Said it before, going to say it again: Pacers in seven. At the Garden. Yeah, I'm serious.

The Pacers played Friday with passion and grit and intensity and blew out the Knicks in Game 6. They were close in Games 1 and 2 in New York. They will pull it off Sunday. Clip and save.

I went to Pacers practice Thursday. I figured I might write an off-day piece on the construction of the Indiana Pacers, how they’ve rebuilt so quickly, going from 25 victories to 35 to 47 and being within two wins of the Eastern Conference Finals. So I asked Rick Carlisle a softball question about the job that Kevin Pritchard, Chad Buchanan and the rest of the front-office staff have done in bringing the Pacers back to this point.

Carlisle started to answer, but I could tell almost immediately, he had no interest in talking about the process by which the Pacers resurrected themselves. He was in no mood, no mood for levity, no mood to talk about the big picture. What he wanted to talk about was the way the Pacers got annihilated and embarrassed in Game 5, and he wanted to send a message, via the media, to his reeling team.

Asked about the key to Game 6 at Gainbridge, he said brusquely, “Get some fucking rebounds.”

In fact, it was a double-F-bomb day for Carlisle, who just wasn’t in the mood to play. Let’s just say I didn’t read the room very well with my questions; wouldn’t be the first time. He wanted to make it clear, it was time for the Pacers, great at home and shaky on the road this postseason, to man up and bear down.

And then Friday, they did, and as a result, the Pacers and Knicks (and their designated cheerleader, Stephen A. Smith) will face off Sunday afternoon at 3:30 at Madison Square Garden. It’s the first time these two rivals have met in a Game 7 since the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals, when Patrick Ewing’s last-second finger roll somehow rimmed out, inspiring Mark Boyle’s wonderful call, “Ring the bell! Ding-dong, the witch is dead!”

Friday, they beat the Knicks handily, 116-103. They out-rebounded the Knicks, 47-35. They outscored the Knicks in the paint, 62-38, which is an incredible margin. They kept Isaiah Hartenstein off the boards – well, he didn’t grab double-digit offensive rebounds – Myles Turner and Co. limiting him to seven total boards.  After committing 18 turnovers in Game 5, they turned it over just eight times. Jalen Brunson was awful, at least by Brunson standards, missing 11 straight shots in the first half before finding some of his game in the second half. And six Pacers scored in double figures, the perfect recipe for beating the short-handed, depth-challenged Knicks.