Jalen Brunson still carries Knicks’ Game 7 loss to Pacers with him: ‘Bothers me’

Yes, the Knicks were injured. Sure, they were incredibly shorthanded.

But, to Jalen Brunson, that didn’t lessen the disappointment of their Eastern Conference semifinal loss last year to the Pacers.

“I mean, it still kind of bothers me,” Brunson said on Monday. “Obviously it was a missed opportunity last year playing them at home in Game 7, regardless of who we had out there.”

In that fateful Game 7, Brunson broke his left hand.

Josh Hart was limited with an abdominal strain.

Mitchell Robinson was in street clothes, lost for the postseason after the opening game of the series.

OG Anunoboy could only muster five minutes due to a strained hamstring he suffered in Game 2.

Starting Wednesday, the Knicks can exact revenge and return to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999. Of course, they are very different.

Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges weren’t Knicks last spring, Isaiah Hartenstein, Julius Randle (who missed that Pacers series as well due to injury) and Donte DiVincenzo are getting ready to meet in the Western Conference finals and Brunson, Hart, Robinson and Anunoby are all healthy.

“It’s just a totally different team, totally different situation, totally different round of the playoffs,” Hart said. “We just gotta make sure we’re ready.”

While the Pacers roster is similar, they feature some differences.

Bennedict Mathurin, who torched the Knicks in three regular-season matchups this season to the tune of 25.3 points and 52.6 percent shooting from 3-point range on 6.3 attempts, is healthy. He didn’t appear in last year’s series.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST NBA STANDINGS AND KNICKS STATS

The Pacers are an improved defensive team compared to a year ago, going from 24th in defensive rating to 14th this season. They own a plus-5.5 NET rating in the postseason, the fifth-best mark of the 16 teams that reached the main draw of the playoffs, and dispatched the favored and top-seeded Cavaliers in five games in the second round.

The Knicks are also coming off of a stunning upset themselves, a six-game series victory over the reigning champions in which they rallied from large second-half deficits in their first three wins.

They were a long shot to get past the Celtics.

Sometimes, a shocker like that can have an adverse effect on the winning team. It can be difficult to refocus. Hart doesn’t believe that will be the case for the Knicks.

Follow The Post’s coverage of the Knicks in the 2025 NBA Playoffs

• Vaccaro: The basketball trinity that turned Knicks from joke into title contender
• Mikal Bridges finally becoming difference-maker the Knicks need
• The key storylines in Knicks-Pacers Eastern Conference Finals — from revenge to a new villain
• Knicks party with Timothee Chalamet, Russell Wilson at club after Game 6 win

Sports+ subscribers: Sign up for Inside the Knicks to get daily newsletter coverage and join Expert Take for insider texts about the series.

“We’ve been saying all year: Not everything was about beating the Boston Celtics,” he said. “They were this, they were that. It was always being who we are. Being the best we can be. Because when you’re so focused on beating Boston or beating a certain opponent, when you do beat them, then you feel like you’re on top of the mountain and then you have to try to figure out what to do next. For us, it never was that.”

Knicks fans celebrated the unexpected series victory like the team won a championship, partying along Seventh Avenue well after the final buzzer.

The Knicks players, though, had a mild reaction when the Game 6 rout was complete.

Afterward, all the talk was about bottling their best performance of the postseason and replicating it. Reaching the Eastern Conference finals wasn’t the goal, coach Tom Thibodeau said that night. Their mindset entering the postseason was 16 wins, not eight.

“For us, we know there’s a long way to go and so we don’t really look at it as an accomplishment,” Brunson said. “It’s just the next step. We’re grateful, we’re thankful and we know there’s a long way to go.”

While the makeup of this year’s team is different, several players remember how tough a matchup the Pacers can be.

The Knicks held a 2-0 lead in the series, only to drop four of the next five games. It stuck with Brunson. When asked what about that series still bothers him, he simply responded: “That we lost.”

Starting Wednesday, the Knicks can right last May’s wrong.