INDIANAPOLIS — It happened again. Another slow start to the second half. Another hole the New York Knicks had to dig themselves out of, this time with the game, the series, a chance at the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance since 1999 on the line.

The Knicks, as they often do, played an imperfect first half to their win-or-go-home Game 6 at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Saturday. They out-rebounded the Indiana Pacers by 10 and got a monster opening half from OG Anunoby, but they also turned the ball over nearly twice as many times as the team that runs faster than anyone else in the league, and failed to mark Pascal Siakam in transition, allowing the player who has cherry-picked all series long to run unchecked off makes and misses in the biggest game of the series.

And yet somehow, despite a middling opening two quarters, the Knicks found themselves down just four at the half. A small enough deficit to convince a team that has yet to play a perfect game all season that a perfect second half of basketball could right their wrongs to force a Game 7 back at Madison Square Garden.

It was wishful thinking. Because bad habits have a tendency to rear their ugly heads at the most inopportune moments. And a Knicks team that has built a reputation as being one of the most resilient bunches in all of basketball — a Knicks team that erased not one, not two, but three 20-point deficits this post-season alone, didn’t have the magic in their final game of the season.

Instead they fell asleep at the beginning of the second half. That four-point deficit? It became 10 points in less than two minutes. It became 15 points soon after, and after a 55-second Knicks run cut the Pacers' lead down just eight, Indiana once again did what it did best: push the ball in transition, turn the Knicks over, find open 3-point shooters and live with the results.

The Pacers hit seven 3s in the third quarter alone. They turned 18 Knicks turnovers into 34 points. They stayed true to their identity against a team that had an identity crisis mid-series, making a starting lineup chance and expanding the rotation after falling into an 0-2 hole.

And now, the same Pacers the world thought might struggle against the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, might not have a shot against the No. 1-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round, and couldn’t possibly overcome a stacked Knicks starting five in the conference finals? Those Pacers are headed to the NBA Finals.

And the Knicks are headed to Cancun. It’s a later-than-expected trip for a team that made its first Conference Finals appearance in 25 years, a team that dethroned the reigning champion Boston Celtics in the second round long before Jayson Tatum’s season ended on a ruptured Achilles tendon in Game 4. A team that out-muscled the Detroit Pistons in the first round.

There is a lot to be proud of with these Knicks. In many respects, they were never supposed to be here in the first place.

And yet — there’s always a “yet” — these Knicks were constructed to one-up themselves. And while they did so in theory, by making the conference finals after back-to-back second-round exits, the facts remain: They traded five draft picks for Mikal Bridges, dealt Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo for Karl-Anthony Towns, and re-signed Anunoby to a franchise-record $212.5 million deal, only to lose to the very same Indiana Pacers team who eliminated a far more injury-stricken Knicks roster in seven games last season.

And they never put it together over the course of an 82-game season. The same issues that plagued them throughout the year were their undoing in the Pacers’ closeout game. The Knicks couldn’t play perfect basketball until their backs were against the wall.

This time, their backs were against the all, and the Pacers gave them nowhere to go.

So what now for these New York Knicks? They are title contenders. There’s no doubt about that. But with Towns on the hook for north of $50 million annually, Jalen Brunson and Anunoby each set to earn more than $30 million a year, and Bridges on the hook for a contract extension, adding depth around the current core with their salary cap reality will require Olympic-level salary cap gymnastics.

Maybe they don’t need much more. Maybe they just need more time. Because more time is what got the Celtics and Pacers to the NBA Finals.

“You can’t really get experience without getting experience. It’s helped out a lot. It brought us together,” Brunson said. “I think for the most part, we see a lot, we hear a lot, but we make sure we’re on the same page together. So regardless of what anyone else says, we’ve got each other’s back.”

Time, of course, can be subjective, especially in New York, where a minute moves a mile an hour. Where yesterday’s price is not today’s price. Where anything can change in the blink of an eye no matter how close you are to making history.

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