Pacers 93, Knicks 82
INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Pacers are one win from advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Pacers continued to use their lockdown defense and got a strong shooting performance from point guard George Hill to beat the New York Knicks 93-82 on Tuesday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
The Pacers lead the best-of-seven series 3-1 and can advance to their first conference finals since 2004 with a victory in Game 5 on Thursday at Madison Square Garden.
Hill led the Pacers with 26 points. Paul George struggled from the field, making of 6 of 19 shots, but still scored 18 points to go with 14 rebounds and seven assists.
The Pacers continued to frustrate the Knicks defensively, holding them to 35.6 percent shooting from the floor.
All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony led the Knicks with 24 points but was only 9 of 23 from the field before fouling out late in the fourth quarter.
The Pacers led by as many as 18 points and never trailed in the game.
Hill, who has taken a back seat to George and Roy Hibbert in the series, strapped the Pacers on his back to carry them in the third quarter when they broke the game open.
Hill scored 14 points in the quarter on 5-of-7 shooting from the field. His two free throws with 5:39 left in the third quarter gave the Pacers their biggest lead of the game at 61-43.
Things were going so well for Hill that he drove, scored and was fouled by Raymond Felton. Hill turned toward the crowd and flexed his muscles in excitement.
The better the Pacers played, the more frustrated the Knicks became.
The Knicks tried to match the Pacers' big frontcourt, but instead of being effective, they just fouled all the time.
Anthony, Amare Stoudemire, Felton and Tyson Chandler all finished with at least four fouls. Stoudemire also picked up a technical.
NOTES: The Knicks altered their starting lineup and moved Pablo Prigioni to the bench and inserted Kenyon Martin at power forward to go with Felton, Iman Shumpert, Anthony and Chandler. ... Chandler was named NBA first-team All-Defense, which is voted on by the coaches. George made the second team. Hibbert, the anchor on the league's best defense, didn't make it. "There's not a center in this league I'd rather have on my team defensively than Roy Hibbert," Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. ... Pacers Hall of Famer Reggie Miller, who called Game 4 for TNT, said he'd be interested in running a team one day. But it would be on one condition. "It would have to be the right situation (and), for me, the only situation I know is Indiana," Miller said.
