What did I tell you? Pacers produce a perfect game, rip Knicks and move on to the Eastern Conference Finals

They made an NBA playoff-record 67.1% of their shots. They defended. They rebounded. From beginning to end. The Knicks never had a chance.

I don’t want to hear it, although I’m told ESPN has arranged a Game 8 so the Knicks can get another crack at the Pacers team that beat them four of five times in this Eastern Conference Semifinal and produced the greatest playoff shooting exhibition in history in a 130-109 Game 7 victory at Madison Square Garden. I don’t want to hear about the noble Knicks and how they almost overcame all the injuries. I don’t want to hear about Jalen Brunson, who fractured his hand in the second half of Sunday’s exclamatory Pacers’ clincher; the Knicks trailed by 20 – 20! – when he left the floor with his injury. I don’t want to hear how the Pacers knocked off the Bucks without Giannis Antetokounmpo and a diminished Damian Lillard, and I damned sure don’t want to hear anything from Stephen A. Smith, who schmoozed with Spike Lee and gave his beloved Knicks a pre-game TV pep talk on ESPN, which obviously went over quite well.

Not only did the Pacers, the youngest team remaining in this post-season, set the record for playoff shooting accuracy (67.1 percent) Sunday, they turned history on its head. Consider this (and thanks to Fever/Pacer announcer Pat Boylan for this nugget): When the team with homecourt advantage wins the first two games of a best-of-7 series, they are 211-18 in winning the series since 1984.

Make that 211-19.

The Pacers were supposed to be too soft, too offense-heavy, incapable of playing with the kind of force necessary to win in the playoffs, when things slow down and get physical. Slow down? Not exactly. The Pacers are changing the game, playing at breakneck speed, routinely scoring 120-plus points with 30-plus assists – in the playoffs. But it’s not all about offense. The Pacers did not allow a 30-point quarter in Game 7. They outrebounded the Knicks for the second game in a row. They won with grit as much as dead-eyed shot-making.

“I told our team, when you win a Game 7 in Madison Square Garden, you’ve made history,” Rick Carlisle said.

He later added with a smile, “We’re the uninvited guest.”

Sorry, America, but the small-market Pacers are in the NBA’s final four.