#Knicks use balanced effort to clip Pacers in gritty road win

The Knicks left their shooting woes in 2020, carried over a strong defense and found their finishing touch.

Coming off a brutal shooting night on New Year’s Eve against the Raptors in Tampa, the Knicks bounced back and leaned on their defense late to close out the Pacers for a 106-102 win Saturday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

After briefly losing the lead midway through the fourth quarter, the Knicks (3-3) used an 11-0 stretch and finished the game on a 13-6 run to secure the win.

“That’s what it’s about — whatever we gotta do to get a win, that’s the only thing that matters,” said Julius Randle, who came up with a big steal late that led to a dunk during the decisive run. “We did a great job of getting stops down the stretch and then on the offensive end, just playing for each other.”

RJ Barrett, who was among the chief culprits during a cold shooting night Thursday, rediscovered his groove and led the way with 25 points. Randle shook off a rough start Saturday — he was held scoreless until the final minute of the first half — and finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists.

Randle’s defense on Domantas Sabonis, Mitchell Robinson’s big night (16 points, nine rebounds) and an aggressive Elfrid Payton (19 points) helped the Knicks dominate the Pacers (4-2) in the paint, outscoring them 56-26 and out-rebounding them 51-32.

“That was a big concern, the way they get the ball into the paint and score in there,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “That’s everyone tied together. … [The Pacers put] enormous pressure on your defense. It requires you to do more than one thing, so often times there’s two, three, four, five efforts on one play and that’s what it takes to win.”

Sabonis poured in 32 points in the Pacers’ season-opening win over the Knicks but was held to 13 points Saturday night. Malcolm Brogdon caught fire from downtown, leading the Pacers with 33 points, but the Knicks didn’t let him spoil their otherwise stout defensive effort.

After shooting a brutal 3-for-36 from beyond the arc in Thursday’s loss, the Knicks started Saturday’s game 3-for-4 from deep and finished 12-for-27.

Barrett drained the first 3 he took in the first quarter, snapping a skid of 21 straight misses from beyond the arc over his previous four games. He made it 2-for-2 minutes later, picking up where he left off in Indiana after shooting 3-for-3 from deep in the season opener.

After Barrett’s 0-for-8 showing from 3 on Thursday, he spent an hour on the court in Tampa putting up more shots. It appeared to help snap him out of his funk as he finished Saturday shooting 4-for-5 from 3.

“I just put in extra work, but I really shot the same shots that I’ve been shooting the past couple games,” Barrett said. “They went in tonight.”

Though Randle didn’t score until sinking a layup with 43 seconds left in the first half — after starting 0-for-6 with four turnovers and four assists — Robinson helped pick up the slack. The center was active around the rim, cleaning up offensive rebounds and going 6-for-6 for 12 points in the first half.

The Knicks trailed 51-50 at halftime but came out strong to start the third quarter, setting the tone for how they would finish the game on the back of their defense.

“We feel like we give ourselves a chance to win every night and that’s what we’ve done so far,” Randle said. “The biggest thing is finishing games. Going into the third quarter, I tried to let the guys know that Indiana’s a huge third-quarter team. … So we had to come in aggressive, come in and fight and that’s what we did.”