Carmelo Anthony Gave Ex-Pacers Star Sleepless Nights as Unforgiving Reality of Knicks Rivalry Emerges

On May 18, 2013, the Knicks arrived in Indianapolis with their season on life support. Down 2–3 in the series, Carmelo Anthony had played 45 minutes in Game 5, and he’d need another superhuman effort to force a Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. Indiana wasn’t fazed. They’d spent the season building the league’s stingiest defense and knew exactly where the Knicks would go in crunch time. Fieldhouse was a pressure cooker that night, with the Knicks clinging to their season and Indiana ready to finish them off. The Pacers looked locked in—but not everyone on that roster was at ease.

The friction between the Pacers and Knicks wasn’t born in 2013; it was continued from the seed planted in the ’90s. Twenty years earlier, Reggie Miller had walked into MSG and scored 25 points in the fourth quarter while jawing with Spike Lee. A year later, he buried the Knicks again with 8 points in 9 seconds, before turning to the Garden crowd with the choke sign. The Knicks answered in ’99 with Larry Johnson’s four-point play and stunned Indiana in six without Patrick Ewing. The Pacers returned the favor in 2000, eliminating the Knicks on their home floor to reach the NBA Finals. Every time Indiana met New York in the playoffs, it felt like unfinished business.

By 2013, the faces had changed. Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, and Tyson Chandler were on one side; Paul George, Lance Stephenson, and Roy Hibbert on the other. But the stakes hadn’t. The Knicks had the league’s third-best offense (111.1 rating) and leaned on Anthony, who led the NBA with 28.7 points per game. Indiana allowed just 90.7 points per night and led the league in defensive rating (99.8). While George often matched up with Smith, it was Stephenson who drew the primary assignment on Melo. At 22, he was being asked to contain the league’s top scorer. Behind him stood Hibbert—2.6 blocks per game and a DPOY finalist. The scheme was in place. But for a team built on composure and grit, Indiana’s youngest starter was already feeling the heat. On the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast, Lance Stephenson took a deep breath and let it all out: 

Game 6 of the 2013 playoffs didn’t just keep fans up at night, it kept him up too. “Like I didn’t, I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “Even my friends was like, ‘Yo, y’all going to lose.’ Like my friend, like I’m from New York. I’m like, ‘N—-, why you here? About to lose.” And it wasn’t just trash talk from the outside. “It was my friend’s fault. Cuz they was like in my head like, ‘Yo, you can’t guard Melo. You can’t guard JR. Everybody’s cooking you every time. I don’t care. And you better not score. I’m snuffing this.”

Stephenson laughed while telling the story, but the weight was real back then. “Those were fun battles,” he said, “but it was scary, and like I felt like I had a lot on my shoulders. And I just wanted to show New York like, man, like I’m New York, you know what I mean? Like I’m from New York, man.” That tension followed him into the locker room. “I was not going to—like I’m in the locker room like ‘Yo, we better not lose. I don’t give a f—. Look at me.’ I amped my team up to the max.” And when the moment came? “I’m like, ‘Yo, they got [that guy] on me? No, give me the ball, please.’ Coach like, ‘Yo, Lance, calm down. Please calm down.’ I’m like, ‘No, look who they got on me. Give me the ball.’ He let me rock, bro. I ain’t going to lie, man. They let me ride.”

For Carmelo Anthony, that game still lives vividly in his memory. “Every game up until that point, Lance was bringing something totally different,” Melo said. “He was bringing energy one day. He was bringing defense one day. He was scoring buckets, one—you know what I mean? He was just bringing something different.” But Game 6? That was the dagger. “We wasn’t expecting him in Game 6 to just go off like that… And if you look at them damn clips, Roy Hibbert wasn’t going vertical. No, he didn’t have no verticality at all. And then the motherf—– blocks my dunk. The only thing I knew was that they was going to say that that was the winning block for the whole series.” And they did—because everyone still remembers it. Hibbert’s block on Melo’s dunk attempt lit the fuse for Indiana’s 11–2 run that sealed a 106–99 win and launched them into the Eastern Conference Finals.

Fast forward to 2024, and the script just keeps getting better. The Knicks won the first two games at MSG, but the Pacers struck back at home behind Tyrese Haliburton and a massive 31-foot dagger by Andrew Nembhard in Game 3. They traded blowout wins all series, until it came down to Game 7 at the Garden. Everyone expected New York to hold serve. Instead? The Pacers dropped 70 in the first half, won 130-109, and made history with 67.1% shooting—the best field goal percentage ever in a playoff game. And just when you thought it might cool down, 2025 brought more smoke. Indiana took the series in six, closing it with a 125-108 win. The torch keeps passing. Over to you, Knicks—your move in the next chapter of this rivalry.