Roy Hibbert finished with 24 points and 12 rebounds and George Hill hit five three-pointers as the Indiana Pacers beat the New York Knicks 82-71 in game three of their second round NBA playoff series on Saturday.

Paul George finished with 14 points, eight assists and five steals, while David West had 11 points and 12 boards for Indiana, which rebounded from a 105-79 loss in game two.

Hill also had 17 points for the Pacers, which went 10-of-33 from beyond the arc in front of a crowd of 18,165 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse arena.

The Indiana Pacers now head into game four late Tuesday with a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Carmelo Anthony finished with 21 points for the Knicks, which got Amare Stoudemire back in the lineup after he missed two months because of right knee surgery. Stoudemire scored seven points in 9 minutes of playing time.

The Knicks J.R. Smith, who is suffering from an illness and almost didn't play Saturday, had nine points.

Indiana's biggest problem in game two was turnovers when they committed 21. But they cut that to 17 on Saturday.

Indiana coach Frank Vogel said he was pleased with the job Hibbert did, not only on offense but also on defense in helping to shut down Anthony.

"This is his best playoff game ever," Vogel said of Hibbert. "He is oozing with confidence.

"Everybody wanted to kick him when he was down early this season when he wasn't playing with confidence. Now he is playing extremely well on both ends of the court."

Hibbert said the key to stopping Anthony is to physically lean on him and take away his time and space.

"We wanted to make sure we crowded him as much as possible and made things tough for him," Hibbert said.

The Pacers started quickly going on a 9-2 run. But the Knicks answered with an 11-2 spurt of their own.

Tyson Chandler's layup with 4:20 left in the first quarter gave the Knicks a 13-11 lead, which proved to be their only lead of the contest.

New York kept the score close by engineering an 11-4 run to end the first half. Kenyon Martin's layup with 3 seconds left cut the Pacers' lead to 36-33. Stoudemire made a three-pointer at the buzzer at the end of the third quarter to get New York within nine (62-53) heading to the fourth.

Then with 9:10 to play in regulation, Raymond Felton's three-point play and Anthony's free throw got New York eight (65-57).

But Indiana answered with a 7-0 run to put the game away.

AFP - Global Times