The New York Knicks jumped out to an early lead over the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 and never looked back. Led by 44 points from Jalen Brunson, the Knicks beat the Pacers by a final score of 121-91.
The home team has won each of the first 5 games of this series, with the teams swapping 30+ point wins in games 4 and 5.
Looking at the injury report for Game 6, OG Anunoby is out again with a hamstring injury. Anunoby picked up the injury late in Game 2, making this the fourth game of the series that he has missed. The Pacers' injury report is relatively clean. Haliburton is dealing with a back injury but will play tonight.
The Knicks are 3-2 ATS, covering the spread in 3 of the last 4 games of this series. Looking at the last 10 playoff games for each of these teams, both are 6-4 straight up and 5-5 against the spread.
The over cashed in games 1 and 2, but the under has cashed in each of the last 3 games of the series. The greater betting trend for both teams points to the over. The Knicks have gone over in 14 of their last 20 games, while the Pacers have gone over in 11 of their last 16.
The Pacers opened as 5-point favorites for Game 6, but early action has already moved that number to -6.5. The total opened at 217.5 with under bettors moving the consensus line down to 215.5.
After 3 straight unders, this total has dropped from 220.5 in game 3 to 215.5 tonight. At 215.5, 3 of the 5 games have covered the number with the other two games coming in at 210 and 212 despite a team scoring 91 points or less in each game.
In an elimination game setting, tonight should be much more competitive than games 4 and 5. It's worth noting that games 1-3 were much tighter games and played to an average total of 235 points.
If we look back to the regular season series, the average total was 239 points, indicating tonight's number should finish closer to what we saw early in this series.