When you join the Pacers, they plant a chip in your brain that causes new neurons to activate when you see the New York Knicks

They’re better than their record suggests. On their day they still have good enough players to compete with good teams. There is obviously extra motivation against the Knicks & OKC in particular.

But they’re also playing a lot of not so great players. Their bigs are currently Huff and Potter lmao. They’re playing a lot of scrubs consistently so you can’t really expect them to compete every game

They’re not horrific though… they’re short of bodies.

If you watch the games (or dig into game logs, not box scores) they’re extremely competitive through 3 quarters. But because the talent is lesser and the bodies fewer, they run out of gas late.

There’s a lot of fake tough guys in the league, fake animosity, but I sincerely believe Nembhard hates the Knicks and Thunder. Love it

No, this happens all the time. We beat the Pistons and Celtics without Giannis, also got bitchsmacked by the Nets. Teams aren’t playing at the same level every game because variance exists, not because they sandbag.

I do think Nembhard steps it up against fellow Canadians SGA & Dort.

And Siakam is exactly the type of player who gives us the most problems.

Nembhard is so annoying to play against lol he is a decent player who just becomes unstoppable in certain matchups. also the knicks lack of guard defense is on display. deuce mcbride, an undersized guard, is having his minutes taken while he’s out by jose, an undersized guard.

Pacers have a couple “15 game” players who go up a level or two in big games, e.g., Nembhard and Nesmith.  We saw the same thing in the playoffs last year with those guys. Plus it’s just in the franchise’s DNA to play hard in MSG back to the days of Reggie. 

I don’t know about you, but I watch all the Pacers games. They don’t try harder against the knicks and thunder. they try hard every game. But people see results and lineups and form their own opinions that fit their narratives.

The Knicks are actually tanking so the pacers pick is less valuable

Every one try hards against the Knicks when we play at MSG

That would be the opposite of sandbagging.

Sandbagging would be not showing your cards to teams that matter the most so you can then surprise them in the post season.

Personally I don’t mind or care if the Pacers are tanking. If it were my team, I’d want them to tank to get the best possible chance at the 1st pick.

The line however is pulling a 3, 4 or 5+ year tank. Of course some teams are terrible for that long or longer, due to sheer incompetency/bad luck. In those cases, I suspect alot of their fans are no longer fans.

Probably

They were just in the finals and still have one of their All-Stars they’re not actually that bad… But what’s the point of trying super hard only for Paschal to wear out

Makes zero sense…the way they playing tonight you’d think they were at least a play-in team

Gotta feel honored if I’m the knicks. Pacers trying their absolute hardest and will proceed to completely suck against everyone else afterwards.

Shhh…

Every single team that they play close with claims “they only try hard against us!!!” Can’t be true for every single team, sorry

I remember when Carlisle was coaching the tanking Mavs years, that team was much better than their record, but they’d manage to lose in the most ridiculous ways and lineups. Rick might creep out Cousins but he’s got skills

Gotta keep our foot on these bums necks.

Gotta let them know who’s boss

Ethical tanking

The Knicks played very poorly

We’re all sandbagging, brother.

Obviously you have never played any competitive sport or done anything competitive in your life, lmao.

If NBA teams tanked, that would make their #1 product (daily sport betting) completely useless. Rich successful business owners are smart and would surely have at least minimal foresight to avoid this

A lot of bad teams play up and down to competition

They absolutely are and I hate it! They need to come by their losses honestly like us. We earned this through years of horrible ownership, terrible roster construction, and unbelievably bad talent acquisition. You want to suck like this? Do it the right way and respect the process.

Should be noted Knicks best defensive players, OG and Mitch, were unavailable tonight. Knicks still should have won though.

I feel like multiple times a month we get this same post with people completely unaware to how many injuries the Pacers have had throughout the season

If you think a team is sandbagging, the thing to check is net rating. Spurs had a pretty high net rating the year they tanked for wemby. I think the year mavs tanked for Luka they had a higher net rating than most playoff teams or soemthing

they actually try to lose today, but the Knicks keep giving free points and then they just like FUCK IT imma win and send Siakam in the game for close it

very funny to put the Knicks who they beat in OKC’s tier

a lot of players in the league seem to be doing it, it’s all about that betting app money.