The Pacers and Knicks don’t need much help selling this one. Their rivalry already comes loaded with history, bad blood, and enough playoff scars to fill a whole era of the Eastern Conference.
That’s what separates this feud from so many of the league’s newer ones. A lot of NBA rivalries today are intense, sure, but they’re still young.
The Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets have spent the last five years hammering each other as division rivals in multiple playoff series, but that’s still just one chapter. The Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks have their play-in thing.
Victor Wembanyama and the Portland Trail Blazers have their own animosity. None of it quite matches the weight of two franchises that have been tangled together for decades.
The Celtics and Lakers have long been the model, but even that old standard has lost some of its force on the court. Their fans may still carry the hatred, but the teams themselves haven’t been good enough going into the 2025-26 season for it to matter much.
Indiana and New York, though, still have plenty to fight over.
The Knicks are coming off their first title since 1973, when they won the NBA championship behind Walt Clyde Frazier and Willis Reed. The Pacers also won a title in 1973 - in the ABA. That’s the kind of shared history that makes this pairing feel permanently knotted together.
They’ve kept running into each other in the deepest rounds of the playoffs, season after season, like they’re stuck on a loop. When New York reached the Finals in 1999, it got there by beating Indiana in six games in the Conference Finals. A year later, the Pacers returned the favor and went through the Knicks on their way to the same stage.
Neither team ended up with a ring from those runs, but the series gave the rivalry some of its most memorable moments. Reggie Miller’s choking celebration? That came against New York.
This version of the matchup fits the same mold. The Pacers would love to remind the Knicks they’re still the team standing in the way, while New York fans can say they’re not sweating it - even if the record says otherwise. The Knicks faithful has a losing playoff record against Indiana, and that’s not the kind of thing that disappears just because the calendar turned.
So yes, they’ll be battling for seeding. But this is bigger than that. It’s about pride, history, and two teams that seem wired to annoy each other at every turn.
And the on-court matchups only sharpen it.
At the top of the board is Jalen Brunson versus Tyrese Haliburton. For a while now, both have been slotted into the conversation as the next “best point guard in the NBA” after the slow fade of Stephen Curry. Luka Dončić still has his supporters, though he’s more of a supersized initiator than a classic point guard.
Brunson has mostly taken that mantle, especially after winning Finals MVP. Haliburton, though, would probably be sitting on the same hardware if not for his Achilles injury in Game 7 of the 2024-25 Finals.
Then there’s the supporting cast, and it’s a strong one. OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam are both two of the most impressive developmental stories of the 2010s, both shaped by the Toronto Raptors and both still widely underappreciated.
The comparison keeps going from there. Jose Alvarado, in this telling, is basically a Puerto Rican TJ McConnell - fiery, defense-minded, and undersized.
That’s what makes Pacers-Knicks work. The dislike is already real.
The history is already there. And the two teams are built like foils, which only makes the whole thing feel more combustible.
In Other News...
Naji Marshall Joins NBA Pushback Over Disrespectful T.J. McConnell Take
A casual podcast claim about one-on-one basketball quickly turned into a wider defense of T.J. McConnell, with several current and former NBA players pushing back on the idea that the Indiana Pacers guard would be overwhelmed in a solo matchup. The discussion centered on Nasir Cores argument that one-on-one is harder than playing in the NBA, plus his suggestion that McConnell would lose such a game, a take that drew immediate skepticism from people who know the league well.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Naji Marshall, Kenyon Martin and Patrick Beverly were among those who publicly disagreed, treating McConnell less like a target of internet debate and more like a proven NBA player whose value goes beyond highlight clips. For Pacers fans, it was another reminder that McConnells game tends to earn respect from those inside the sport, even when outsiders try to reduce it to a theory about how he would look in a street-style setting. [Read more 🡒]
Pacers Face An Early Roster Squeeze Fans Will Notice
The Pacers are heading toward camp with one of the leagues tighter roster setups, and its the kind of front-office math fans will feel quickly once the season starts. Indiana plans to open with 14 standard contracts, leaving the team a little light by design as it works around hard cap restrictions and keeps flexibility for later.
That arrangement could make the early part of the year feel more fluid than usual, especially if the Pacers decide they need a 15th player once the season is underway. It is the sort of squeeze that can shape every decision around the margins, from depth to injury insurance, and it leaves Indiana watching the market closely while other teams around the league sort through their own roster and staff changes. [Read more 🡒]
Pacers And Colts Suddenly Share A Familiar Worry This Season
As the Pacers get ready to open another season, the most important subplot is still medical rather than tactical. Tyrese Haliburtons recovery from an Achilles injury has become part of the broader conversation around Indiana sports, and it is one the Colts know well too, with Daniel Jones also working his way back from the same injury as both teams try to gauge what they can reasonably expect when camp and training work ramp up.
For Indiana fans, the parallel is more than a curiosity. Both clubs are staring at the same hard truth: a talented roster can look very different until a centerpiece is back and functioning like himself, and the timetable for that kind of return can shape everything from lineups to optimism. The Pacers and Colts each have other players to sort through and roles to define, but the biggest question hanging over both teams is whether their key returnees can eventually give them the stability they are building toward. [Read more 🡒]