not calling a TO with .2 left to advance the ball to have a chance at a lob.

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Some of these players won’t be playing tommorow either

b2b and plans to go on break

Nesmith is a hell of a defender

I don’t know how many times the Knicks need to play the Pacers until they realize that iso-Brunson is not the way to go.

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Rough my dude,

It’s a regular season game in February. Enjoy the unintentionally dramatic game!

Tasty, I understand all this, but we are talking about the team with the worst offense and the worst away from home record in the league. I would be ok if we lost to Philly, to this team, to that team, but laying an egg at home against this Indiana squad? A team which does not even want to win? Isn’t that way too much? Too much for a “contending” team?

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Truly embarrassing loss. That offensive execution at the end of regulation and OT was horrendous. Mike Brown and Brunson are to blame here.

The thing with the 24-25/25-26 Knicks is that they never fail to miss an opportunity to kill the vibes.

Best the favorite Celtics when nobody expected? How about we lose the most excruciating game in franchise history next?

Have the best start to a season in over a decade? How about going 2-9 in embarrassing fashion after?

Recover with a 9-0 run? How about you get destroyed by Detroit and then lose to a team intentionally tanking?

Tie a game with miraculous free throws at the end? How about not scoring in the first 4 minutes of overtime?

It’s like clockwork with them.

Truly embarrassing loss. That offensive execution at the end of regulation and OT was horrendous. Mike Brown and Brunson are to blame here.

The approach to the game overall was horrendous. It should not have come down to the last plays.

The substitutions are dizzying. Mo and Huk have gone in and out for each other literally five times in the last 6 seconds.

Recover with a 9-0 run? How about you get destroyed by Detroit and then lose to a team intentionally tanking?

Knicks had no chance in Detroit with the lineup they put out.

. I would be ok if we lost to Philly, to this team, to that team, but laying an egg at home against this Indiana squad?

I think Indiana is clearly trying to win when they play us, tanking be damned.

No question the Knicks didn’t come out with the focus and determination you’d hope they’d show against an Indiana team that has been their nemesis in recent playoffs. It’s not great. But the season is too damn long and I just can’t expect the team to be locked in every single night. They just need to be playing well in April, May and June.

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We’ll be the ones laughing when the Pacers have to give their pick to the Clippers bc we tanked this game.

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No question the Knicks didn’t come out with the focus and determination you’d hope they’d show against an Indiana team that has been their nemesis in recent playoffs.

We agree on this. It already showed in the first minutes of the game tonight. I pointed it out early on. I would add that the Knicks didn’t even need to play anywhere close to 100% or even 80% to beat this team. Alas.

Couldn’t watch the game. Did Shamet miss those two free throws on purpose to try to work for a 3 to go to OT? Or did he just miss? I guess it would make sense to miss on purpose since two points wouldn’t have been enough.

In all seriousness, the Knicks without OG, Mitch, and Deuce really aren’t much better than many NBA teams.

We used 4 guys making the league minimum tonight.

The Knicks were thinking about tomorrow and the Pacers were thinking about this one last week. The problem is they are going to be tired tomorrow because of the way this one went down.

Hats off to Siakam, he played like a superstar tonight and we had no answer for him without OG, and Siakam cooks him sometimes too. Might be the most underrated player of this era.

In all seriousness, the Knicks without OG, Mitch, and Deuce really aren’t much better than many NBA teams, including this one.

It’s tough to have any of them out but when you are arguably missing your 3 best defenders and the team is not very good defensively to begin with you are likely to have issues.

Are we not going to play Mitch on back to backs in the playoffs? If we do that, we’re done-zo.

They shot 30% from 3 on some very good looks. Shots weren’t falling and Towns needs to rethink his strategy

I like Hubert’s take. This was insanely bad, but, again, winning is BAD for the Pacers, so this is good to fuck them over!

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They shot 30% from 3 on some very good looks. Shots weren’t falling and Towns needs to rethink his strategy

Fixed it for you. 😉

They shot 30% from 3 on some very good looks. Shots weren’t falling and Brown needs to rethink his strategy

I must say not giving Diawara chances to defend Siakim was dumb . Not saying he would do anything, but give it a shot

Hart on Siakim??? -did Brown not watch Siakim cooked Hart in the playoffs

I’m pretty sure I’d feel the exact same way about this game even if Donnie had never existed.

this was supposed to be one of the few easy ones over like almost a month long…

OG probably has the highest win percentage since he arrived…

‘Are we not going to play Mitch on back to backs in the playoffs? If we do that, we’re done-zo.’

Dumbest thing you’ve posted in a while.

I have to agree. I get the frustration but that was dumb. They are doing this exactly to protect him for the post season

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