After a rough loss to the Sacramento Kings, the New York Knicks took the floor against the Indiana Pacers hoping to finish their back-to-back with a better result—but a poor start set them behind the eight ball from the beginning.

The Knicks turned the ball over eight times in the first quarter, and the Pacers shot 60 percent on their home floor to take an 11-point lead after one, setting the table for a 105-82 defeat for Derek Fisher’s crew.

“We turned the ball over a lot in the first quarter, and on the road that’s not a recipe for success,” Coach Fish said. “We put ourselves behind early, and playing uphill on the second night of a back-to-back is tough to do.”

The Indy defense harassed the young Knicks all night, forcing 20 turnovers, which resulted in 23 points for the home team at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Afterward, D-Fish commended Frank Vogel’s physical Indiana squad on the way it kept his team out of sorts all night.

“They’re a solid team. They’re well coached,” Derek said of the Pacers. “They’re sure about who they are and their identity. When your team is anchored by defense, you always have a chance very night. Frank has done a good job at getting his team to buy into that concept that defense wins, and they were good at it tonight.”

After a strong first, the Pacers kept up the pressure in the second, forcing eight more turnovers and turning them into 11 easy points. New York’s shooting improved, taking a bump all the way to 57.1 percent, but the loose ball security was too much to overcome. Behind 13 second-quarter points from Rodney Stuckey, Indy took a 65-41 lead into the break.

Out of the gates in the second half, Derek slotted second-year guard Shane Larkin into the starting lineup. The former Miami Hurricane helped to smooth the rough waters, as the Knicks turned it over just four times in the second half.

The defensive effort also improved tremendously, as the Knicks held the Pacers to just 40 points in the second half after allowing 65 through the first 24 minutes.

“We were trying to get some energy to start that third quarter, see if we could get more pace into our game and go out there and fight a little bit harder…and we thought Shane could help us with that,” Derek explained. “We did to start the third, but we couldn’t sustain it.”

While the Knicks looked much better in the second half of play, it wasn’t enough to overcome that big halftime deficit. However, that grit shown by the group over the final two quarters of play left Coach Fish hopeful.

“Guys are fighting, they’re trying, they’re putting effort in,” D-Fish said. “But you find out when you go against good teams who are also fighting, that’s not easy to do just because you decide on a certain night to do it.”

The top performer for New York on the night was, without question, center Andrea Bargnani. The big man was 10-of-17 from the field, tallying a game-high 25 points while adding four rebounds, four assists, two blocks and a steal.

Tim Hardaway Jr. and Langston Galloway were the only other two Knicks in double figures, going for 13 and 11 respectively, but they lacked efficiency in their efforts. The two combined to shoot just 10-of-29 (34.5 percent).

As the season winds down, Coach Fish is still in search for some consistent performers in his lineup, and in doing so, he’s looking at the few veterans on his roster. Last game, Bargnani tallied just three points in a rough outing, but the 29-year-old Italian vet came back to tie his top scoring output of the season just one night later. That, Derek says, should serve as an example for the rest of the young roster going forward.

“Andrea is an experienced player and has a little bit more of a feel for how to do that,” Coach Fish said. “We have nine guys who are pretty young who don’t know how to do that just yet. So as the season wraps up, this is a great experience for those guys to learn what it takes to be good night in and night out.”

NEXT UP

The Next opportunity will come Saturday night, when the Knicks (12-48) play host to this very same Indiana (26-34) squad.

The Pacers will play host to the Chicago Bulls (38-23) Friday night, which will flip the script and put them on the road for night No. 2 of a back-to-back when they head to Madison Square Garden.

Saturday night’s tilt is set for a 7:30 p.m. ET tip.

RELATED LINKS

• Fisher on Knicks’ loss: We put ourselves behind early (MSG, March 4, 2015)
• Pacers take easy rout in getting past Knicks (AP, March 4, 2015)
• Knicks at Pacers: Game Book (NBA.com, March 4, 2015)
• Just another ugly loss for free-falling Knicks (NY Post, March 4, 2015)
• Turnovers doom Knicks in slow start (Knicks.com, March 4, 2015)
• I Stopped Watching (Posting and Toasting, March 4, 2015)