INDIANAPOLIS — The Knicks can’t ever make it straightforward with these Pacers, can they?
Not even when the Pacers are the worst team in the Eastern Conference.
Not even when the Pacers are without their best player in Pascal Siakam (and really two best players, if you count Tyrese Haliburton).
Granted, the Knicks were without two starters in Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart.
But the Knicks entered Friday 26 ½ games above the bottom-feeding Pacers, who have spent most of this season trying to lose and keep their top-four protected pick.
Yes, the Pacers eliminated the Knicks from the postseason the last two years, but these aren’t those Pacers.
For everyone else this year, they’ve been a punching bag.
There’s just something about this matchup, though.
It brings out the worst in the Knicks, though they survived with a 101-92 win over the Pacers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Leading by 13 in the third quarter, the Knicks allowed the Pacers to go on an 18-5 run to tie the game at 71 apiece with under a minute left in the quarter.
Aaron Nesmith soon after hit a 3-pointer to briefly give the Pacers the lead, but Jordan Clarkson restored the Knicks’ lead with his own 3-pointer in the final seconds of the quarter.
The first two matchups between these two teams were chaotic nail-biters.
Brunson hit a clutch 3-pointer in a one-point win in December and the Knicks lost in overtime in an embarrassing loss in February.
Friday was another case where you would never know the gigantic gap in the records.
Brunson, after scoring 23 points in the first half — including an 8-0 run by himself — went quiet after halftime.
Already without Towns and Hart, they badly needed OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges to step up on the offensive end.
And Anunoby responded to the call with 10 points in the fourth quarter.
Bridges drilled a key 3-pointer that extended the Knicks’ lead to seven with just under two minutes to play, then Anunoby’s dunk gave them a nine-point lead and pretty much put it out of reach.
Bridges, who finished with 11, reached double figures in scoring for the only time of this now-completed five-game road trip.