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Greenburgh, Ny – Jalen Brunson held a steel chair. Tyrese Haliburton had brass knuckles.

When the Star Point Guards stared at a WWE wrestling ring in Madison Square Garden last summer, it seemed a suitable next step in rivalry between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks. Headbutts and scokes are already presented, so why not weapons?

The teams will start playing 1 of the first trip of the Knicks to the Eastern Conference in 25 years tonight, with the winner of their ninth playoff matchup on the way to the NBA final.

“It is obviously a famous rivalry between the two franchise companies, so another chapter will be a lot of fun,” said Haliburton.

It was certainly for Haliburton and the Pacers last year when the teams met in the second round. Indiana won game 7 in the Madison Square Garden against a kink team that was decimated by injuries and shot an NBA playoff record of 67.1% in a 130-109-toben. Haliburton scored 26 points and then wore a sweatshirt for his press conference with a picture of Reggie Miller, which was on the verge of choke for Knicks Spike Lee during a playoff game three decades earlier.

Haliburton returned to the garden about a month later to troll new York fans and tried to interfere in a match on behalf of Logan Paul. Brunson, with a seat in the crowd near the ring, intervened and La Knight stuck Paul.

After the match, Brunson grabbed the chair and entered the ring to protect the winner when he seemed that Paul and Haliburton let him surround it.

“I'll be back! I'll be back!” Haliburton screamed towards the fans after leaving the ring.

Here he comes.

“It was obviously something he wanted to do and how he played in the playoffs last year, I mean, it was suitable,” said Brunson. “And so he played well in the garden. Obviously Knick's fans and Pacers fans, they go back and forth. But I think he did a great job with it last year, but now we're going.”

A Knicks-Pacers series could be integrated into the spring plan in the 1990s. The teams met six times in eight years, starting with a series from 1993, in which John Starks was ejected for the head-back miller. Indiana won the last in this route, a victory in the East final 2000 recently in which the Knicks have so far advanced.

This time it is a surprise. Cleveland and Boston ran away to the two top records in the east, but the Knicks displaced the defending champions and the Pacers blow the top cavaliers in five games to build this matchup between seeds No. 3 and No. 4.

Things are different now. Brunson and Haliburton are friendly and were 2023 teammates in the US team, which played at the Basketball World Championship. But Miller will be in the arena and edit the games as an analyst for TNT. So there will be a memory of the way Knicks-Pacer used to be.

“There was definitely a feeling of hate against each other. I think that makes good rivalry,” said Knick's Center Karl-Anthony Towns. “You have a story in which you find a way to end the other season of the other, so it is now up to us to add our names to the story and see what we do.”

History hour

The Pacers lead the 5-3 series. When the teams got to know each other in the East Finale, the Knicks won in 1994 and 1999 – when they reached the NBA final as No. 8 – and won the Pacers in 2000.

A year ago

The Knicks went 2-1 against the Pacers, with all meetings before the All-Star break. The cities had 30.3 points and 12 rebounds per game for the Knicks, which scored an average of 124 points at 53.9%.

A hot pace

The Pacers were only 10-15 after he lost to Charlotte on December 8th. The playoffs have been counting 48-19 since then.

A reunification in June?

An NBA final game between the Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves is a way after making a blockbuster trade the evening before the previous season. The Knicks acquired cities by sending Julius Randle and Donte Divincenzo to Minnesota. The cities, the No. 1 of the Wolves in 2015, do not yet think about it.

“We have to be there first,” he said. “I won't worry about something we're not there yet. Step by step.”