INDIANAPOLIS — So you pick up a boxscore after Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Knicks and the Pacers. You look at 3-pointers and there’s no surprise. One side took 33, the other side took 11.
Surprise. It was the Knicks, the guys who averaged 29 a game, taking just 11 and the Pacers, shooters of 19.7 a game in the regular season, who went nuts beyond the arc.
Next thing you know, you will swear the Knicks were the ones who didn’t break 80 points.
Yeah, it was that kind of a Game 3.
“They average 30 attempts so we had to do what we focus on and that’s try to cut down the threes,” said Pacer guard George Hill pointing to one of the key elements in Indiana’s 82-71 Game 3 victory that brought a 2-1 series lead here. “We know they’re shooting at a high rate and they’re one of the best teams in the NBA at shooting them so that was a big point.”
It was a point driven home repeatedly by Pacers coach Frank Vogel.
“Our guys usually do what you emphasize and we know that if we take the 3-ball away from this team, they’re going to struggle to score,” Vogel explained.
Especially when you have a monster like 7-foot-2 center Roy Hibbert guarding the rim and 6-9 David West clogging things up inside just a bit more. And it worked to perfection: the Knicks made just three triples all game.
“We don’t want to do it at the expense of giving up things at the rim, buckets in the paint. But we were able to guard the paint — 28 points in the paint — and the 3-point line and that’s the goal with this team,” Vogel said.
Now all the 3-pointers that went up from the home side, well, as along as the defense is giving it, the Pacers will take it. They launched 33 and hit 10, five of them by Hill.
“I probably had 20 of them myself,” Hill, who actually took 12, and hit five, said jokingly. “That’s the most I ever shot in my career, but my teammates know I can make that shot at a high level. A lot of them didn’t go in that I wanted, but at the same time they kept encouraging me to shoot.”
While defying the Knicks to try.
“We weren’t even looking at the three,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said.
When they did, it wasn’t there.
“It’s huge [to deny them],” Paul George said. “That’s really why they are so special. They can shoot the ball so well. For us to limit them to 11 attempts, that’s just us being locked in.”