NEW YORK — Tyrese Haliburton wasn’t alive in 1994, when Reggie Miller flashed his famous choke sign to Spike Lee, silencing Lee and the Madison Square Garden crowd with a 25-point fourth-quarter barrage to win Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals. He has seen Winning Time, the documentary on Miller’s battles with the Knicks, though, “probably 50 times.” So when Haliburton’s long jumper dropped through at the end of the fourth quarter—completing an improbable, nearly impossible 14-point comeback, sending the game to overtime and propelling the Indiana Pacers to a 138–135 win over the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals—Haliburton grabbed his throat and looked at Miller, who was, fittingly, in the TNT broadcast booth.

“I wanted him to see it,” Haliburton said. “Definitely a special moment.”

Incredible. With 2:39 to play, this game was over. Down 14, ESPN’s win probability meter gave the Knicks a 99.7% chance to win—as close to a statistical certainty as you could get. The Pacers had failed to take advantage of Jalen Brunson’s fourth-quarter foul trouble, allowing a three-point lead to swell to double digits with Brunson on the bench. A 0–1 series hole was inevitable.

For most teams. Not Indiana. Not this postseason. This postseason, the Pacers rallied from a seven-point deficit in the final 35 seconds to beat the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 5 of its first-round series. This postseason Indiana erased a seven-point lead in the final minute to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference semifinals. Since 1998, teams are 4–1,640 when trailing by seven or more points in the final minute or overtime in the playoffs. The Pacers have three of those wins.

“It’s a muscle,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.”

Added Myles Turner, "We give ourselves a chance. That’s all that was. We thought it was over, but it is what it is. It’s to the point where I’m just used to it.”

Haliburton made the shot everyone will remember. But it was Aaron Nesmith who put him in position to do it. Down 11 with two minutes to play, Nesmith made a three to cut the lead to eight. A minute later, he made another three to cut it to six. Following a Karl-Anthony Towns layup, Nesmith made another three to cut it to five. The basket, said Nesmith, began “to feel like an ocean.” Another three whittled it to two. He made six three-pointers in the fourth quarter on Wednesday—the first player in NBA playoff history to do so.

“It’s unreal,” Nesmith said. “Probably the best feeling in the world for me. I love it.”

That set the stage for Haliburton. It has been a wild few weeks for the Pacers’ star. In April, an anonymous player poll in The Athletic labeled Haliburton the NBA’s most overrated player (in fairness the question received a low number of responses). He has responded with one of the most clutch runs in playoff history. His game-tying jumper was his fourth go-ahead or game-tying shot in the last 30 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime this postseason.

The most recent was perhaps the most memorable. After OG Anunoby split a pair of free throws, the Knicks led by two with 7.3 seconds left. With no timeouts, Haliburton raced up the floor. He drove the paint only to be cut off by Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks’ best shot blocker. He turned, dribbled beyond the three-point line—or what he thought was beyond the three-point line; replays showed Haliburton with a toe on it—and fired up a shot. When it dropped, he wrapped both hands around his neck.

“I wasn’t like plotting on it or anything,” Haliburton said. “Everybody wanted me to do it last year at some point, but it’s got to feel right. It felt right at the time. Well, if I would’ve known it was a two, I would not have done it. So I think I might’ve wasted it.”

The Knicks hope so. New York finds itself in an unfamiliar situation. Last round, against the Boston Celtics, it was the Knicks rallying from a double-digit deficit in Game 1. Now they must figure out how to bounce back from blowing one. This was a collective failure by New York. Bad defense from Mikal Bridges. Untimely missed free throws from Anunoby and Towns. Poor decision making by Brunson, who coughed the ball up twice in a 22-second span in overtime. They played, said Josh Hart, “not to lose.” Down one with 15 seconds left in OT the Knicks gave Obi Toppin—a 62% free throw shooter—a clear path to the basket for a dunk.

“I think we should’ve fouled,” Brunson said. “We just didn’t.”

Said Hart, “We didn’t finish the game out. We didn’t run through that finish line. We let off the gas—intensity and physically weren’t there.”

Now New York must figure out how to bounce back. Haliburton celebrated his Miller moment. But the Pacers lost that 1994 series. “We [would] not like to repeat that,” Haliburton said. The Knicks would. There were positives for New York. A 43-point outburst from Brunson. Another 35 from Towns. Clutch buckets from Anunoby when Brunson went out in the fourth. They had Indiana. They just couldn’t close them out.

“We have to take the disappointment,” coach Tom Thibodeau said, “and turn that into something positive.”

Indeed. Or Winning Time will get a sequel.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Pacers Add Another ‘Unreal’ Comeback to Shocking NBA Playoff Run.

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