INDIANAPOLIS — Isaiah Hartenstein tried to overcome the series-tying loss to the Pacers for the Knicks, who were already missing four frontcourt players but were dealing with an apparent sore left shoulder.
The Knicks’ starting center crashed hard to the floor after scoring on a drive midway through the second quarter.
Despite a negative postgame X-ray, the Pacers defeated the Pacers 121-89 in Game 5 on Tuesday night, returning the series to New York tied 2-2 at halftime. in the garden, where he was still visibly struggling to raise his arms above his head.
“The X-rays came back calm, so maybe it was just [pinched] It’s nerve-wracking,” Hartenstein said after the game. “Sometimes my hands go numb, but it’s okay. …My nerves are compressed and sometimes I feel like falling asleep, but it’s okay.
“It’s just small. I think that’s something that’s easy to fix. Everyone’s playing through a lot, so I’m fine.”
Hartenstein appeared to take some hard contact from Aaron Nesmith shortly after the injury, but he said it was “playoff basketball and that’s going to happen.”
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He left the game with 6 minutes, 54 seconds left in the third quarter, but manager Tom Thibodeau did not use him again with the Knicks trailing by 43 points.
The Knicks already have Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson and Bojan Bogdanovic out for the remainder of the playoffs with injuries, and forward OG Anunoby has missed the past two games with a hamstring issue.
Asked if the extended minutes and short rotations are starting to catch up with the Knicks, Hartensein said, “That’s not an excuse at this point.”
“I think everyone’s going through something. I think we just have to find a way,” he said. “I think it’s that they did a lot better than us in the last two games. They played more physical, they played with more urgency, the same thing we did a lot more at home. I think that’s kind of what we have to go back to.
“We’ve played so many games and playoff games that we’re probably tired, but that’s no excuse. I think we need to dig deeper and get back to the way we play. It’s about training and doing little things that I don’t think we’ve done before.”
